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Published: January 30th 2009
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The adventure began when my parents and I left my house shortly after 6am January 26. It was off to kind of a slow start. After getting checked in, I gave my mom my coat, told my parents goodbye, and made my way through security. Everything was going exactly as planned. I got into the gate with time to spare, and in the gate I met two other girls from my program. As we waited for our flight we talked about where we all go to school, our majors, and why we chose to study in Cape Town. As we were waiting someone announced that on the plane arriving at our gate was the members of the medical bregade from Iowa City were returning from abroad, and everyone applauded them as they got off the plane. It was really cool to see the appreciation that people showed for them as they were coming back. With that, the adventure went into high gear generally quickly.
The plane to JFK in New York was a smaller plane, so we had to walk out onto the tarmac to board. Once I got onto the plane the girl sitting next to me ended up also
being a student in IES headed to Cape Town. Everyone boarded, and things were proceeding as usual. The captain fired up the engine, we backed up, and then we proceeded to pull back up to the gate. It turns out one of the engines wasn’t starting, and they ended up calling maintenance. At this point I was not concerned, because we had a 2 hour layover so if they got the plane running soon, we were fine. So we sat for an hour in a super hot airplane. Unfortunately they could not get the second engine started, and so we proceeded to unboard the plane. Back out into the cold and back to the Minneapolis/St.Paul Airport where we got to stand in line for about 45 minutes to be rerouted. The original plan was to fly from Minneapolis to New York. In New York, I would change planes and then stop in Dakar, Senegal and then proceed Cape Town. When the engine wouldn’t start, that was out of the question. I was switched to a Northwest flight to Amsterdam, and then from Amsterdam to Cape Town. Now, instead of departing at 10:05, we were to leave at 3:15.
The flight
to Amsterdam was only 8 hours, and the majority of it was at night in Cape Town time, so after they served supper I tried to sleep. Unfortunately, I don’t exactly sleep well in airplanes. The plane was kind of empty, so thankfully there was room to move because I was on the aisle and so it was harder to sleep. The window seat behind me was open, so I asked the guy sitting next to it if I could slide in. He said he wasn’t using it and agreed, but unfortunately, I still didn’t sleep. We then had about 4 hrs in Amsterdam.
After Amsterdam it was an 11 hour flight. The flight was awful, and I thought it would never end. Thankfully they had a plethora of movies, and I sat next to a really nice man who was a world traveler headed to Cape Town for the first time on business. Since I was sitting smack dab in the middle of the plane, it felt like being in a small building for 11 hours. By this time I was really tired though, and trying to stay awake in order to keep myself on Cape Town Time. After
Bed
Monkey and Vashti made survived the rerouting, and Monkey with only minimal battle wounds about 36 hrs of travel, I arrived in Cape Town at 10:30 pm (2:30 local time). As we were getting closer to the ground, I was watching on the screen as the temperature rose, and it was 70 degrees when we landed.
Going through the first stage of customs went smoothly, and then the 5 of us that we had accumulated along the way headed to the baggage claim all thinking our bags probably wouldn’t be there. We stood there for a long time and when we thought no more new bags were coming and ours still weren’t there, we asked, and they directed us toward baggage services. Thankfully, our bags had beaten us to Cape Town. Somehow, they made our New York flight and we did not, and thankfully nobody stole anything from my luggage. Some of the other girls weren’t so lucky.
By the time we met our escort and got packed into the van to take us to our residence, it was close to midnight. Prince (one of the directors) told us that orientation began at 7 the next morning. The driver drove us through a dark city, so you couldn’t see much of it. After about 15-20 min we arrived at my house. I am living in a house with 9 other people from the program and 1 RA. We got to bed late, and I ended up not being able to sleep real well, but I’m not really feeling too tired. I have lows, but pretty much I’m doing really well.
This morning we all got up early and headed up to the campus and guess where it is… That’s right, it’s on a HILL!! Actually, it’s a mountain, but what are the chances. After hours of orientation we had a break. Well some of us had to stay behind to get our internet vouchers, so the group (including our RA guides) ended up leaving me and 2 other people. Between the three of us though we felt our way back to the house and everything turned out just fine. Only a couple minor glitches on the way.
For supper, we had a Braii (BBQ) with the committee from one of the residence houses that we will be connected with while we were here. It was fun to talk to the local students, and they were just as interested to talk to us. Afterwards we just came back to the house.
At the house, we ran out of electricity. Yes, you can run out of electricity here, and do you know what you do when that happens?? You just go to the store and buy more!! Like everything else here, electricity is prepaid for, so if it runs out and the whole house doesn’t have power, all you have to do is run down to the store on the corner and buy more. Well after our RA came back from the store with the new electricity, it was just a lot of hanging out and somehow, I managed to blow up my surge protector (no mom, it wasn’t because I plugged it straight into the wall. I used a voltage adaptor). Well, it popped and smoked and made my room smell awful. Thankfully, it’s warm enough that I could open the window to air it out. I guess I’ll figure out what to do about that tomorrow.
Well, now it is almost 1am and I have to be at orientation again tomorrow morning at 7. I know this was really long, but a lot has happened since I last had internet access. The good thing is that I am here and doing well. I’ve been able to eat every meal, and I’m feeling pretty good. The RA’s still say we stick out like sore thumbs around town, but that will go away soon enough. I can even get to the campus and back by myself, so that’s a good first step. I will try to keep you as updated as possible, but for now, it’s time for bed.
P.S. They did not tell us this, but with the way that the internet works, I may not be able to telephone people using Skype because I may run out of internet money, but I’ll let you know more about that later.
With Love from Cape Town,
April
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Terri Nelson
non-member comment
Hello Down There!
So glad you made it April! Sounds like your journey to the other end of the world was full of adventure. We Nelsons will be praying for you as you settle in to a new routine in a very new culture. "I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you; plans to give you a hope and a future." Jer.29:11