I Made It!

Hey everyone, I made it to Cameroon safely! It was a long journey but overall it was a blast :-) This post might also be a little long so feel free to skip down to the pictures...
My family took me to the airport at about 10:15 on Tuesday so I would be sure not to miss my flight :-) when we got to the airport George helped me get my bags checked and everything figured out. Thankfully we got to a person that was very nice and didn't charge us for the bags being overweight! She also put me on an earlier flight to Philadelphia because my original flight was delayed which was good because the flight she put me on was also delayed!
I got to Philadelphia around one so I spent the afternoon walking around, talking on the phone, and people watching. My flight for Brussels was supposed to leave at 6:15 or something but we actually didn't take off until after 7. The flight wasn't full so almost every row had an empty seat which made the flight nice! I sat in the same row as a lady from China who didn't speak English but we did try to have a few conversations. There was actually a whole family travelling together so every few hours they would switch seats it was pretty funny! It was like musical chairs on the plane; every time I woke up there was a new person sitting across from me.
Once we landed in Brussels I found my gate then tried to find a place to call my mom. It was so strange to not be able to pick up my phone and dial her number. Anyway, I found a pay phone and called (not sure how much it cost?!) So I found my gate and then waited to meet up with Penny and Nichole; they arrived about half an hour after I did. It was so nice to see people I could just sit and chat with! While waiting for our flight we enjoyed more people watching :-)
Our flight was supposed to leave for Douala at 10:50 but we didn't actually leave until almost 12! They also took all our carry on bags because they said it was going to be a full flight. Once we got on the plane and were on it for about 45 minutes I was wondering why they took our bags because there were still many empty seats. Well, by the time we actually left there was not one empty seat! I slept a lot on that flight and also had fun playing with some little children :-) They speak French and I speak English but it was still fun and made the time pass by.
We arrived in Douala at 5:30 and as soon as we got off the plane there was a guy already asking us if we needed help :-) Thanks to George I just said "no". After we finally got through customs we went to the baggage area- it was CrAzY!!!!!!!!!!!! At first I kept saying "excuse me" to people but when I realized they weren't listening and weren't moving I started pushing my way through like everyone else :-) We managed to get all the luggage off except for Nichole's carry on (which has ALL her clothes in it!) As far as I know it is still missing but hopefully she will get it soon!
So of course, we had more boys coming around asking if we needed help to which we all replied "no" well then the guy came to check our bags and make sure we only had our own bags and then he asked if I wanted to give him money to pay customs for the "big chief". For some reason that sounded fishy so I was like um no thanks and he said "what? Why don't you want to pay?" Matt Yeiter had come to pick us up but he couldn't get into the baggage area, he was upstairs watching us though so I yelled up and asked him if we were supposed to pay customs. He said no and that if I tell them I'm here to see missionaries they shouldn't open my bags. So after that the guy disappeared but not before he had another guy there to push our bags. When I got back from talking to Matt I realized there were now 5 guys standing around. I told the first guy that I didn't need that many people and that we would take the bags ourselves. He said "What you have power?" and I said, "Yes, and I don't need you to push them". Well he insisted that he worked at the airport and was going to push the bags so him and his gang of followers pushed our bags to customs. We got through customs fine after I showed them the letter Sam wrote that had the government stamp on it :-) As soon as we got outside Matt was there which was nice!!! We got all our bags loaded into a taxi and Genesis took them to the Yeiter's house by bus while we drove with Matt. Haha, so by the time we got to the taxi to unload the bags about 10 guys had arrived to help with the bags!!! Matt asked us which one started helping us first because he was going to tip him and if they guy wanted to divide it up for his friends he could. Seriously, they didn't need 10 guys to load 8 bags and in all fairness I told them I didn't need anyone but they insisted.
So once we left the airport we went to dinner at a Mediterranean restaurant and ate pizza :-) It tasted really good after not eating anything all day! We had danishes for breakfast on the plane and then we missed the lunch on our second plane because we didn't leave until too late. They did serve a dinner thing but my stomach couldn't handle it... don't ask what was in it!? I ate the bread and a bite of the salad. They did give us ice cream which was wonderful! Anyway, we were all pretty hungry so we enjoyed the pizza. After that we went to the Baptist hotel place which was really nice! Penny, Nichole, and I all shared a nice guest house and slept very well!
After breakfast we headed out Bamenda where the Yeiters live. It took us about 5 1/2 hours to drive but we did get to stop at McDonalds for lunch! (NOT!) Sam and Abby picked me up from the Yeiter's house; it was sooooo good to finally see them all again!!!!!!!! I am so glad to be here and already have lots of stories to tell :-) Tonight we are staying at the Needem's house in the mountains where it is cold! I'm wearing a hoody and I am still cold. So this is extremely long and I'm sure only about 3 people will actually read it but hey you can't accuse me of not updating! It is really late and I should go to bed so goodnight! Sending love from Africa :-) (I've always wanted to say that :-) ha, j/k but it is fun!
Here are a few pictures... not sure why they are distorted but  hopefully I'll figure that out sometime.

The place we stayed last night- they had a pool!

 Mariah, Me, Autumn, and Nichole

 The girls kept us entertained on the ride home which made the time pass quickly :) They are so cute and funny!

 The city

 He is so big!

 A family came over and brought us dinner... the kids had fun playing under the tent I made them

 I taught one of the boys how to use my camera so he had fun snapping pictures of people. He finally got the hang of not cutting out people's heads after the 5th picture or so :-)

Good night! Not sure when I'll get to update again... we are headed to Sam and Abby's house sometime tomorrow!

P.S. Sorry for any grammatical or spelling errors you may find... its a little late here.