T-12 Days (and counting)

This blog is meant to be a record of my travels over the next 7 months. Right now, though, it's simply serving as a procrastination tool. Yes, I do have a paper due tomorrow. No, it's not as much fun as writing on here.
Since this is supposed to be a travel journal of sorts, I'm going to share a brief summary of my plans from now until December. (p.s. it's really weird to write this and not know who's going to read it). Today is May 5th (Happy Cinco de Mayo!). In 12 days I will get on a Continental Airlines flight (blech) from Charlotte to Amsterdam to Nairobi to Lilongwe. Hopefully on May 19th I will arrive in Ekwendeni, Malawi. For seven weeks I will be assisting people who work with LISAP (the Livingstonia Synod Aids Program) and hopefully learning a lot about Public Health and research etc. I also want to to watch Malawi play Djibouti on May 31st in a world cup qualifying match, go scuba diving at the lake, visit old friends and see my old house, and possibly get my Southern Africa driver's license. On July 4th I'll fly from Lilongwe (the capital of Malawi and city where I lived for 8 years) to Nairobi (the capital of Kenya and city where I have never lived). I'm hoping to meet up with my brother Moses (who's flying in from Germany) and we'll somehow find a ride out to RVA (my high school, which is an hour away in Kijabe). (Is it just me or does this post have a lot of parenthesis? I guess I haven't figured out just how much to assume you already know about me). July 5th is my sister Katie's 18th birthday and the middle of alumni weekend. I'm so excited about seeing old friends (especially Jojo) and being back at RVA for a bit. Hopefully during the following week I'll be down at the coast with classmates of mine and then back to Kijabe for graduation on July 12th, Hanna and Sam's wedding on the 13th, and maybe some camping in the valley after that...From Kenya I'll fly down to Jo'burg and eventually make my way to Maseru, Lesotho (where my parents live now). For a month there I plan on doing absolutely nothing/playing with my little brothers and sister/brushing up on my french/exploring the country/shopping and getting ready for my semester abroad in SWITZERLAND. I'll fly to Europe (Amsterdam to be precise) on August 25th and make my way from there to Geneva for a semester long program with SIT entitled "Development Studies and Public Health." It ends on December 9th and I'll arrive back in Charlotte the next day, probably (hopefully) a different person than when I left.
I have no idea what challenges, frustrations, friends, fun times or surprises I will encounter while I'm gone, but I will try my best to share them with you as they come. I do know that I have to get back to my paper now so that I can get some sleep tonight.
Peace and Love.