First Couple Days

Hi everyone!! Its the end of my first full day in Kenya and I'm sitting in a little cafe (it has free wifi) with everyone in the program.
First of all: getting here. 20 hours on a plane is way too long, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. We had an hour and a half flight, two 8 hour flights, and then a 2 and a half hour final flight. Airplane food was mostly pretty good, except for the sandwiches. Those were bad. I slept for a lot of the second 8 hour flight, so that was a blessing. We went from Sioux Falls to Chicago to Frankfurt to Addis Ababa and finally to Mombasa.
It felt so good to actually get to our destination, although the time change is awful. Sleeping on the plane helped, so hopefully we'll be on the right scedule soon. However, we didn't get to bed until about 5 in the morning here since it was so late when our flight got in, so I slept until 1:30 this afternoon. I slept really good actually. It was weird to sleep with mosquito netting around my bed, but clearly it didn't bother me too much. Then we had our orientation right away so we spent the afternoon walking around Mombasa and getting used to the places where we will be spending the most time. This included the giant 24 hour shopping center/market. It was really amazing to me that almost all the signs around here are in English and almost everyone speaks English. It is a lot easier to get around than I thought it would be. Then we walked down to the beach. It is amazing! The sand is super fine and wonderful (even though it gets everywhere) and the water looks really nice (but not as nice as they make it seem in the pictures). We are spending more time on the beach tomorrow so I'll let you know more about it then. It is so beautiful everywhere down here. The plants that are growing everywhere are big and tropical and wonderful. We seem to be in a very secure and prosperous area and there are a lot of big beautiful homes around. While everyone is still very careful, it seems to be fairly safe and no one who has been here feels at all threatened. There are about 22 of us total at the compund. We met some people who have been here for a couple weeks so that's nice since they can tell us what is going on. One girl, Mia, is staying in a room with me, Chelsea, and Alexa (2 other girls who came with us). She is very nice and helpful and has been telling us stories from the hospital. We actually get to do sutures here and do all sorts of other work that normally nurses or doctors do in America. I have a feeling Monday, our first day at the hospital, will be a very shocking day.
Its been a really stressful day because neigher of my money cards work here, so I don't have any money right now. They locked up my credit card because they said that I entered the wrong PIN number, so I won't have that for another week until they mail a new one to my parents. And my travel card? Apparently it works everywhere except Kenya, which they failed to tell me. So I have no money. Its really frustrating so I've broken down a couple times. I'm going to try and talk to the program cordinator tomorrow and see if they will loan me some money for the week until I can get my card to work.
Other than that, its been a really good day.  Then we came back and ate supper, which was pretty good. It was rice and beef and potatoes all mixed together with some sort of flavoring. Very American and I loved it. There was also some tomato and peppers mixture, which I didn't like so much. They seem to have fried bread all the time here, and that is really good, almost like a donut. Then I spent the next hour or so trying to get my phone to work and then trying to get ahold of my parents. When I finally got a hold of my mine, I was severly upset. However, they got things sorted out as much as they could and everything should be okay now.
Then we left to go to the cafe. Its a very modern cafe that we are in. I'm drinking the most delicious strawberry milkshake right now. I'm very tired though, and I'll be glad to get back to the compound and go to sleep.
That's all for now! I'll try and keep this as updated as possible for everyone. :)
Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers!