Africa arrival:-D

Hello friends!! I woke Monday morning IN Africa!! I was overwhelmed with joy because I have been asking God to send me to a West Africa since September--and here I am! He has granted me the desire of my heart (ps 37:4).
I arrived late Sunday night and almost everything they have told me about my arrival was different! But it has all worked out. I was picked up by a different gentleman, I didn't have to take the ferry, (yay $40 saved!) and he took me to Lunsar  straightaway! The accommodations are nicer then I expected :-D (on my first mission trip, my youth pastor Roger Eng advised me to have low expectations. That way, you aren't disappointed and everything above your expectations is a gift you are thankful for! Thanks, Roger!) I have a room to myself (which has A/C when the electricity works which is spotty at best), running water, and I can actually flush the toilet paper! (If you have been to a third world country, that's huge!! Especially since the last time I was abroad it took a week to break that habit--sorry about that, friends and family!;-)
It also has a water heater that is not a "widow maker" like in Honduras or Costa Rica. A widow maker heater is a heater that is suspended directly above your head and is where the water comes out-I was told if you touch it you will be zapped. Makes taking a shower far more intense!

 I have met several of the American and Sierra Leonean staff--their names have been difficult for me to pronounce because they say them so quickly and most of their names are several syllables long!
More on arrival: once I deplaned in Freetown, I had to wash my hands in .05% chlorine before entering customs. After passport control I entered a line for a health screening and a temperature check,complete  with the thermometer gun (I have been here two days and my temperature has been taken upwards of a dozen times! I am so grateful I have spent the last year and a half in open heart recovery--we do our temps in Celcius there. After clearing customs I found my checked bag (praise God for allowing it to make to SL when I did! I traveled from Brussels to Dakar, Senegal, then Conakry, Guinea, then the final stop in Freetown. Thankfully we did not deplane at either stop in between. I am told that if you come to a West Africa via Casablanca, with the weight restrictions on the planes, it can take ten days for your bags to arrive! Yikes! I always pack a few changes of clothes in my carry-on, but not usually enough to go ten days! (Although it would be pretty neat to say I have been to Casablanca!)
As my driver was leaving Sunday I asked what I was supposed to do Monday, as he was the only IMC worker I had met in the country. (I met 14 workers from the UK, Belgium, and Bulgaria but those individuals are doing a 6 week stint in Makene, our other location. My driver told me to, "Just relax." I expected to hit the ground running, but I will gladly spend some time resting Monday!! I didn't sleep much on the planes-I can rarely sleep on planes:(
If you have traveled anywhere with me, you know that one of the first things I do is unpack, even if it is a short trip. At midnight Sunday I began trying to rig up my mosquito net. As the Boy Scout motto is, "Be prepared, I had brought a rope, several bungee cords, and several carabiners. To my utter amazement, there is close to nothing to hook rope or string to! Rigging up the net took about an hour because, by this time, I had traveled 26 hours and been awake close to 30 hours! Not exactly fully functional! I kept wanting to quit but every time I would think that, a mosquito would land on the net. Excellent motivator!

Will post again hopefully soon!!!