Saturday morning came and my alarm rang at the ungodly hour of 6:30am. I rubbed my eyes and tried to emotionally prepare myself for the beginning of a long journey. I hauled my stuff outside to meet the crisp air of Manzini, Swaziland. Joy and I had to leave early to catch the 7:00am kombi to Pretoria, South Africa. We loaded our things into the van and off we were. Upon arrival, everything seemed to be in order. We found our kombi, met our driver, confirmed cost, distance, vehicle and readied ourselves for the 5 or so hour trip.
The honest time sensitivity distance of Africa gave us grace for the 30 or so minute delay. We were the only two in the kombi for the time being and we sat and watched our driver cut up with his other driving buddies taking his sweet time to get things ready. An hour went by and we decided to “check in” with our driver to see what the hold up was. As he came over, he clarified that we would be leaving by 10:00am. “What?!” we asked – we had forgotten that public transportation typically relies on as many customers as possible being present before the service was to be rendered. We settled down for the now 2 hour delay in the freezing cold van. We read, did Sudoku, chatted with an Australian student and watched as other passengers slowly began to arrive. By the time 10am arrived, we were more than ready to get our trip underway. 10:00 came and went, 10:30 came and went (with the progress so far being the turning on of the car to warm up the engine), 11:00 came and went. Finally at 11:15 we were returned our passports, and we boarded for our trip out. The trip to Pretoria was somewhat uneventful except for a 20 minute stop on the side of the highway as we waited for some “last minute” passengers (remember, we were supposed to leave at 10:00) were shuttled out to meet us.
We finally made it to Pretoria when we discover that our driver is not actually stopping in Pretoria but continuing on to Rustenburg. He suddenly pulls over and tells us that this is the best place for us to disembark. The location was the side of the road across the street from a shady looking set of kombis. We went on my intuition and past visit to Pretoria to try and find the train station to catch a cab out to Alabanza where we were to spend the night. Directions from some fellow pedestrians convinced us that it was a very far walk and that we should just take a kombi to the station. Since I was carrying Joy’s incredibly heavy bag, I agreed this to be the best course of action and we returned to the bus lot. We had 3 men argue over the best way to get us to a taxi when finally one directed us to the van he assured us would get us as close as possible to our destination and where we could find a taxi. We piled in (having to pay extra for the space our luggage took up) and took off shortly thereafter.
I was apprehensive to say the least about where our actual destination was to be and when we began to leave the city in a direction I decidedly knew was wrong, I questioned the driver who assured us we were headed in the right direction. I allowed this to linger about 2 more minutes before I began plaguing the other passengers for more accurate information. A guy named Macdonald whom Joy had struck up a conversation with began to ask clarifying questions about our intended destination and upon our reply broke into a grin and compassionately told us we were headed in the exact opposite direction.
I lost it.
I KNEW we were headed the wrong direction, I KNEW not to trust the advice of some kombi managers who saw us for the dollar signs we obviously were and yet here we were, stranded in the middle of nowhere with absolutely no possibility of remedying our situation. Macdonald, either in a move of complete pity or genuine good-heartedness, told us to wait with him that he would make some phone calls and see what he could do. In a complete act of sovereign grace, his parents were nearby and would be happy to give us a ride where we needed to go. We carried our luggage (still Joy’s incredibly heavy pack on my back) to Macdonald’s house and met his parents who delivered on their word and graciously gave us the ride we needed to Alabanza.
We had a great night connecting with Agapetos and 3 of the C squad teams (Concrete, DOZ, and Awaken). Early the next morning however, our reunion was over and we were off to the airport to say goodbye to Africa and begin the last phase of our WorldRace experience – the trek to Asia.
We had a fairly uneventful trip from Joburg to Mumbai, India where I had truly the most unorthodox airport experience of my life.
Despite the fact that our now useless Indian visas were still good, Joy and I truly wanted to avoid the process of having to go through customs. To their tribute, the airport staff in Mumbai were incredibly helpful – actually too much so. They waited on us hand and foot to get us through the process we needed of checking into our next flight and getting our luggage transferred to our connecting flight. We were consistently in the dark on what was going on, however, and were left in various random hallways and waiting points while our new friends handled the details of our transfer for us. A 30 minute absence of a staff member who happened to have our tickets and passports through me into somewhat of a panic, not to mention that our layover was 1am to 4am (which, due to weather conditions, became 6am). At one point, one of the staff members told me I had to accompany him to identify our baggage before they would transfer the bags to the new plane. I agreed and followed him down a long corridor, down a sketchy elevator, out onto the actual jetway (I’ve been frisked, wanded, questioned, passport checked etc. by 4-5 guards at various checkpoints by now) and into the baggage area under the airplanes. Our bags were there, unscathed on a random cart being guarded by yet another “friendly” helper. I verified the bags, returned to the waiting area where they finally released our captive boarding passes and on we were on our way through security and onto our plane to Bangkok.
We slept most of that flight, but arrived to Bangkok to the waiting arms of the YWAM staff and friends who have treated us like royalty since we arrived. Don’t tell my fellow WorldRacers this but we have a day at a spa including massage and an assortment of other relaxing treatments waiting for us to be followed by a night at an authentic Thai restaurant, a visit to Starbucks and a movie out (I think Transformers is what we’ve agreed on). I’m a little jet lagged (5 hour difference from Africa) but finally able to relax after the chaos that was our journey here. Praise God for His protection and provision – may He never have to teach me more lessons about dependence on Him…seriously.
