The Race to South Africa

When two South African men grab your bags in the Johannesburg airport and start running, the only thing you can do

Johannesburg airport

is run after them.  That’s what Jeanette and I did…twice.  After eighteen hours in the air, we landed safely in Johannesburg only to discover that we weren’t going to make our connecting flight to Cape Town (or at least that’s what we thought).  I don’t know if they can sense desperation (Jeanette), a good tipper (me), or confused foreigners (the two of us), but a porter came out of nowhere, said “Follow me!” and started running with our luggage cart.  And there we were, looking like a scene straight out of Home Alone, as we ran after him.

That was just the warm up.

We went as far as that porter was able to go.  I gave him US $10 for his assistance (that’s about R80; I later found out standard tip for porters is R4).  Before leaving us, he signaled another porter and told him where we needed to go.  The second porter grabbed two of our bags off the cart, Jeanette and I grabbed the rest, and the three of us with luggage in hand sprinted toward the terminal in hopes of catching our connecting flight.

En route Jeanette and I passed the other William & Mary students who had been on our previous flight.  They had all apparently decided to wait for the next connecting flight to Cape Town.  Smart.  Unfortunately for Jeanette and me, the porter, who by this time was a good forty feet ahead of us, just turned a corner!  We had no time to fraternize; our luggage was on the move!  We got to the airplane just as they were getting ready to close the door.  The porter grabbed our luggage and handed it over to the flight attendants!  After being assured that our bags would make it to Cape Town, I gave the second porter US $5 (it was either that or a twenty) and headed toward our seats.  If this is any indicator of what the rest of the trip is going to be like, we’re definitely in for a roller-coaster ride.

This is William & Mary’s very first service-learning study abroad program.  We’ve partnered up with SHAWCO – an incredible student-run NGO at the University of Cape Town.  Our first week here will be devoted to teaching basic computer skills to adults from Khayelitsha (South Africa’s third largest township with one million+ people).  The rest of our time in Cape Town will be spent tutoring 6^th and 7^th graders from Khayelitsha.  Tutors ordinarily come from UCT, but because the university is currentlly closed for the holiday, we’ve been flown in to fill the void, literally.  Our final week will be spent at the Southern African Wildlife College in Kruger Park – a national wildlife reserve in northeastern South Africa. On top of all this, we’ll be having class with Professor Abegaz and attending guest lectures!  They’ve packed a lot into these next four weeks.  Wish me luck.