Post-trip update

Well, I've been back since Saturday night now, and I'm gonna have to confess that the jet-lag is actually affecting me; the last two nights I couldn't fall asleep until around 2/3 am, and then awoke before the break of dawn (it's wintertime here, so dawn breaks a bit later than in the southern hemisphere right now)... so at 7. My body refused to fall back asleep, despite what my brain wanted.

As for the illness, I went into our campus' Health Center first thing yesterday morning (hey, since I was already up and about, I might as well get stuff done, right?). It turns out, I have a double ear infection, and so in addition to this nasty saline nasal wash that I have to shoot up one side of my nose and then let drain out of the other nostril, I have some antibiotics to alleviate the symptoms of the swollen ear drums and break up the fluids in my head so that I can hear clearly once again, and not have that annoying tickle in my ear/nose/throat. It will be soooo nice not to hear everything as if I'm under water!

Anyway, that's my little update. Had a night class last night, and no classes today; just a lot of meetings and paperwork, getting the ball rolling once again for classes and clubs and work and blah, blah, blah.

Check out the new Jamaica blog: http://lara-in-jamaica.blogspot.com when you have time; I'll be setting it up with a little info about that upcoming trip (March 20-27).

Back safely (and painfully) in the USA. Still sick, but safe.

I woke up this morning about two hours ago, thinking I was still in Africa. Not the case. I'm in the Seattle-area, in Shoreline with Chelsea's family. They picked Devin, Chels, and me up from the airport last night and we drove to get some really good pizza dinner in us before we scrambled for bed. Devin just about fell asleep standing up.

The first flight out of Jo'burg to London was the quickest 9-hour flight I've ever taken! Once up in the air, with a bit of pressure to the fluid-filled ears, I could only stay awake for an hour or so before I stretched out and konked out on the guy next to me. I awoke to breakfast being served 6 hours later! I've never slept so hard on a plane before. Thank God, since I was sick! The descent was painful, and left me nearly deaf, and talking on low volume for the duration of the layover in London. I decided it would not be wise to go out into the sub-freezing weather in London whist I was sick, and so I opted to stay in the airport and catch up on journal-writing and some other things that had to get done.

In London, our 8-hour layover turned into 9, since we had to undergo a most-thorough carry-on luggage search and full-body tap-down before we could get on the bus and be bussed across the airport to climb aboard our plane for the next long flight. Security measures were intense after some dude apparently tried to blow up a plane headed for the US three or four days ago, strapped up with bombs all over his body. So the extra security precautions were necessary, apparently. But all of us girls came to the concensus that getting our ridiculouly-sunburned bodies patted down and searched was not fun on the irritated skin. Some of us resorted to lifting up our shirts to the airport employees in a plea for hands-off searching of our tummies, backs, and upper thighs especially, haha. A bit extreme, but let's just say that certain members of the trip had trouble sitting in an airplane seat for the duration of the trip!

The second flight was not as fun. Going up was worse than the first time, and then we all got pretty antsy about 2-3 hours into the flight, and I'm pretty sure we annoyed the living daylights out of most of the other people flying coach around us. 20 students all up and moving around the cabin, socializing, taking advantage of the complimentary (free!!) alcohol and such, haha. I barely slept on this flight, which was what we were instructed to do, since we were flying back in time, so to speak, gaining 10 hours in comparison to South African time we'd been on for the last month. For the duration of this flight, we took advantage of our last hours together. The descent was probably the most excruciatingly painful single thing I have experienced to date in my 21 years of life... I think. My ears screamed at me, and my friend sitting next to me rubbed my back as I held my ears and rocked back and forth for the last 10 minutes and touchdown back in SeaTac. Grrr. Painful, fluid-filled head! I couldn't hear for the next 5 hours, and once again had to ask people to alert me about my volume levels and help me maintain some control over how loud I was getting, or more often than not, if I was speaking in too hushed of voices. (All I can hear is the sound of my own voice reverberating in my head, amongst the dull roar of sounds around me. The loudest voice or noise going on around me is usually what is most amplified in my head, so during my time on safari at the game reserve, and for the travel back Stateside, all I could hear was that one shrill whistle, the seemingly-obnoxious laugh of that one person, or the thumping, thudding din of my friends' voices. It is pretty much awful.)

We flew in just after 5pm (Seattle time) last night, spent the next hour going through the US border/customs and getting our luggage, and then around 6, Chelsea's parents picked us up and took us out for carbs, er, pizza! Yay! By the time we got home around 8:30, we were ready to sleep and crashed, after watching the very exciting end of the Gonzaga game (first loss after a 22-game winning streak! shame, shame!).

I slept for 9 pretty solid hours. It was lovely. After I get a shower for the first time since Friday morning (that was South African time, 10 hours ahead of time here in the US, mind you!), in a couple hours, Eric will pick me up (he has all my winter stuff that I stored at his house before leaving for SA) and we'll take a 5-hour drive back to Spokane, good old home sweet Whitworth! What's another 5 hours in a car, after spending a month driving all over South Africa?!

Anyway, I just wanted to give a little update. Hopefully I'll be posting some more pictures of mine soon, and getting all the photos from other friendlies from the trip, so that we can share memories! I already miss seeing the whole group. After being sick for that one day in Jo'burg, and feeling like I had missed all 30 of those people in the rest of our traveling group for ages, now it seems extremely odd that we left our drivers, Zama, Steph, and Tyler W. in South Africa 48 hours ago. And I feel a loneliness in my heart for everyone else that I've been apart from for just over 14 hours now. Sad. I'm so thankful I'm with Chels and Devin right now. It eases the sting a bit. And I'll have a drive with Eric and Peter on the way back to school this afternoon, so that won't be too bad. I can't wait for the first T.I.A. (This Is Africa!) group reunion!!!

Signing out on the lara-in-sa.blogspot.com entries. Thanks for the readership! Stay tuned for Jamaica in a couple months (possibly; it's just for a week at the end of March)!

Spoke too soon

Whoops! Apparently, this computer doesn't have the correct plug-in installed on it that will enable me to upload 50 more photos or so (and I don't want to download anything on this computer, as it is not my own!). In which case, I will just have to wait until another time to upload more photos. Sorry, Mom!

:)

More photos to be uploaded!

Actually, I've just found a SanDisk adaptor that Beth and Jonathan have connected to their computer here, so I've selected some more photos from my memory cards to upload, while I've got the time being cooped up while sick in the homestay in Jo'burg. I'll probably upload more photos, with more thorough descriptions upon my return to the States.

Sick in Jo'burg

I'm sitting in the study of the old 1916 mansion of my host family in Johannesburg, accompanied by Phoebe, the talkative 5-year-old granddaughter of Beth, my host mother. I'm left at 'home,' ill today, missing out on Constitution Hill Museum and the Supreme Court in the morning, and a walking tour of downtown Jo'burg this afternoon (which surely I'd be too weak to do anyhow). Also, disappointingly, I'm missing the tour of Soweto, the country's largest township, consisting of poor blacks and slum-like conditions. Finally, I've also missed out on the tour of the new 2010 World Cup Stadium. :( Anyhow, it is raining and thundering out again now. The weather has been so apt to change with the snap of one's fingers.

Last night was a most turbulent, sleepless night, tossing and turning amidst the pounding of the thunder and flashing of lightning outside, accompanied by similar thumping and thudding inside my head! This morning, Beth took me in to see a doctor, who diagnosed me with just a viral flu (Symptoms include: sore throat, inflamed lymph nodes, fluid in ears, congestion in head, and a significantly-elevated body temperature. I've been running a fever for the last day.). It cost me $45 for the appointment, and I was instructed to just continue taking something that will keep my fever down and aid with the symptoms.

I sorely regret, to say the least, that I am stuck ill in this mansion of a house today- sore, unrested, and miserable, with noises of the maid cleaning, gardener snipping, men doing construction and woodwork painting & upkeep on this old 1916 house, and the driveway car-alert bell that buzzes loudly whenever something triggers its ringer (it's near to the road, so sometimes passing traffic will trigger it, and not just those who actually enter the driveway). At least Phoebe is here to brighten things up a bit; Tuesdays and Thursdays are the days that Beth takes her grandchildren for her daughters. I now have time to catch up on some journaling for school (when I'm not attempting to sleep, that is).

But being here this afternoon is interesting, as I've had the opportunity to observe Beth interacting with two of her grandchildren. They talk with such cute little South African accents. The word choice of the British English is so different from our undignified American slang. "You've given me such a fright just now, Grannie!" Phoebe just shrieked. Haha.

Anyway, I'm off to fetch my lunch now. Keep up my strength, even though I haven't the appetite.

In Johannesburg

It is the first relaxed, later morning we have had in a while (or ever?), as we don't need to head down to meet the group at the Methodist church for another 45 minutes (it is currently about 9:00 am here, as I begin this post).

Since our night and the following day in Durban on Saturday, we drove about an hour up the road to Pietersmaritzburg, where we stayed at a camp, called African Enterprise, which if you Google, you'll see was founded by a very influential Christian man who was involved in working with South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in the post-apartheid era. The center provided us with a night of debriefing after our encounters with the Muslim community in Durban. There was also another group there, training reformed troubled youth in urban dance, in a program that evangelizes to street kids in urban areas.

After spending the night in the cabins there, we had church early on Sunday morning, attending a 2-hour Anglican service, which was pretty hard to follow at times, with all the songs and recitations, thumbing around in a series of books to find the prayers and such. When church was through at 10:30, we spent another couple hours socializing with the church's youth group of about 30-40 teenagers, playing games they had, conversing, and interacting with them over lunch.

Around 1 pm, we piled into our group's vehicles and drove 6 hours to Johannesburg, where our host families met us. These families are members of the Methodist church here, white upper-middle class people. Our host mother is in her late 60s, and she just remarried (not sure if both of their spouses have passed away or how they got together... maybe we'll find out about that later). Her husband's name is Jonathan, and they both were gynecologists. They have a German couple who are tenants in the guest cottage on the premises. We had a late dinner last night, around 9, since we didn't get to their house until around 8. We settled ourselves in their guest bedroom, which has a very nice bathroom as well (complete with a shower, and not just a bathtub!). We turned in for bed around 10:30, only to discover a huge spider crawling in the sheets! While I crushed it and checked the covers to put it out of my mind, Chelsea was unable to fall asleep (she and I are rooming together this time, as well as our two drivers, Mabouti and Whitey).

... it is now 5:30 pm; the power went out shortly after I began writing this post, and thank heavens that eBlogger auto-saves drafts every minute! So now let me just finish posting about the day!

This morning I got up at 7, after having a rough night's sleep. I awoke to a terribly sore throat and ear aches, as well as a very congested head. I'm afraid I've acquired a head cold! Awful hours spent in the car traveling yesterday, filled with elevation changes, grrr! ...Not to mention also that the temperature changes have been icky and thus affecting the barometric pressure and my sensitive little eustachian ear canals or what have I.

Today, we heard from a couple speakers:

1. Govan Reddy, a journalist who worked during apartheid and post-apartheid times in newsprint media, among others, working closely with Mandela and Mbeki (the first two South African presidents after the apartheid regime ended in 1994)

2. Maseko Nxumalo, a 1989 Whitworth grad who knows the Jacksons and John Yoder very well. He gave us an account of his life story, which is really quite amazing, as he was involved in some very political actions in SA during the 1970s and had to flee when he was only 17. He will also be leading us around tomorrow, I believe, since he lives in Jo'burg once again.

Then we went to the African craft market this afternoon, where the banner above the walkway openly welcomed us, proclaiming, "This is Africa! We bargain!" Haha. Saying of the trip. TIA. I'm so wiped out, with this head cold and all, especially after spending a couple hours bartering with vendors as I pursued the purchase of a couple gifts.

Now we are back at Beth's house, going to have dinner in an hour or so. First I am going for a swim in her pool with Chelsea and getting some journaling done. Or I'll play with the two kitties and doggies. Whichever suits my fancy.

This is all for now. I can't believe we fly out in four days! Things are so packed into each day, and these last couple days have been pretty chill in comparison to previous weeks! I want to take advantage of every moment with host families, gleaning as much information and cultural context as possible from those whom I encounter in this country. I can't even begin to express in writing all that I have been learning; that would take far too long to type up, and I'm sure no one wishes to read a blog entry that long anyhow.

In Durban

I am currently staying with a host family in Westville, a suburb of Durban (just about 2-3 hours out of Johannesburg; if you're looking on the map, see one of the links at left to view the map of SA and its larger cities). The reason why I am able to have Internet access is because this family is upper middle class. The father owns a pharmacuetical franchise (not sure if that is the right word for it, but apparently he runs a chain of pharmacies, about 15-20 in total, all over the country of South Africa). So you can imagine that the family is pretty well-off. He (currently in the hospital still after having had a minor operation this afternoon, so we have actually yet to meet him) and his wife have a lovely home and FIVE children! Daughters Fathima (19) and Tasneem (17) and then triplets (two boys and one girl, age 12). This is an Indian, Muslim family, and I am learning so much! Becky Davis and I are sharing this host family for the night, and I'm afraid that our stay is going to be all too short! We leave Durban tomorrow afternoon! Oh, how I wish that this stay could be longer, since I am learning so very much from this different culture and religion and lifestyle, and want to see more of Durban!

Today was a sweltering, muggy day in Durban, filled with lectures and driving through the crowded, busy city. Downtown Durban is predominantly black still, as the city is very segregated, just according to cultures sticking together and paranoia of the danger that each sector of the city still holds in the clutches of its post-apartheid aura. We went to a prayer service this morning for a controversial trial over members of a township (makeshift/temporary city) that is to be demolished due to its proximity to a major city during the 2010 World Cup expose, with all the tourism coming for the football (soccer) games and whatnot. Such dirty areas of poverty blemish SA's pretty facelift, and what's more they pose a threat to the 'safety' of the common public, apparently. Anyway, the trial is about some men, 13 to be precise, who are being prosecuted for causing a ruckus basically, even though some of the accused were not even present at the time of the incident. Really, it's a two-sided story that is only being seen in one light in the courts, and in order to seek justice, the other side must really be seen, and that is what the prayer rally was about this morning. Prayers for the truth and justice to be done are appreciated.

This morning, we also visited a women's refugee center where a pre-primary school for children is held on the third floor of a shabby old warehouse. Quite interesting. In a rough, more dangerous area of the city. In the afternoon, we had riveting panel presented to us by the sociology department from one of the universities here in Durban. For 2.5 hours we heard different viewpoints of a variety of South Africans, concerning topics ranging from race/ethnicity, gender, language, politics, and more!

Now, as I mentioned, we have been farmed out to about a dozen or so Muslim host families in Durban's Indian community (home to the largest Indian population in SA). This has been a lovely night. For dinner we had wonderful, spicy food, involving lots of curry of course. Tas, one of the daughters, taught us how Muslims pray (during the after-dusk prayer time), explaining the rituals and significance of prayers said. We learned much about the customs and personal nature of Islam. Then we went out for some ice creams and had a nighttime driving tour of Durban (in addition to the tour that our host mother had given us on the way home earlier in the evening). We went down to the beaches, all in the process of being revamped for 2010 of course, like everything else around the country! We got some spicy pineapple from a vendor on the beachfront, as well as some fried spicy dough and other typical delicacies (not really for them, but they were great for us foreigners!). I could go on with more, but I really should be getting to bed, as it is nearing 1 in the morning here, and we are to rise early to observe prayers and hang out with our host fam before we have another long day, touring a mosque.

I wish I could write more about past days, as our group has accumulated some good (as well as not-so-good) stories. Highlights: we went on a 2-hour coastal hike on the Wild Coast (western side, bordering the Indian Ocean), swam in the salty seas and jumped in waves for a couple hours, got 2 flat tires, ate waaaaay too much South African food with our host fams in Umthatha on the last night... And then there were some lowlights as well: having to send one of our travel companions (Katie) back to the States for family emergency, having some rough home stays in Umthatha, and losing my camera case with my $6 USB adapter in it (which means no more pictures to be uploaded unless I find another adaptor in the next week). Fortunately, I was blessed with another small voice that urged me to remove my extra (filled up) memory card that had been stored in my camera case for the duration of the trip, because I was afraid I might lose the case, thus losing my memory card and the precious memories of the first half of my trip. Thank you God, for your messages!

Alright, well this is it for now. One more week and I regret having to say that at this hour in one week's time, I'll be on a plane on my way to London, on my return journey back to the good old USA. But let's not talk of that yet....!