Welcome

What's up bloggosphere? So following on from where the last post left off I was picked up from Joburg airport straight away and was driven straight to the South Africa OM base which is just outside Pretoria.

 It was a good journey though I was very thirsty having been on an air conditioned plane for  11 1/2 hours (it drys the air out ALOT) followed by a 40 minute journey in a very hot car when I am dressed for English sub 0 temperatures so I had a good chat with one of the base leaders who also happens to be a fellow photographer!? She shoots Nikon but everything will be fine keep your hats on. We pulled into the base which was more spacious that I was expecting (not that I had many expectations I had never really thought what it would look like.)

 It was a lot like arriving at school once again - a whole bunch of new faces and names except almost none of them have English as their first language - such an insane environment! I can't imagine what it would be like to be in this already fairly intimidating environment with a language barrier on top of that. Anyway I introduced myself and went about getting to know people. Fortunately for me I was not the last to arrive - The South Africans had not yet arrived (they comprise 50% of the team) so the group scaled as I got to know people which was a nice manageable pace. I think I could now tell you most of the names of the 50 people on the team though I sometimes struggle remembering the ones that I cannot pronounce! I am amazed that I have managed to learn names so quickly and am very glad - life here would be difficult without being able to call people by name. Day 1 we were all informed that curfew was at 10pm when lights had to be out ( not something I was bothered about having not slept much on the flight) and that we would be meeting at 6 am so a 5:30 start would be necessary - less chuffed about that one. 6 Am the following morning I was surprisingly able to remain conscious but all the same I was very thankful for the abundance of normal tea and an instant hot water machine!

 It is nice to have a few home comforts. Talking of which the strangest thing happened when talking to one of my Swiss team mates having the same conversation as with everyone else - what's your name? where do you come from? Upon hearing that I was from Bristol she suddenly comes out with 'Gurt lush!' which was more shocking that all of the difference in culture landscape climate and pace of life I had experienced so far. She has just 4 weeks ago finished working for Carmel Church Bristol for 3 months. It is a small world after all ehy?

However I wouldn't want you all to think that I am not experiencing the 'true Africa' I have been eaten alive by mosquitoes, experienced mould in the showers, had to kick lizards out my shoes in the morning and woken up to the most amazing sun rise I have ever seen.

O.K Far too many words not enough pictures ...

As usual - best til last

Flight

I am currently typing out this blog post in note pad at exactly 37000 feet acording to my in flight information screen. I figure there are few other opportunities that I will get to do this and the in flight films are not that great so why not (I just watched Green Latern - suffice to say that I am very glad that I paid nothing towards that film whatsoever).

I could of course be sleeping but I am far too excited to be doing that. In the limited number of flights that I have been on in my life this has got to be one of the smoothest - I was in the airport in ample time, I spent almost all of my time in the departure lounge on the phone (making the most of the remaining free minutes on my contract which will cancle itslef in 5 days time) to friends and relatives saying final goodbyes before the 6 month marathon. Following this I entered my nearly empty boarding lounge which I thought was unsurprising given that I was still pretty early but then we started boarding with business class being called through almost as soon as I entered the lounge. within 5 minutes the familes with young children had been called then the section infront of mine ( I have no idea how that section was called seperatley fron business class given that my seat is in the very front of economy?) and then my section of the plane it was at this point that I had the suspiscion that my flight might be quite sparsley populated. Boom! upon finding my seat and double checking that there really are no power points in economy?! ~ yes I am having to type this on the very limited battery time of my laptop, sped on all the more by the fast beats of the 'Church music' album that I mentioned last post and yes you still should buy it if you have not already.

 So powerless (pun very much intended) to do anything about the situation I took my seat. Still texting friends and family at this point I sat looking out the window into the artificially lit night as the occasional snow flake drifted past my port-hole window ( which incidently according to seatguru.com did not exist) 20 minutes past and departure time was drawing all the nearer and the fuselage was not looking any more populated that last time I had looked. At this point I decided to make a journal entry. Yes I keep a very speradic journal of all incredibly important life events and quite a lot of completley meaningless events and a few events whose imporance ranges between the two. So I thought you all might like to see how apauling my handwriting is when I am writing on my lap and am rather excited so here is a picture ..

Don't worry, I have typed it out here so you can see just how bad the handwriting is ...

 '30.01.12 On the plane @ Heathrow airport and it's snowing outside the window . I know that only 11 1/2 hours away is 30oC South Africa and what I hope to be the most life changing 6 months of my life. The flight is looking pretty empty and there are no small children aboard so all is set for an easy + Safe flight through the night. Even managed to take a few sneaky snaps through the window - didn't manage to get any snow flakes in though - would have been a nice contrast shot between Snow ~ London ~ Night

 and Sun ~ Johannesburg ~ Morning. I have just looked across + realised that there is not even one person on the same bulkhead row as me. never been on a flight so empty before. Dream!

and If you are wandering what the random drawing at the bottom is I decided that rather than taking a photo of the random fuselage friends I would be sharing a flight with for the next 11 1/2 hours it would be easier to draw a small birds eye view map of just how empty the plane was with me indicated in the top right and first class above me.

So if you are reading this then yes the flight went smoothly enough for me to have landed in Joburg and have found a way to an internet connection and copied and pasted this text onto the blog. I am now going to stop typing and take the pictures off my camera and edit them for super speedy uploading with the reamining battery life I have left on my laptop which is 77% that is some dang fast typing Ben - well done. P.S. Have just finished editing the first lot of photos (I am expecting there will be a few more when we land I have 44% battery - Speedy editing .Peace.

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