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Hi Everyone!

I made it home yesterday by lunchtime. I was able to spend the afternoon unpacking and taking it easy.

The key to traveling long distance is, for me, a head game. On my way to Africa I can't sleep eight hours on a plane, so I watch the flight-map. I normally take a short nap while we are waiting for dinner to be served, then another afternoon nap after dinner (because carb-comas, am I right?) I normally wake up after a few hours, but try to fall asleep when we're off the coast of Liberia and again when we're close to Angola. We did take cat-naps on our last flight from Johannesburg to Nelspruit, which is only about 30 minutes. Once you're on the ground, no matter how you feel, no napping! Friends don't let friends take naps!

Flying home is similar. I normally take two naps on the first half of the flight (Johannesburg to Dakar) but there is an extra three hours on the return flight, so I can stay up longer. (I watched four movies on the way home between my naps!) When we take off from Dakar, that's when sleep becomes important. I try to take two more good naps. I didn't have the best seat-mate on the return flight. (This is why headphones and eye masks are important!) After a leisurely drive home (my GPS normally takes me through the Northside to 28 and 422, but yesterday it took me through Monroeville and Saltsburg) I took time to unpack, sorting laundry and souvenirs as I went. I thought I might have less to fly home with, since I had an entire carry-on of American food items for the Rebros. As it turns out, they had a friend visit a few months ago and he forgot some souvenirs he bought, so I brought those home to mail to him.

I would say I don't do a lot when I come home, but anyone who knows me knows I'd be lying. I had ordered a shelving unit prior to my trip, so of course it was in a box waiting for me. I put that together and organized things accordingly. After that I did relax! For me, on the East Coast, 8pm is the magic number. It's not too dramatically early for bed on our end, and that puts you at 2am South African time. Being that you're no longer on a plan or any other form of transportation, you can really sleep! And trust me, after 24 hours of being in transit, you can really sleep! I slept about 9.5 hours, which means I'm back on American time and well rested to go back to my day job today!

Now that I'm past the first recovery day, I'll try to write again soon about the rest of my time in South Africa and what that means as we move forward in our work.