Jambe!

MY GOODNESS, it has been a complete whirlwind ever since I last updated this blog! These past three weeks have been marked by visa complications, last minute passport photos, surprise birthday planning, family events, school finals and a good shock of dental nightmares. However, as much as I want to tell those stories, some things are better when left with suspense! For the time being, here is our trip itinerary:


July 4th (Day 1)
We -Michelle, Denise, myself and our respective families - arrive at YYC Calgary International Airport to board our flight to our layover at the London Heathrow Airport. We are so lucky to live in the age of technology and information; through Facebook, we have connected with many other volunteers from around the globe who we will  be participating in our program and will meet in person in Capetown! By some incredibly lucky chance, a fellow Canadian volunteer - named Kara -  is flying from her home in Winnipeg and is boarding the same flight as us from Calgary! I am so excited to meet everyone, how lucky are the four of us to get a head start!? As I said before, serendipity is a mysterious and beautiful force.  

Flight from Calgary to Heathrow; hopefully it stays on time!

I am very pleased that our travel agent Jackie Dutka booked us an overnight flight to London; I have seen the wreckage that is the disturbance of my father's circadian rhythm and it is not a pleasant sight.
The flight is approximately 9 hours long, just enough to squeeze in some sleep while we flee from the sun.

July 5 (Day 2...kindof)
Because flying is an expensive form of time travel, we will arrive in London at around 2 pm their time, while only travelling the aforementioned 8 hours. We have a five hour layover in the airport - not nearly enough time to sneak away to Buckingham, sadly - but that gives us just enough time to grab a bite to eat and wake up for our next flight.... Of which is 12 hours long! I have never been on a plane for that long, so I will definitely be packing a good book, cards and art supplies.

We are essentially flying from pole to pole

Even though she tried to switch her flight, Kara will not be joining us on our flight to Capetown. She will arrive a few hours later than ourselves, but looking at the big picture, we have the whole 30 days to experience and get to know all of the volunteers, locals, and of course, the kids!


July 6th (Day 3)
We arrive in Capetown at 8 am their time, having travelled this time one hour into the future. GREAT SCOT! Hopefully all goes well while we are filtered through customs, and we are able to find the driver that IVHQ hired to take us to our residence!
Total travel time: 26 hours

July 7th (Day 4)- Volunteering begins!
All volunteers will have arrived by this time, and we will spend the whole day in orientation with the Dreams To Reality staff, of whom we will be working for (they are partnered with IVHQ). We will get a crash course in everything South African!
The wonderful thing about IVHQ is that they allow you choose the amount of time that you want to volunteer in any given location. You could volunteer for only a week, or for as long as six months. That means that many of the people that we meet will either be coming or going, and we will be overlapping with other volunteer's arrivals and departures. Michelle, Denise and I are volunteering for 30 days, from the 7th until August 2nd.

August 2nd (Day 30)
Our volunteering ends and we say goodbye to the people we have met and the place we have temporarily called our home. We depart from Capetown to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe to begin our tent safari with Intrepid Travel!
We will have an hour and a half layover in Johannesburg, which means that we will not be leaving the airport. I only mention this because of the city's reputation for being very dangerous, although we will still be on high alert and be aware of our surroundings and luggage while waiting to board.


Here is what our 10 day tour will be in a nutshell:

We will be camping at night and travel overland!

August 11 (Day 39) - Goodbye Africa
We begin our journey back home by boarding a flight from Johannesburg to our layover in London at 7 am London time, and board in Heathrow on our flight home to Calgary at 6:15 pm. That is a total of 11 hours of layover, who knows what we will get up to! (Buckingham, anyone? ... If we are not falling to pieces with exhaustion of course!)

August 12 - Welcome Home
This time, we will chase the sun on our flight back. Thankfully, we arrive at 8:40 pm Calgary time, just late enough to justify going to bed.




I cannot believe that I am leaving in 5 days, especially since this is something that the three of us have been planning for just under a year. I cannot wait to have my life turned upside down by the very Africanness of Africa. I am sure that I will find better words to describe the change that I hope to feel once I am there. I am so grateful to be able to experience this with some of my favourite people on this earth. I cannot wait to meet the rest of you, the people that in the future will teach me. I cannot wait to help and be a part of something that sincerely matters.


Until next time,

Jenn

Oh hello! I am a 19 year old Canadian woman with a taste for spices and new experiences. In addition to following my passion for art by studying at the Alberta College of Art and Design, I fill my free time (if there is any, let's be real) by playing instruments and singing a tune. Although I am very passionate about art and music, nothing trumps the latter like my love of adventure and the human race. I know that as a Canadian I have been given what many people in the world do not have: peace, stability, economic freedom, political freedom, rights and more. Even more than that, when you have only known this kind of life, it is very easy to be ignorantly comfortable about the realities that face our world today. The realities that seem simple: like clean water and steady electricity, or even the fact that I live above a grocery store and I do not have to walk ten kilometers to make sure that I don't starve. I am not subject to civil wars or an extensively corrupt government (although some would argue that this is not true, given the recent findings of government spying uncovered by Edward Snowden), I do not fear for my life when walking down the street. I am educated - not only this, but I am educated in the arts, which typically are better funded in a good economy (comparatively). Although my country is facing its own pressing issues that should not be ignored, I know that I, as a Canadian, am extremely fortunate.
So what prompted me to leave? Why would I even dream of going to somewhere as foreign and potentially dangerous as Africa?
Let me make this easier to understand. 
In my first year at ACAD, we were required to take a humanities course that centered largely around philosophies and concepts of the great minds of history. Examples: Darwin, Thoreau, Plato, Marx. Something that has always stuck with me is Plato's allegory of the cave. Plato compares having only knowledge of living in a cave and the firelight that plays against the wall, with someone who has bravely emerged from the mouth of the cave and experienced daylight in the context of the knowledge of darkness. Essentially, you cannot know what true darkness is if you haven't experienced light. Choosing to be ignorant to either light or dark means that you can never grow, you can never truly understand anything. I am in the cave, the rest of the world is the light. We grow as a species by sharing, collaborating and respecting each other, and I want to spend the whole of my life being a positive part of humanity.


 Which brings me to explain what I will be trying to accomplish while there (in no particular order):

1. Help the people - Michelle, Denise and I are all assigned to childcare with the volunteer organization IVHQ. This role entails educating and playing with young children who have come from unfortunate circumstances.
2. Learn the language(s). South Africa is even more culturally diverse than Canada, and has twelve official languages. I thought that learning french was hard... bring it on! 
3. Immerse myself in the culture - try everything! 
4. Experience the landscape and the hidden treasures within it. You never know what you can find if you look hard enough... Or don't look at all; serendipity is a mysterious force. 
5. Maintain my safety. There are many pickpockets and other more serious offenses that could occur (Hint: this is one of the reasons that I am keeping this blog; I need to let people know that I am in fact alright). 
6. Embrace everything
7. Learn
8. Grow
9. Love

In my next post, I will talk more about the trip itself  and its itinerary.


Until next time,
Jenn