South Africa -- Days 16 & 17

We woke up this morning, Saturday, for our final day in South Africa. We had some final errands to run this day and wanted to get started. We had breakfast of cereal, toast and (real) bacon and headed out the door. We were going back to Steven and Toa’s. Mom and I had been looking for fabric to take back with us for friends and had been largely unsuccessful. Toa said she knew some places she could take us. We got to their house, packed up baby Zawadi and were off. The first place Toa took us was to a very Black shopping section that had all kinds of hair stores and other such things. Mom immediately saw some fabric she liked, but it looked very expensive to me. When Mom went to pay, the lady informed us her credit card machine was down and we would have to go to an ATM to get cash. Thank goodness, because that bought me a little time to do the math in my head. Once I converted the rands to dollars, I determined that Mom was about to spend over $200 on fabric for a friend’s daughter. I know this was not what she had in mind. I let her know that, and she of course did not want to do that. She asked Toa if we could check out the other place. We drove there, and this place had much more reasonable fabric, and a lot of prints. We each picked out a bolt of fabric and were happy with it. Jess got a gold with brown in it and I got purple with browns, as well. We stopped on the way home to pick up some soup for lunch and made our way back to Steven and Toa’s house. The guys had gone out and run some errands, and then stopped by Hooter’s for some wings. So we had lunch of wings with lamb and lentil soup with crusty bread. After that, we had to get going, as our departure time was coming up.

Since we were on an international flight, we had to be at the airport 3 hours early for check-in for our 9:40 flight. We got back to Mart’s, finished up our packing and ran back out the door. We got to the airport right around 6:30 – perfect timing! One mishap in the airport. Mom’s carryon bag was a little overweight. My checked bags were under, so the guy said to put some of her things into there. Mart unzipped my bag, opened Mom’s bag and tried to find some things to move. She finally determined there was nothing she wanted to be without for the 17 hour flight, and the guy was like, OK, don’t worry about it. We loaded Mom’s bags back onto the cart, then mart went to load my bags back on, didn’t realize he had never zipped my bag back up and dumped my entire bag with all my clothes all over the floor of the airport!! Skivvies and all! We managed to smush everything back in and got into the right line and checked in. Mart headed out, Jess and I went through security and decided to go into the shops to spend our last few rand. She picked up some bracelets for the boys, and I found some great coffees and spices in a shop called Taste of Africa. We headed towards our gate. On the way, we bought a couple sodas to drink once we were on the plane. As we neared our gate, we saw a huge line. Here, since they don’t screen like they do in the USA at the South African security gates, they were doing all the screening here. Everyone had to line up, be patted down, have their bags checked and dump out all liquids! In line at the gate for the plane! Thank God we were early, because this was over an hour before boarding time, and the line was already incredibly long. We finally made it through the line and onto the plane about 8:30 PM. We then sat and talked for the next hour until takeoff time.

Once we were finally in the air, it was about 10:00 PM. I decided to watch a movie until I got a little tired. After that, I took my evening pills and settled in for sleep. I had a wonderful nap until about 5:00 when we stopped in Dakar again to refuel and change flight crews. We were off again shortly thereafter – I couldn’t wait to get home! Finally, about 13 hours into the flight, but what was only 7:00 AM US time, we started preparing to get home. We had some snacks, I put on another movie and we started counting down the minutes. Finally, it was time to land. We landed, got our things, and headed off the plane. I asked Mom if it would be inappropriate of me to drop to my knees and kiss the ground! I was so happy to be home! We made it through Passport Control and Customs, found our shuttle and headed back to my Aunt’s to pick up the car. We did the 2 hour drive home, Cyn met me at my Mom’s house and after downloading 800 pictures for her, we were on the road back to REAL HOME, MY HOUSE! Got there, dragged the bags into one door, then went in through the kitchen door. There, I was greeted by a big “Welcome Home” sign and a huge cake!!!! How sweet is that?!!!! I was so happy to be back home! We had an excellent welcome home dinner, I had a big gift-giving session (I think everyone liked what I brought home) and I literally crashed into bed. The adventure had finally come to a close!

This was a wonderful, once-in-a-lifetime trip and I am so blessed to have been able to experience it. I saw things I will probably never again see in my life. But the thing I am most grateful for is how much it makes me appreciate HOME. I love my country, I love my home, I love my life. We don’t realize how fortunate we are until you see how others live. It is hard not to take things, to take life for granted. But I will try very hard not to do that going forward. I am truly fortunate, truly blessed. I am grateful every day for my life.