We’re officially in South Africa, but there’s not much to update just yet. After our long flight from Atlanta to Johannesburg, our squad has been staying at our soccer ministry site for the last two days. Today they all left for Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Zambia.
As for us, we’re still figuring out the plan. Apparently, there are no soccer camps this month or much help needed here, so we’re relocating to Pretoria, a city about two hours north. I honestly have no idea what we’ll be doing there, so it will be an adventure. At first I was bummed about not getting to go to the African bush or any of the rural places the other groups are headed to, but I’m now excited to see what God has in store for us in Pretoria. We’ll have lots of other crazy opportunities down the road.
But South Africa is great so far. The springtime climate is awesome and feels like summer back home with 80 degrees and light wind with cooler nights. Also, the night sky is crazy to see because it’s so different down this far in the southern hemisphere. It’s hard to believe how far away we are geographically.
It honestly hasn’t even hit me that we’re in Africa. Everything feels third world, but from the surroundings we could be anywhere. The main difference I’ve noticed so far from other countries is the people. Here I not only feel the tallest, but also the whitest.
I haven’t had many chances to talk to locals, but there’s one weird thing I’ve noticed. I like to pick up words from the local languages whenever I travel and I was excited to learn some Afrikaans, which comes from the original Dutch brought down by the settlers. But whenever I’ve asked how to say phrases, I haven’t had any good responses. One guy even said he only spoke English, when I clearly heard him speaking Afrikaans before. But later I was informed that locals don’t like to have their languages be spoken by outsiders. This goes for a lot of other languages nearby, so I might not be learning any for the next couple months.
The flight here was enjoyable, but 15 hours is a long time to spend in one place. I’m not jetlagged at all because of a really inconsistent sleep schedule this weekend. (I’ve found that’s the easiest way to adapt to a new time zone.) In a 60-hour period, I only took about 10 hours of airplane naps and finally got some sleep at the correct South African nighttime.
One reason we didn’t sleep was our awesome overnight layover in New York City. I’d never been there before, but we owned the city that night. With the help of coffee and street food, we stayed up all night to explore the subway system and see all the well known places like Times Square, Wall Street, Battery Park, and Greenwich Village. We also took the Staten Island ferry by the Statue of Liberty and tried to see the sunrise over the NYC skyline.
Anyway, this has been the first internet access we’ve had in Africa, courtesy of the KFC in the mall. I don’t really know what’s up next, but we’re headed to Pretoria tomorrow. I’ll write an update when I can! 🙂
