Good news - Tyler arrived safely in South Africa Monday night! It’s really great to have him here and I have to give a big shout out to some of the people who sent donations with him for the hospice. Before I left for my trip back in August, I was a frazzled mess. I was trying to get ready for the trip and at the last minute had to make a trip back home for a funeral, and when I was trying to get back to Ottawa 4 days before I was supposed to leave for South Africa, my flight was cancelled due to the impending hurricane on the East coast. All that to say, between finishing up my internship in August, preparing to be away from my job for 2 months and going to Minnesota at the last minute, I didn’t have a lot of time to pack and it didn’t cross my mind to bring anything with me other than my personal belongings.

Fortunately Tyler and I are surrounded by generous people and between all of our coworkers, he was loaded up with an extra suitcase full of medicine, toiletries, clothes, formula, coloring books, AND money to buy even more supplies for the hospice when he got here. I was blown away by the fact that he didn’t even ask people for donations – we are lucky to work with people who genuinely care about others and asked if they could help in some way. So THANK YOU to everyone who gave Tyler donations, it means so much to me and even more to those here who you are helping.

Tyler has been working with me here this week and has been very useful to some projects going on at the hospice. He hasn’t traveled a whole lot, so it’s exciting to see how he takes in the culture here and I think he is enjoying being able to see what I’ve been talking about since the beginning of September. We also have the pleasure of celebrating our anniversary today, and I plan to take him out to eat at the nicest restaurant in town: KFC. I’m not joking, it is pretty nice inside and the only American chain that has made it to Richmond. This weekend we will wrap things up here and head off to Cape Town for a few days. Can’t wait!