Malawi July 2019

The start of this trip all began with showing up at Woodmen at 5 p.m., thirty minutes before anyone else arrived. One word to summarize all the time spent getting to this beautiful country is waiting. Waiting for our flights, waiting to land, and waiting to get through customs and security. I love flying but there is only so many hours I can be sitting in a window seat with a giant backpack. But in a matter of one long trip I went from barely knowing the people on my team to now being great friends. It also helps to be sitting next to the same two guys for 18 hours worth of flying. I think I can speak for everyone when the best part of the trip was getting our luggage packed into the CURE vehicles and meeting Innocent our driver and “professional” photographer. Then arriving at the guest houses and getting hot and fresh rice and drinks delivered to us and getting introduced to the head chef. Then after they left, we were dishing up and ran out of forks, so most of the guys including myself ate with knives. After that, we said goodnight and crawled into bed and slept on a horizontal surface for the first time in what felt like days. Once our heads hit the pillows, we knew our journey was going to be worth it.

- Thomas Michael