Honestly, I don't know how these Little Travellers do it! The gruelling trip from Canada to South Africa took an agonizing 53 hours of airplanes and airports, but it was finally worth it when we stepped off the plane to breathe in the air of our beloved country, South Africa.
Kristine and I flew into Johannesburg with the intention of continuing on to Durban, but several major obstacles stood in our way. The first one was to somehow manage to get all of our oversized luggage on-board, in spite of having twice the baggage allowance. Before we left in a mad dash, several generous friends brought over some clothes and toys that they wanted to donate to the Hillcrest AIDS Centre. The old hockey bags in my house were hardly getting much use otherwise, so we packed them until they could barely be lifted and off we went. Sure enough, however, with a bit of heavy lifting (that was me) and a little eyelash batting (thanks Kristine!), we were allowed onto our "1time" flight from Jo'burg to Durban without incurring additional costs, in spite of being 41 kg's overweight! I love South Africans!
Kristine and I flew into Johannesburg with the intention of continuing on to Durban, but several major obstacles stood in our way. The first one was to somehow manage to get all of our oversized luggage on-board, in spite of having twice the baggage allowance. Before we left in a mad dash, several generous friends brought over some clothes and toys that they wanted to donate to the Hillcrest AIDS Centre. The old hockey bags in my house were hardly getting much use otherwise, so we packed them until they could barely be lifted and off we went. Sure enough, however, with a bit of heavy lifting (that was me) and a little eyelash batting (thanks Kristine!), we were allowed onto our "1time" flight from Jo'burg to Durban without incurring additional costs, in spite of being 41 kg's overweight! I love South Africans!
But no one ever said that the trains (or planes) run on time in Africa, and our second obstacle was patience as we ended up being bumped from our flight because of "operational' reasons; we had to contain our excitement and bridle our impetuosity for another seven hours in the Johannesburg airport. Finally, around 7 pm, we touched down in Durban, a mere 32 kilometers from our beloved AIDS Centre.
Since we hadn't told anyone about our arrival, we rented a car and set off to surprise our dear friends, Paula (the director and heart & soul of the Woza Moya craft project at the AIDS Centre) and her husband Bruce, and her mother Jilly. We were banking that there would a spare room for us, and thankfully, we were right! We did cause quite a bit of commotion, greedily gobbling up the looks of udder bewilderment and bemusement that we had eagerly anticipated. In spite of our profound fatigue and circadian confusion that naturally followed our erratic sleep-wake cycles on our travels, we could barely contain our excitement for what lay ahead the following day: a return to the Hillcrest AIDS Centre.
The next morning, we walked into the office of the Centre to squeals and laughter: at last, sibuyile ekhaya (Zulu: we have returned home)!
1 comment:
I will admit that I am very jealous of your impromptu decision to return to South Africa!
Thank you for blogging and posting pics.
Africa is many people, languages and countries but the people are the same in their strength in the face of AIDS, poverty, etc, etc... I am so happy to see what the Little Travellers and Hillcrest has done to help and strengthen them even more.
Post a Comment