Settling In

After an exhausting day and night and day of travel from Atlanta to DC to Zurich to Nairobi, we arrived safe and sound last night along with our 9 pieces of luggage, two car seats, stroller and pack & play.  I could hardly believe everything made it.  Although, on each of our flights we sat for a long time at the gate.  Eventually they came over the intercom to say, "We're sorry for the delay but we have a lot of baggage to load."  Well between the three families and two single girls moving to Africa, I think we donated our fair share of luggage to the loading crew.  Everyone's luggage arrived with us on our last flight, an answer to prayer for sure!

We were greeted by quite a few pilots from AIM Air who assisted us in gathering and loading our luggage onto two vans.  We fought traffic to Mayfield Guest House where we are all spending a few days trying to get over jet-lag before we head about an hour south for orientation.  Once we arrived here last night and got checked in, I was so out of it I had a hard time just getting things together to get in the bed.  We had missed quite a few meals because of the time change and naps on the plane so I had to feed Kyle some crackers in order to give him his malaria medicine.  We got that taken care of and then filed through the bath to rid ourselves of plane stench.

Mr. World Traveler

Speaking of plane, Kyle did better on the flights than I had hoped.  The first flight to DC, he napped the entire way.  The second flight (over night) to Zurich, he was awake for the entire 8 hours excluding about a half hour cat nap.  He fussed some on that flight, but fought sleep the entire time.  Our lay-over in Zurich was almost non-existent and we lined right back up to board the last flight.  Once we got airborne, I suggested he go to sleep to which he replied, "Poe" (pillow), "Que" (Curious George), and "Bla" (Blanket).  I handed him all the players and he knocked out in about 20 seconds.  We all slept pretty continuously for about half of that 7 hour flight.  He fussed some when he awoke, and let us know he was ready to get down.  But, in all, he didn't make any huge scene and he didn't keep the entire plane awake.  That was my fear.

So, once we got settled in, we slept most of the night until about 4AM.  Kyle woke up chattering constantly and wanting to read books.  Somehow (through patience on his part and prayers on mine) Jonathan managed to get Kyle to settle down again about an hour later and we slept hard until 9AM.  In fact, I slept through the breakfast alarm.  Jonathan assures me it was very loud.  I had one ear plug in to keep the sound out the ear not attached to my pillow.  A rooster started crowing about the time Kyle woke up at 4 and Jono suggested maybe he had jet-lag, too.  After that there was a family of birds chirping loudly outside the open window, and cars going by, people talking, etc.  The ear plug solved all those problems.  But, it caused me to skip breakfast.

We got some juice from the kitchen and ate a granola bar.  I felt pretty dizzy and weak up until our nap time right after lunch.  Kyle and Jonathan seemed fine, although Kyle was obviously very sleepy.  So, we napped and then woke up and went to the store to get a few essentials.

"Cheese!"

Some Nutella, peanut butter and jelly, crackers, and juice were those essentials, along with shampoo, conditioner, and soap.  I purchased the cheap-o shampoo and opted against the egg scented one.  GROSS.  Who wants their hair to smell like eggs?  If I had the camera with me, I would've documented that bottle so you would believe me.  Apple was a familiar option so I chose that.

Dinner was delicious: a bacon quiche, cole slaw and fresh fruit.  I ate like a horse.  Although I was awake for lunch, I felt so poorly I didn't eat a whole lot.  I wished I could've eaten more dinner but I ran out of time.  The kitchen crew finally booted us because they were ready to clean up... and I was still eating.  Fortunately, I was running out of space anyways.  All of our meals are provided here at Mayfield along with the room for about $40/night.

The weather is wonderful, just cool enough to be very comfortable and a nice, dry breeze.  I can't really believe how good it feels.  Maybe tomorrow I will be less jet-lagged and we can spend more time outside at the park with Kyle.  For now, he is playing in the closet while I sit here at the desk or on the bed.

If I knew how to work my camera and if I didn't have a bouncy one year old, the photo wouldn't be blurry and you would be able to read that his shirt says, "jungle explorer."  :)

We are here at Mayfield until Tuesday, then we head south to Machakos for orientation.  I'll update when I can!

~Abby