The flight from London was a piece of cake, the eleven hours were slow but it was quiet and the seat beside me was empty. As usual the food was crummy, especially the morning omelette which was basically goo by the time it found its way in front of me. The only memorable thing about this flight was the thunder and lightning storm. My TV had been malfunctioning so I took to staring out the window for long periods of time. As the plane was flying somewhere over Nigeria to the west side of the plane was a massive storm that stretched across the horizon. It was incredible watching the electricity travel vertically as well as horizontally through the clouds before ending in bolted lightning. The plane was flying above the storm so while the thunder raged below, the sky was stunningly clear above and seemed to go on forever.
When the sun began to rise and I was able to see the outskirts of the city I was surprised at how easily I could distinguish the poverty gap. Huge mansions were visible, with lush green golf courses surrounding them; in the distance I could see miniscule tin one-room houses that were indistinguishably the homes of families. The lower-upper-class homes were clustered into gated communities of up to fifty houses (the hotel manager had filled us in about the local surrounding). These communities turned out to have 8 foot fences surrounding them with 2 feet of barbed wire along the top.
I disembarked at 7:23am after our plane meandered around the runway for 20minutes due to a miscommunication. The temperature was 3 degrees, as it is winter here, and the runway crew were bundled in winter jackets with toques and mitts. According to our hotel manager it had snowed last year for the first time in fifty years. I met up with another OpWall volunteer, Natalie, who I had run into at the Heathrow airport before boarding the plane. The Johannesburg customs was incredibly laid back and I was only asked how long I would be staying in South Africa... to which I replied that I would be leaving sometime in August and couldn’t remember the exact date. BINGO. I was through and made my way to collect my luggage.
In the arrivals area Natalie and I met two other volunteers and we were shuttled to our hotel located 10 minutes from the airport. The Africa Center Guest House was also surrounded by high walls and was located within a secure area where each vehicle had to pass through a check point upon entering. I checked in at the hotel and made my way to my single economy room, Natalie and I decided to meet at 2-o’clock to have lunch and decide what to do for the day. Although my room was quite cold (and there is no thermostat to be seen) I showered and hopped into bed around 10am. I woke up at 3-o’clock due to an alarm malfunction... a miracle in itself considering how exhausted I was. I met Natalie and we decided to head to the local mall for the afternoon. As we rode in the shuttle from the hotel to the mall I couldn’t help but laugh when the driver started listening to a KD Lang CD. It was priceless and I could imagine the look on my dad’s face if he had been there.
The mall itself was very uneventful. At 6:15pm we met our shuttle outside the main door and were taken back to the hotel. I hadn’t eaten anything since 7am so we ordered food from the hotel restaurant... although the ostrich stir fry was tempting I decided not to push my luck on the first day and stuck to something a little less exotic. After ordering we made our way to the bar to wait for our dinner. Here we met a very attractive bartender from New Zealand who was a temporary employee at the time. After bullshitting for a few hours and ending my sober streak another group of OpWall volunteers had made their way to the bar. The first American I met, from Pennsylvania, asked me where Saskatchewan was when I told her where I went to school... By the end of the night there were ten of us in total and we spent a few hours getting to know one another. At 10:30pm I decided to call it a night as we were all reporting to the airport the next morning at 8am to begin our expeditions.
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I woke up at 5am this morning to my distaste. It was cold and being wide awake I decided to start my day. The continental breakfast didn’t start until 6am so I had some time to kill and decided to reorganize my 50lb rucksack and backpack. After an hour of struggling with my over-packed luggage I finally had everything ready to go and I headed to the restaurant. I can tell you that South African hotels take their continental breakfasts very seriously. Not only was there an omelette bar, there were sausages, cereal, fruit salad, muffins, fresh baked buns, beans, yogurt, as well as five types of bread... including flax. After breakfast I lugged my bags out to the shuttles and eight of us packed ourselves into one of the vehicles and headed to the airport.
I arrived at the airport at 9am and ended up waiting with 39 other volunteers for an hour before my group loaded into two vans and headed north. Natalie was apart of a group headed to Mozambique so we went our separate ways. The eight hour drive into rural S.A was very interesting and the regions were divided into four distinct economic zones. The landscape around Johannesburg was surprisingly flat and reminded me a lot of Saskatchewan. The first hour outside the city was all agriculture based. Thousands of acres of corn could be seen in all directions; what wasn’t corn was grassland being grazed by Brahma crossbreds. As the van travelled further away from the city the mining sector became more and more prominent.
The main source of power in SA is generated from massive coal burning power plants. We passed six within 2 hours and it was obvious that this industry is responsible for the livelihoods of thousands of people. The lower class population is very prominent in the townships situated around the plants. Four hours into our trip we finally had passed through the last mining area and had entered the forestry area.
Hundreds of acres are being utilized for planting and growing trees for the purpose of providing lumber. Flash burning was also heavily used in these areas to remove old stumps and burn underbrush. At one point during our trip we were stopped at a road block and were forced to pull over at a truck stop. There were vehicles everywhere being inspected for drugs, alcohol, as well as illegal animal products. Everyone displayed their passports and a few bags were inspected before we carried on. From here on I also noticed that the amount of people, especially children, selling fruit and other things to stopped traffic increased, and the children were always willing to have their picture taken for money. I also noticed that no matter how poverty stricken an area may appear, technology always finds its way there. As we were driving through the lumber district we passed three employees carrying large bundles of branches on their heads. The last one, a woman, had one hand steadying the bundle; the other clutched a cell phone as she texted away. When we reached Piet Retief we stopped for snacks at a local gas station. As it turns out KFC is the dominating fast food chain here, outnumbering McDonalds five to one (from what I have seen). Although fried chicken was tempting I stuck to overly processed food in the form of chips as dirty bird only gets dirtier the further away from home you are.
The sugar cane industry soon dominated the landscape and this was the first time we had passed hand-line irrigation systems, up until now it had all been pivot systems. At 6pm the sun started to set and by 7pm we were finally travelling on gravel roads leading to the Thanda Game Reserve.
When we arrived at the outermost gate our vehicle was stopped so the wheels could be disinfected for foot and mouth disease. 15 minutes up the road we finally made it to our destination. We waited in the camp parking lot for 10 minutes until we were signalled to unload. Apparently there were lions in the area... which we found out when we saw our driver sprinting back to the vehicle laughing. I will be spending the week in Thanda for basic bush training before heading to Pongola where the real work begins. Orientation was very brief and we quickly had dinner of spaghetti and made our way to our lodging. The building itself is quite simple, with 12 single beds lining the walls. We all unpacked our things and headed for the nearby washrooms... better known as a deluxe stone outhouse with cold running water and toilets that barely flush. I can’t imagine being here for the next month. There are four of us in the group headed to Pongola next week and I can only hope the conditions are better. Luckily, the research camp is fenced and electrified, and aside from one gap right behind our cabin, the chance of animals entering is very slim. On the way back to the cabin we were interrupted by a herd of wildebeests making their way past camp.
I was settled in my bed around 10:00pm with my sleeping bag rolled over my mattress and sheets. Louise took charge of making sure we were awake in time for breakfast at 7:30am. She set her alarm for “half six”... what ever that means. I am sure she was impressed when 11 out of the 16 girls here stared at her like complete tards because not one of us knew what she was talking about. I, obviously, was the only one who laughed out loud when she didn’t understand the situation. I decided to take my chances and sleep without earplugs or an eye cover thing... and I can tell you right now I need to stop kidding myself and accept that I am a light sleeper.
I lost ten years off my life last night, no joke. Not only is there a window at my head that lets light shine in from the lit path outside, the wind raged all night causing branches to constantly scrape against the tin roof of our cabin. Once again I awoke around 5:00am and dozed for another hour and a half before everyone started to get up. Originally, I had decided to stick it out one more day and avoid the disgusting shower, but this morning when I woke up I was too greasy not to be embarrassed. To my surprise the freezing cold shower helped me snap out of my zombie like trance, and to improve my mood even more a herd of wildebeest took a stroll past our windows this morning. At 7:30am, dressed in my finest safari clothes and hiking boots, I made my way to the main lodge for breakfast. This turned out to be a complete letdown. Only two varieties of toast and...well that was it, there wasn’t even any jam. Our group of 14 (12 girls and 2 guys) was split into two groups (A and B) and we headed out in the Safari Ranger while the other group attended a bush training lecture. For the next three hours we traversed the reserve to spot wildlife, take pictures, and become accustom to the terrain.
Pictures are worth a thousand words, but in this case even the Canon Rebel couldn’t come close to capturing the extraordinary environment. I also realized that you can never appreciate African wildlife until it is actually in the wild. Sure, you can go to the zoo and see all these animals up close, but when you pull up near a small herd of zebra on the trail and they show genuine curiosity in your presence the experience in unbeatable. We saw seven species today including giraffe, zebra, antelope, warthogs, red duikes, impala, and more wildebeests.
After we returned from our amazing outing we had some down time to have lunch (consisting of last nights leftovers...). Before our group lecture began I was on the phone with Vodacom trying to work out the problems with my dongle. Without it functioning properly I wouldn’t be able to access the internet, which explains the delayed blogs. As it turns out customer care in S.A is just as much a pain in the ass as in Canada! An hour later the problem still wasn’t fixed so I had to wait until later to call back.
