It Takes a Long Time to Get Far From Home

So I knew when I chose this destination that it obviously was not around the corner. This was proven to me during the travel here. About 25 -26 hours is a long time. Thankfully I didn’t have to go this journey alone, but shared it with about 30 other students in my program. Unfortunately though, on the 18 hour plane trip from DC to Johannesburg I was placed across an aisle from anyone else in our group, close enough to interact, but too far to really share the time. This was also limited by the fact that we all had our own personal TVs with quite a few options of movies and TV shows to watch, so everyone was in their own world. Thankfully the people that I was sitting next to were very nice: a mother returning home to Zambia from visiting her daughter at college in DC and a son returning to his home country of Zimbabwe to visit a sick mother. These two people were pretty much the best that one could ask for as far as sitting next to on a plane.

Eventually we reached our destination in Cape Town to find our AIFS director waiting for us. Throughout the trip I got a chance to chat with a few different people and become friendly with a handful. However based on who I was placed around on the plane and the significant ratio of more girls than guys, it was mainly girls I got to meet. I had gotten to chat with some of the other guys at the airports a little bit, but come roommate selection time outside the Cape Town Airport I was the odd guy out when the 5 guys needed to find their partner. It really wasn’t that bad because I suspected it, they had gotten to sit near each other and I hadn’t. I also knew there were more guys that were meeting us, that had flown on different flights. When we loaded into a bus, a couple who had flown on their own sat in the seats behind me, so I turned and told Pablo that he was stuck with me. I definitely lucked out because he is a really cool guy and we get along well. (Note: It’s a week in and I love Pablo) The only downfall is that neither of us know how to cook so meals should be interesting, but at least it won’t be hard to find someone to skip cooking and go to the student center to buy something instead with me.

When we finally arrived on campus they gave us our flats. This took a long time to figure out and, since the bus couldn’t fit through the guard station, a pretty good walk with our bags. Since Pablo and I were a little easygoing and passive, when they would ask “I need 2 boys” we were never quick to jump and ended up in the last one, but it’s all the same. We even got very friendly neighbors, other international students, who were partying. They came over and were trying hard to persuade us to join them, but after our trips we were ready to pass out. My favorite line that I heard was “I refuse to return to the party without you… and I really want to go back to the party.” We settled in and just passed out.