Made it to AfricaNov 8, 2005
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Well, 30 hours after leaving Edmonton, I finally made it to Africa!! Cape Town, South Africa to be exact. The flight to Vancouver was uneventful, as was the layover in Vancouver. I spent my time spritzing myself with different perfumes, which I'm sure pleased the people sitting next to me on the plane to London, especially when I decided I need to add some Eau de Diet Coke onto my pants. Yes, i spilled my drink all over me. Luckily the glass was only half full! Then, later when I got up to go to the bathroom (bless the girl in the middle who had a smaller bladder than me-which I didn't think was possible!), I ended up hanging out with some of the Canadian Rugby Team boys, who were standing around stretching and talking (and wearing leggings (to keep the swelling down)). And they were very nice to look at, leggings and all! (Lots of dark leg hair too!) I talked with them for about an hour before the flight attendant send us back to our seats. It has been decided though that I will be their wardrobe captain, and will visit the cities while they are playing, and let them know what they missed! The rest of the flight was fairly uneventful-i got to watch some movies-new ones for me! Including War of the Worlds, which of course gave me nightmares when I actually did manage to sleep. Then a fairly short layover in London, then an 11 hour flight (+1 hour on the tarmack) to Cape Town. The flight actually went by fairly fast, i watched some more movies, and slept. I arrived in Cape Town just after 7am Sunday, waited in the immigration line for almost an hour, then was picked up by someone from i-to-i, who drove me into Cape Town, to where we were spending our first night. I got there around 9:30, then had to wait about an hour before someone told which room i was sleeping in, then took a nap for about an hour. I then spent a few hours talking with some of the other volunteers before having antoher short nap before our meeting. The meeting was pretty uneventful, then I ended up falling asleep for the night before 7:30p.m., before dinner and still in my clothes. It was a good sleep though!
The hostel we were staying at was pretty nice, although there were 8 girls in one room. Then on Monday morning, 2 of the volunteers and I got a ride to the shopping mall to pick up a few items and looked around, then we walked back to the hostel for another placement meeting. After the meeting, Marie and I (who are at the kibbutz together) and another girl who is staying near us, were driven to the bus station, where we got onto a train to go into Cape Town (about an hour away), then onto another train to Worcester, which was another 3.5 hours away. We were then picked up by the other hosts, so Marie and I had to ride in the back of a pickup truck with all our luggage. Luckily it was only a 10 minute ride! We got to our new home around 9 p.m. We are sharing with 2 other girls, and have our own small house, complete with running water, tv, 2 rooms, a living room, fridge, and microwave. The shower even has hot water-so no geysers for me! The other 2 girls-Linda and Beckie are super nice and have been here for 9 weeks already, so have been showing us the ropes.
After we settled in, Mia, who is in charge of us gave us a quick tour, then we ordered pizza, which was very good! I ended up going to bed fairly early again, but was up early again this morning. Later on this afternoon, Mia will give us a more in depth orientation, so I'll know more this afternoon about what exactly I'll be doing. We met some of the kids/teens, and they are all super nice and friendly, and super cute! I'm really looking forward to working with them.
I hope everyone is doing well. It was great to see everyone, and I enjoyed all the meals!! Especially Thanksgiving dinner-thanks mom and dad Niddrie!
Tovè
