We're really in Africa ... finally!!!

Well, Allison and I have been preparing for this move to Swaziland for about 6 months, and now, as we are horribly jet-lagged in the wee hours of the morning in a pleasant and comfortable hotel room just a few kilometers from the Johannesburg airport, we are on the brink.  I was telling people in the States that it hadn’t hit me yet that we were really moving to Swaziland, probably because there was just so much to do that I didn’t have time think about it.  But it finally hit me, of all times, when we were waiting – waiting, it turns out, in the wrong place for the shuttle bus that would take us to our hotel [LOL -- I’ve traveled enough cross-culturally to expect these kinds of things].   

The 18-hour flight had been largely uneventful (thanks be to God!).  William had charmed our entire side of the plane and only cried a few times in the early morning hours when he was trying to go to sleep but having trouble.  I didn’t even watch one movie the entire flight, as is my usual habit on trans-Atlantic flights.  I was so tired that I slept whenever I could in between tending to William.  After landing in Johannesburg, jovially being moved to the front of the customs line on account of the baby with us, having a disagreement over the tip with a porter who was pushing our luggage cart, we waited in the wrong place for well over an hour for our hotel shuttle.  Well, actually we were in the right place, but the shuttle driver could not get his airport badge to work, so he was picking up passengers in a different place that was outside the airport bus terminal.  That was when it hit me, standing outside the bus terminal in the Johannesburg airport, that we were not in the US any more and would not be going back anytime soon.

Of course, in America, the solution to the problem I described would be to print out signs, even ones crudely made if necessary, that briefly described the problem and pointed to where the pickup would occur.  Of course, this is a perfectly reasonable solution if the over-riding objective is for people to be able to find their way by themselves without having to ask anyone for help.  I’ve learned in my travels that in other parts of the world, people do not even remotely think this way.  Rather, the assumption is that people will talk to one another and figure things out collectively – which is precisely what happened.  It simply took a lot of time.  Here’s what happened: after we had waited about an hour (and a collection of others were starting to congregate who were waiting for the same shuttle), one of the porters who was buzzing around helping people with their luggage noticed that we had been standing there for an awfully long time without being taken away by one of the many shuttle busses going to and from the terminal.  He asked us where we wanted to go, I said, “The Life Hotel,” and he said, “OK, it is coming.”   

After about ten minutes, he noticed that we still weren’t gone, so he asked us again where we were going.  I responded the same way, and he said, “I will go find out.”  He disappeared and came back a few minutes later describing the problem with the driver’s security badge.  He didn’t know exactly where the driver would come, but he said that he would find out.  It took about ten more minutes, but he was true to his word.  He found out where the bus would come, alerted us when it arrived, and helped us get around the corner to the correct area to get the bus.  And of course, in return for his help, I gave him a tip.  It’s what makes the wheels of African society (and others around the world as well) go round; but it is most definitely not the American way.  I suppose folks could debate about which way is better, but that would probably be a fruitless exercise.  Hence my “culture adaptation” mantra, learned through a good many cultural mis-haps in life: It’s not good or bad, it’s just different. (Funny enough, I heard this saying first from an African, talking about adjusting to American culture!)

We got to our hotel and checked into our room, which was lovely, then sauntered down to the restaurant to eat our dinner, which was delicious.   We passed a fitful night of sleep – well, Allison less than me – then made the rather uneventful final leg of our trip to Swaziland.  Ten years (to the month!) after hearing God’s call to the continent of Africa, I (or I should say, "we") have finally arrived.

Oregon to Baltimore: Choose Your Own Misadventure

(William on the shuttle to the airport, 

blissfully unaware of what awaited him on his journey to Baltimore)

Air travel is increasingly coming to seem like one of those Choose Your Own Adventure books I read in 3rd grade. (Any other children of the 80s remember those?) You know, you make a perfectly rational choice on p. 37 and are told to flip to p. 112 to see what happens next and unfortunately by some strange twist of fate you are sucked into a vortex of disaster on p. 112 and you're DONE. 

This was William's first plane trip and I am tempted to describe it as not a very good first flight experience, except that I guess scenarios like this have become more the rule than the exception. Plus by the time William is old enough to hear the story air travel may have deteriorated to the point that we will look back on the time when most people still made it to their destination as the good old days.  

So here are the good bits:

1. We made it to our destination. (Actually I am writing this in faith, as we're still up in the air several hundred miles from Baltimore, but if I'm posting this it's because we made it to Baltimore)

2. Our tickets were free. 

3. We met lots of very lovely people. Usually they were William's friends first, and then they became our friends. We all had a good time.

4. William was generally a very happy traveler, and was sufficiently recovered from his 2-week cold to no longer be oozing copious amounts of green snot. (I had been praying about the snot situation.) "Happy" may be an understatement-- he was so elated by the experience of all those new places/things to chew on/people to smile at, that he basically didn't sleep all day. But maybe we'll get some bonus naps tomorrow?

Now the bad and the ugly: 

1. Our ticket originally had us flying through Seattle and Chicago. Not the way I would choose to fly from Portland to Baltimore, but hey, it was free. Our first flight was Alaska Airlines, then two with American, and I was gloating a bit about our good fortune that we got to check in with Alaska as they have the cheapest extra bag fees in the business (and we are traveling with 5 checked bags). Then they canceled our little flight to Seattle with no explanation. Boo Alaska. 

2. I called American, who I had made the reservation with, and they told me that there was an American flight through Dallas that we just might get on to, which would get us in to Baltimore by 11 p.m. (an hour earlier than our original flight- yay!). It was oversold but we might get lucky if we went to the gate. 

3. Meanwhile Alaska had another flight to Seattle going in half an hour, and we would probably make our connection. What to choose?? 

4. I chose to try to get onto the Seattle flight, but by the time I got my turn in line they had just given up their last seats. So we raced for the Dallas flight. 

5. As I was waiting for the elevator (it's a whole new world when even the carry-ons require a cart), I heard myself being paged. I went back to the Alaska desk, and they told me they had rebooked us on a United flight through Denver. But it wouldn't get in til 1 a.m. We could still try for the Dallas flight, but who knows what our odds were, and our bags likely wouldn't make it if we went that route. What to choose?? 

6. I had them book the Denver flight, but still wanted on the earlier Dallas flight. So once again I set off for the Dallas gate, running into Joel on the way, who had wondered what had happened to me. (He'd taken William on the escalator while I took the cart on the elevator, and hadn't heard the page, so we'd gotten separated.) 

7. At the Dallas flight they were asking for volunteers to give up their seats. Not promising. But we talked to a gate agent and waited around anyway, as we had several hours to kill before the Denver flight would leave. While I was at the next gate down, looking longingly at the menu of massages and pedicures at the airport spa, the gate agent came running up to tell me she had been looking for me. She said the only reason she had remembered what I looked like and been able to find me was because I had a baby with me. It was clear I had William to thank for the special treatment when cooed at him, with an adoring look, "I would do anything for you!" 

8. So she got us on the Dallas flight, who knew when our bags would catch up with us, but who cares, I just wanted to get there, and preferably before midnight. 

9. We were almost the last people onto the plane, and it was one of those flights where every seat was full and it was 80 degrees, and we were in the second to last row, which felt about as big as a telephone booth. Two of us in our row were fairly large, one of us was really really large (a gentle giant of a college student), and one of us was very very squirmy. I couldn't be upset that guy next to me was taking up several inches of my seat, he was such a great guy, but the flight did seem endless. 

10. We were continuing on to Baltimore on the same plane, but of course we had to get off, and then as we were re-boarding they told us the plane had taken ill and would not be flying again that evening. It must have been a sudden attack as we had just flown in on the same plane, although it was one of the older and more decrepit planes I have seen. We waited around for a while, then finally were told that there was a healthy plane 15 gates away so we all had to migrate down there. Unfortunately I had just bought frozen yogurt, so in addition to all the bags was trying to balance frozen yogurt and the free McDonalds french fries we had gotten through some gimmick. When we got to the other gate we had to wait a while longer because the plane had no food and no crew, and I fed William quite a few french fries, which if you know me and my food snobberies at all probably makes you gasp in horror. I am already thinking I will probably let him watch any movie he wants on our 16 hour flight to Joburg next week, just as long as he stays happy and occupied. Desperate measures for desperate times. 

11. This second flight has been basically fine, except that we're now so delayed we won't be getting in til well after midnight, which kind of defeats the purpose of all that trouble to get on the "earlier" flight. And we probably won't have our bags until tomorrow. 

Things I've learned: 

1. Don't wear a white t-shirt when traveling with a baby. 

2. Having a cute baby along entitles you to lots of free perks. Not only gate agents pulling strings, but flight attendants giving you free food, and lots of bonus friends. 

3. Joel is the person I always want to travel with forever. He doesn't just entertain my child without once getting impatient, but he entertains other people's children so well those children seem to want to take him home. The 5-year old with the stickers on her forehead across the aisle from us was so smitten with him after they talked for half an hour that she invited him to come to her house in Germany. 

4. Our adult-to-child ratio is quite a lot higher than that of some other families I have observed today, and I am not quite sure how those other families with the lower ratios are surviving. 

Post-script: We did make it to Baltimore, as did our bags, about an hour later. Which meant we didn't get to our destination til about 2:30 a.m. William didn't really know what to make of it, except that he was excited to be in bed with mommy and daddy and if he was already up he may as well play in bed and pull our hair for an hour or two. We were all very tired today.

I'm a bad blogger

Some particularly observant blog-followers have noticed that I only blogged half the road trip. And William fans have made sure I knew that there's been a 6 week William picture drought. I'm sorry. It's all because I'm a bad blogger and am too distracted by real life.

So, the synopsis of mid-Aug to mid-Oct: We crossed the second half of the country and had a really fantastic time and passed through 3 gorgeous national parks and spent 6 wonderful weeks in Oregon where the sun shone every day until our last week, and where we saw a lot of precious friends and family and took many great pictures which hopefully someday soon I will get up here.

In the meantime, I must return to real life.