Making Lemonade


I know everyone and their dog has a blog these days, and most of them are oh-so-interesting, but I thought there would be a few of you saying 'what is Our Claire playing at over in Africa?!' so I figured this would be the easiest way to keep you all updated without having to send out a million emails!


In December I was made redundant along with all my other lovely wic babes from our much-loved (well, for the most part!) home at the walk-in centre in Leeds. We had known it was coming for some time and I had been thinking about going back to Africa since my trip last year, so I thought why not? As they say, when you are given lemons, make lemonade, hence the name of the blog! I'm not always that good at lemonade-making though but I am giving it my best effort and loving it!


Booking the Great African Adventure


It was a couple of days before New Years Eve that I booked my trip with African Impact to work as a research & conservation volunteer at the Thanda Game Reserve, about three hours north of Durban. Here is a link to my project...

http://www.africanimpact.com/volunteer-projects/projects/african-wildlife-big-5-conservation-project-kwazulu-natal-south-africa/details




Growing up in South Africa I have always loved the bush and often wondered if I could actually live there full time (I have always been very jealous of Saba Douglas-Hamilton, I am sure that is the life I was supposed to lead!) 

Saba Douglas-Hamilton

and I thought two weeks would give me enough time to see how I felt about it. After finishing work at the wic on Dec 16th and trying very hard to pretend I was just on holiday over Christmas rather than being unemployed, I eventually looked at some job websites that were so thoroughly uninspiring that it gave me the final push to book my adventure with AI. 


There followed three manic weeks of trying to figure out what I would need, where could I buy a vast array of olive green vest tops (its the bush not a fashion parade you know, and the answer is nowhere really, apart from BHS or Primark men's department!), several trips to Go Outdoors and Millets to debate the merits of a 20l vs a 30l backpack and numerous changes of mind on purchases that resulted in many a return to said places, not to mention the great waterproof jacket debate! 
Finally I was as ready as I would ever be and the day came to get the train to Manchester Airport for my Great African Adventure to begin! Got to MIA no problems, got checked in ok (despite the huge panic at home packing a suitcase that never seemed to get any lighter no matter how much I took out of it!) and went through security. Right, now what I thought?? I was starting to feel a bit trepidatious at this point, as I suppose is only normal when you are embarking on a Great African Adventure alone, but I was determined to stick to my motto for the trip of 'don't sweat the small stuff', as anyone who knows me will know I have a slight tendency to be a bit of a worrywort. However, the next 24 hours severely tested my resolve as it was one of the worst travel experiences I have ever had!!


24 hours of travel hell, part one


I have travelled on my own before and not had to many mishaps, I negotiated the hop-on/hop-off bus in Singapore on my own at 21, so I wasn't too worried. I boarded my Air France flight from Manchester to Paris that was due for take-off at 7.50pm on Friday 19th January 2012, and thought 'this is it, no turning back now!' Thirty minutes later we were still sat on the runway as I was slowly freaking out, bearing in mind that once I got to Paris I had one hour to get my connecting flight to Jo'berg and not having been to Charles de Gaulle for a while I didn't really know where I was going. 


The row of passengers in front of me were getting a connection to Rio (fancy) and were moved up to the front of the plane so that they would be the first off so they could get their connection, which very slightly reassured me that my situation must be a lot better since I wasn't being moved up to the front. Near to landing the flight attendants were going along the rows telling various people who had connections to Hong Kong and Singapore that they would be met by the ground crew and driven along to the right terminal, again, no one mentioned the Jo'berg flight. I eventually asked a rather grumpy French flight attendant and he assured that I had nothing to worry about, that it was three minutes to my terminal. Ok, now I can relax I thought. I thought wrong.


24 hours of travel hell, part 2


We landed with about thirty mins to spare and all that we were met with was two ground crew holding up a bit of paper that read 'Johannesberg' and an arrow pointing one way. Hmmm, not so helpful. I felt better that I wasn't the only wild-eyed frantic-looking person running around CDG from my flight, and once I had overheard a South African couple discussing the same flight as mine I figured so long as I kept them in my sights I would be heading in the right direction! There followed a mad dash that involved actual running through the airport complete with my shiny new 30l backpack to find this terminal that was supposedly 'three minutes away', and then we all came to an abrupt halt as we came to a train! A Train?? Well, now we were flummoxed, which train did we need, which direction where we going?? But I stuck close to my new South African friends (I wonder if they were doing the same as me??) and we finally got to the right terminal, phew. But then of course there was security to get through. And of course my line had the dollybird in front who kept setting off the beeper and instead of taking off everything metal in one go seemed to think  that one at a time was a better idea. And of the course the security man wanted to search my bag, of course he did! He confiscated my water, which was annoying but not surprising, and as the same thing had happened to me in Amsterdam on a previous trip and we weren't allowed to take any bottles on board, I didn't bother looking for a replacement once through security. 


So, finally through the security, keeping a beady eye out for anyone else I recognised from my Manchester flight to make sure I was in the right queue, we finally started boarding. The flight was due to leave at 23.20, it was one of those fancy Airbus ones and I had booked a seat upstairs. So I fight my way along to my seat, passing all the lovely First and Business seats and get along to Economy thinking, this is pretty nice, but of course that was Premier Economy that I hadn't bothered paying extra for, so I was well and truly in the cheap seats. I had booked an aisle on a row of four hoping that I would get an empty seat next to me or that at least the three people in the rest of my row would all be travelling together and therefore not need me to let them out for toilet breaks! It looked promising as there was one guy sat on the other end of the row, and two spare seats in-between. So I sat my very hot and sweaty self down, thinking, phew made it, all will be good now. Ended up with a very nice English couple sat next to me for the flight who very kindly didn't get up once the whole flight. But was most annoyed to see several people with water bottles, darn, foiled again!! 


It was about 23.40 by this time and people were still boarding but I figured that we would be a bit late since our flight from Manchester was late and it seemed that quite a few people from that flight were on this one too. After another fifteen minutes people started getting restless and muttering and the very French captain comes on the tannoy to say that we are going to be slightly delayed by a medical emergency. Ok, well, what can you do? Another thirty minutes later another message, they are waiting for a doctor to assess this person to see if they are fit to fly. Stress levels starting to soar again; another announcement to say the person is being taken off the plane and once they get his luggage off we will be good to go. And then another announcement that there is some kind of fault with some kind of de-icer thing on the wing, so we now have to wait thirty minutes for an engineer to arrive to check it out!! Oh the need for a G&T is increasing by the second! Eventually two and a quarter hours later, we are ready for take off. And you know what? Guess how much time I have in Jo'berg Airport to catch my connection to Durban? Yup, two and a half hours. Of course.