Saturday Farmer's Market

Our London Layover

Day 7

For the first week it was just me, Josh, Mom, and Paul.  Paul is a missionary and works to help people suffering with HIV, AIDS, and TB.  Yesterday Aly (Paul's wife) arrived back from a personal trip to Ontario.  Aly had the vision of what she wanted for the soap and we started on the projects today.

We are setting out to make soap for sale, and HIV and TB patients.  This morning me, Josh, Mom, and Aly walked to one of the malls close to their house.  We picked up some supplies that we hadn't packed to make soap, and had lunch at the mall.  Around 12:30 we started walking back.

Once we got home we started cleaning out the garage.  Which is where we are planning on making the soap.  Around supper time we moved to cutting soap.  Then out of no where little drops of rain started to sprinkle the bars of soap on the deck table.  It was a race to get the soap inside and then we had to get all of the stuff that we had previously moved out of the garage onto the driveway....back into the garage.  It took about 15 minutes to get it all inside...filling up the nice clean space we had made just for it.

Afterwards me and Josh or me with a sleeping Josh watched a movie.  At the most important part of the movie supper was (as always) ready.  We finished supper, and I finished the movie after (it had a happy ending).  Aly then drove us to the mall so that we could use the internet and she is picking us up in 6 minutes.  So I am rushing through this blog post.  I am so sorry it has been short, and I have not been able to post any pictures but I will as soon as I can. 

-Z

Orientation Week/Lack Of Internet

Wow, ok wow.....wow.  It has been a long long time since I have had the chance to blog and a copious amount of events have happened.  The guilty party for this situation is the internet, or lack of as it seems.  The internet where we are staying is not working.  I think a power line has been down and it has taken this long to get fixed... **sigh**  It honestly doesn't matter why, the fact is that I have had no internet and I have a lot to write because of it. 

Let's make a deal, it is going to be completely one sided (you have no way of agreeing) and also because it only benifits me (sorry).  I am going to give an example of how one can make a movie-montague in a blog post (again...sorry) **cew awesome background music**.

 Orientation Week:
we visited the school, picked up food donations, made beads out of paper.  We visited the market, hugged kids, organized a new library, made hand-butters **slowmoe cool walk**, **I fall**, went to the zoo, went out for supper, watched various movies.  In our spare time walked to the mall.....three times, soaked in a hot tub, and then there was today...I will get to that in the next post.

-Z

Day 1

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

London

The plane ride from Halifax to Heathrow was 5 hours…I didn’t sleep.  I watched a movie all night and  then still couldn’t sleep for whatever reason.  When breakfast came we all ate it.  I have to mention that I have a pact, a pact to never eat airplane food…I broke that pact.  Right after I felt nauseas and was shaking then sweating but I was freezing.   I was also worried what happened in China would happen again.  You see we went to China when I was 9.  The plane rides all together were 17 hours in the air.  I didn’t sleep for any of that.  Then once we got to China I didn’t sleep very well at all for another 2 days.  In the end I was throwing up for about 3 – 4 days, it was bad. 

So there I am with no sleep in the past 24 hours and I feel nauseas, anyone would be freaking out if they had a travel past like mine, although as it goes I didn’t throw up, once.   I took my mind off the nausea by focusing on the passing lands outside of my window.  This was the first time I had ever seen any part of Great Britain.  I hate to confirm that it was everything I had heard about it, well...in the air it was anyways.  We were flying over the country side where the dark green fields stretched out as far as I could see.  There were little farms connected together with roads like thread, weaving through the green silk fields.  Sometimes the threads led to little towns, were all the houses seemed to have the same roof.  The towns were small and layed out in the way where you can tell no blueprint was used to make it look pretty to birds.  No, the placement of these homes and businesses were decided on this conversation…

Character 1. “Jonathon got married to that baker girl down the way” 

Character 2. “Ah! He’s goin be needin a house for that one”

Character 1. “sure will” “hey, there’s that spot by the creek, no one live there since the tax collector died”

Character 2. **coughs on his drink**

Moving on, another thing that I had never seen was fog.  And don’t get me wrong I have seen fog on ground level scatter a field in PEI like steam off of coffee.  But  I have never seen fog stretch out over little towns, running through streets and running around houses.  What shocked me is that only the towns for the most part were blanked in fog.  Like another one of God's jokes, only fog resides where the people are, but step out of town and it is hazy fields with grey skies for miles, not one blanket of evaporated water to be seen, just grey.

When we got off the plane I was feeling much better, a little queasy but still better.  Although on the other hand my mom wasn’t feeling so well.  We found her a washroom and it took about an hour of pacing in an out and around the Heathrow airport with excrutiating  nausea till she threw up.

She was still feeling very very sick after. So I went back to our luggage pile and Josh who was guarding it to see if we could go get some medicine.  First I looked through all of our bags to see if I had packed the kind of medicine that we needed as it goes I hadn’t (later I found out that I had packed it, but my mom thought we wouldn’t need it so she packed it in out check in bag)….We decide to go look for some medicine.  As I pick up my backpack everything falls out…I forgot the close it after I went through everything. I knelt down and put all of it back in.  After a little bit of looking around Josh decides to go to the next floor to look for some medicine, and I decided that I should go back to see my mom, I find her wandering around looking very sick.  We start walking back to the bathroom and I tell her that I am going to contact my dad to tell him what’s going on.  I sit down and start going through my backpack looking for a little bag that I had stored my iPhone, charger, and headphones. I can’t find it.  A while passes and I have looked in every carry on bag we have.  By this time I am freaking out,  still a little sick, still haven’t slept, still worried about my mom, and now I have lost my phone in the Heathrow airport.  I go through the passes, I look around the area, I go to the information desk, I go to the lost and found, I get their number.  By the time I am walking back to where Josh is standing with our tour guide who has arrived to take us around London I am just holding on. 

I do my best to get away from them (no offense Josh if you see this)  I go to see my mom and ask her if she feels well enough to go for a tour. Once I get to my mom like a little spoiled girl I don’t ask her how she is, I cry, about my lost iPhone, in the Heathrow airport, on my way to see children who go day after day without food, it wasn’t my best moment.  Eventually we decide to go on a tour.  We get to the car, and I honestly can’t tell you my first impression of London, because for the first little bit of the car ride I couldn’t open my eyes.  It was one of those moments were you know you are awake, you know you are tired, you know perfectly well how amazing sleep would feel, and you know you should be awake.  But I am telling the complete truth when I say, I didn’t have enough energy to force my eyes open, and trust me I was trying.

The tour went for pretty much the whole day.  When I finally woke up London was spectacular.  Every home was brick with white washed window frames and perfectly clean glass windows.  The city was kept so well, it was SO clean.  We saw Buckingham palace, Big Ben, many red buses, many statues, Westminster Abbey, the Wellington Arch, The Thames, and  streets with shops that God himself must of created.  stores that looked so perfect I couldn’t have dreamt them better.  I focused on the people and as my best friend Jennee knows all about, I studied their clothes.  And what I can tell you is that the style of London is the people, their clothes were impeccable.  The cuts, the colors, the class.  The style of most people was sophisticated, classy, preppy, and classic.  I felt like I was in a dream, everyone cared about what they put on that morning.  I was in heaven.

We stopped for lunch around 2 at a pub.  We were seated in the reserved section upstairs.  Josh ate fish and chips, me and my mother had mushroom soup and salads.  We both didn’t eat our salads.  I think it had to do with still feeling sick.  During lunch as we are laughing about the events of that morning, and how horrible our luck is our waitress comes upstairs.  She in a very nervous tone tells us that a tour car just got pulled away by a tow truck.  At first I kind of laughed, worse has happened I thought, we can just get a taxi to the airport.  Then…..my expression hit the floor as I remembered what was in the car.  My passport! I was so mad at this point.  Then as I remembered Josh reminded us of something else that was in the car.  His insulin, he would get really sick really fast if he didn’t get some and possibly die if he didn’t get enough.  This trip is just getting so much better.  So we get what’s left of our lunch to go and head to the street to see if our tour guide was the one that got pulled away.  Sure enough there he is talking to a construction worker and sure enough the car is parked down the street. I started breathing again.

 After lunch we visted an art meuseum.  Soon enough we were back at the Heathrow airport in terminal 5 waiting for our next flight to Johannassburg.  For a while I lie on the floor with blankets under me and my coat over me with my backpack as a pillow.  I didn’t care if I looked homeless.  I was tired and still mad about my phone, because I had 10 hours of flying ahead of me and no music, no games, no iPhone (I have broken all records for spoiled at this point, trust me I know).  Finally they announce our gate number Josh wakes me up, we find my mom, and we head off to our gate.  We have to take a shuttle to get there and a couple very tall escalators to get there, but we do.

We watch the people in line shuffle along to get on the plane.  Honestly I didn’t want to spent any more amount of time on that plain than I had to.  So we waited till “last boarding call for flight number ***** to Johanasburg”.  We then move, Once we settle into our seats I start my pretperation.  It takes a little bit for me to relax into the seat but by the time the wheels leave the ground I am in perfect harmony with the chair.  And as soon as the seat belt sign dings I recline trying my best to no feel guilty about the person behind me, and I fall asleep for the next 10 hours…and the best thing my phone didn’t cross my mind once.

-Z

Take off

The cabin has prepared for take off.  Everyone has been seated and everyone is ready.  The cabin is dark.  The plane is taxiing towards the runway.  I watch the little lights on the runway go by.  I am holding my breath waiting for that moment, waiting for something amazing to happen. I am waiting for the drug.

The wheels start to move faster and the engine starts to roar with determination.  It means business.  The world outside is moving so fast now it is passing me by, turning into a blur of my past.

And then it hits me, I am breathing it in, It runs through my lungs,  my veins are pumping it through me, the rhythm is getting louder inside my body.  I turn into it, my body, my mind, I am not me any more I am it.  Then everything around turns too.  It takes the air, the energy consumes the world I see nothing but red, swirling, explosive, happiness.  I have a lump in my throat, I have a spark in my heart, I am smiling with tears blurring my eyes, it is travel, I am travel.  Travel is my drug. 

-Z