I woke up still tired, still grossed out at being in my body after 3 days without a shower, still on a plane. It was like waking up and realising you are still in the dream that you went to sleep in, and the only thing normal in your reality is being asleep. I think it was just being overtired....
When I woke up we had a little less than an hour till we were on the ground, it was around the time that the information sunk in that I slowly, as if wonderland was waiting beyond the little door that I opened the little window, and sure enough wonderland awaited outside. My first reaction was "dry" it was dry. Much dryer than anywhere I have ever seen before. I watched things move by underneath the plane, and I say "things" because I honestly had no idea what I was looking at. I studied the shapes intently. They seemed to be metal, many of them, at first I thought they were cars because of the reflecting sunlight coming from some of them. But there were too many, way too many, and no roads, no stores, just dryness, just dirt. Then I figured it out, they were homes. Hundreds and hundreds of shacks with metal roofs that we were flying over. Hundreds of people. I started to notice the little footpaths connecting each to each other.
The scenery below began to change even more. Bigger homes with reddish brown roofs still connected by dirt paths. Then homes connected by pavement but still dry no sign of green, no grass. Then bigger homes with pavement and green backyards. Then big factory looking buildings and stores, and roads, and then cleaner buildings, cleaner roads, cleaner businesses, then the seat belt sign. The plane started it's decent and the cabin dropped and bumped making the pit of your stomach jump like you are on a roller coaster, but this time no tracks. I usually repeat "it is connected to tracks, it is grounded" but that wasn't an option to calm myself down so I repeated "the condensation of the air against the decent of the aircraft equals turbulence that is only caused by water evaporating into the earth's atmosphere"...it seemed to help.
Soon enough the wheels touched the ash fault and we had made it to the ground, we had made it to South Africa, we made it. We got off the plane and walked down hallways towards customs. I can't really explain how that walk felt, we weren't jumping and laughing, we weren't skipping down the golden brick road towards OZ. No we were more or less falling on the next foot and repeating the process, it was like getting out of a cast and your leg doesn't feel connected to your body, but it felt like my body wasn't connected to my body.
Eventually we get through customs and while Josh goes to exchange American money to Rend, I head to the washrooms to change into fresh clothes. Basically I felt how someone would feel if they completed 3 triathlons in the same outfit without changing. I felt disgusting. New clothes felt amazing. We shortly walked out of the Johannesburg airport and towards whatever awaited us in the month ahead.
We are staying with Paul Watson the founder of Hope Alive. He arrived in a few minutes and we loaded our bags up and were on our way. Africa passed by my window and I was glued to it. We first went to Paul's home and dropped our bags off. We didn't stay long, and were off again to see the school. The school was very open. Rooms connected by covered walkways and surrounded by a small town were on the horizon is a mountain were the trees are flat on the top and you can only imagine what animals call that mountain home.
We had lunch at the school. Around 2 pm we left the school and went to the supermarkets to pick up food donations for the school. Soon enough we were finally home, and finally we all had showers. Sweet sweet blessed showers. Within no time I fell asleep, into one of the best sleeps of my life.
-Z
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