May to June 16

Roger, Jolene, Travis, Nicole, Lisa, Renae Weaver, and Erin Gotwals

ROGER:
Well the trip back to Africa has finally arrived. We arrived in Cape Town in three different groups. Travis and Erin left from Frankfurt, Germany after a stint in Europe. Nicole and I arrived three days before the others to research transportation options, and Jolene, Lisa, and Renae met Travis and Erin in Frankfurt and flew together to Johannesburg on the same flight. After years of saving frequent flyer miles for the trip (along with some fears when US Air declared bankruptcy), the dream has arrived. Jolene spent many hours on the phone, making all the flights fit together. The return flights are scheduled for four different times – it was a real puzzle to fit it all together.

Nicole and I spent a lot of time before the others arrived checking into car rentals, buy-back programs and purchasing a vehicle. We even went to two South African car auctions. Much leg work had been done on the internet before we arrived, but we thought it would work best to make the final decision after we get to Cape Town. We considered two cars, or a van large enough to accommodate all 7 of us, plus our camping gear. While trying to shake off our jet-lag (and sleeping at odd hours), we had it narrowed down to one of two vans. We test drove the one and actually were very close to buying it, but then happened to look at a Land Rover which we had not seriously considered, mainly because of space. After somebody looked in the back of one, and said they could sit on those benches, the idea quickly caught on and we changed our whole plan. All the work Nic and I did went out the window, and all of a sudden we were looking at other vehicles. We found a Land Rover we liked and started the process of purchasing it. I always thought that would be the most fun, but would not be an option. Now we are working at outfitting it (it does have most of what is needed) for some serious travel in the bush, and other routes and options are being considered. That is the nice thing about “winging” it and being able to plan and adapt as you go along.

Feelings to date:
1. It seemed strange to see the changes in South Africa since Apartheid has had a decent burial. The first thing that struck me on arriving at Cape Town was seeing black customs officials, and not feeling apprehensive around South African customs officials. Seeing mostly black flight attendants on South African Airlines was also a welcome sight. It was good having a great conversation with an Afrikaner who grew up in the Dutch Reformed tradition and spent years in the military, and has completely reversed his views on race issues. I also met some younger Afrikaners who were convinced the country has “gone to the dogs” since Apartheid is gone. I would hope they are the minority – I think South Africa has a great future – something I never thought I would be able to say when we last lived in southern Africa. Touring Robben Island and hearing our tour guide, who was a former political prisoner, talk about reconciliation and forgiveness was both touching and encouraging. Some of his former guards also work there, and he counts them as friends. It is an incredible history – something all of us should take to heart.
2. It feels great to be back in Africa, a place I love dearly. It is also a bit scary – how will this trip affect me? Will some of the feelings that made it so hard to return to the US after our years in Botswana again be brought to the forefront? If so, is that good, or bad – or both? Time will tell.
Roger


JOLENE:
No one seems to be in a blogging mood. And it’s bedtime, so this will be pretty short. Marc (brother-in-law) took Lisa, Renae & I to JKF on Sunday, June 10, for our 4:35 pm Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt. All went well, no problems with the bags or anything, and we arrived in Frankfurt the following morning at about 7 am (six hours ahead). Needless to say, we didn’t sleep very well sitting almost straight up all night, with the TV flickering all night. Lisa & Renae slept on benches in the airport for several hours, and I dozed off & on, until about 1 pm when we met Travis & Erin. Thankfully, they came so we didn’t have to spend our 16 hour layover at the airport all day – we took the train in to town with Travis as our guide. We went downtown and ate lunch, walked around, went through a cathedral, sat outside for awhile – it was a beautiful day, went to the same grocery store 4 times, ate ice-cream out of the same box with one spoon & various other utensils which passersby found rather amusing. Our flight left at 10:45 pm that night and arrived in Jo-burg the following morning where we had short layovers and then flew on to Cape Town, where Roger & Nicole were waiting for us. We were on three different flights from Jo-burg to Cape Town. Erin was alone on the first one; Lisa, Renae and I were on the second one, and Travis was on the third one, but all three arrived within 1 ½ hours of each other. All our bags came through and there were no real problems to speak of. The second night we all slept quite a bit better, but were still a bit jet-lagged.

Our hostel ‘The SaltyCrax Backpackers (buttpackers)’ is very nice, and we’ve made all our own meals in the kitchen here so far. We’re all in one big room but have our own two bathrooms with showers. We’re in the process of packing up stuff tonight so we can leave Cape Town in the morning & continue on the trip. We’ve spent enough time here & are ready to move on. The vehicle took awhile to figure out – and there are lots more details I could report, but we’ve bought a Land Rover (4x4). That means we can do all those off road things I thought I would never do again when we left Botswana 15 years ago!! The kids (& Roger) are very excited about the adventures we can have doing that, and I’m getting there. We hadn’t really thought we would get a vehicle like that, but a van that could haul all of us & our gear, but then we looked into this option, and it worked out, so that’s what’s happening. It’s hard to imagine we can get all that’s in our room yet, into that vehicle! But it will happen – it does have a roof rack where a good bit of it will go.
Jolene


TRAVIS:
So here we go. While I’ve been on the road for quite a while now, it’s very exciting to finally be in South Africa and to be getting ready to head out on our trip. I haven’t been in the States since the beginning of May, when I left to take a Mennonite/Anabaptist history course in Europe (my last class with Goshen College). The class lasted three weeks, and consisted of traveling by bus with 25 other students to different points of interest in Mennonite history. It was awesome to be traveling in Europe and seeing the places where my Anabaptist forebears lived and were persecuted and all of that. I really enjoy history in general, but learning about a history that I have a personal connection to was especially fun for me. Some of the highlights included: several nights spent with host families; getting to go back to the area of Germany where I spent the service portion of SST; having many, many excellent discussions about anything and everything with good friends; experiencing our roly-poly, hilarious Dutch bus driver Jan; listening to excellent lectures from arguably the best lecturer on campus in unique settings (like a meadow in the Swiss mountains near the “Anabaptist cave”); etc, etc. After that, I met Erin in Frankfurt, Germany and (like she already said) traveled with her and two other Goshen friends, Ben Yoder and Anita Hooley, for about 3 weeks. We spent time in southern Germany (in the Black Forest), Switzerland, Italy, Austria, and then Germany again. At the end, Erin and I spent a few days with my host family in Jena, where I was on SST in Germany. It was awesome to be able to reconnect with my family there, spend some time in the city, hang out with some of the kids that are there on SST now, and hike around the area a little bit. Until the last few weeks before I left for Germany, I hadn’t really considered spending time with my host family, so it was a sort of impromptu and unexpected surprise that I really enjoyed. Well anyway, that’s about all I’ve got to say. Now I’m here with my family, as you know. The only thing that I have to add to what the others have written is that I now own my very first vehicle, and in South Africa no less! That’s right, since we are purchasing a vehicle which I will then be reselling in Botswana after the family leaves, we have put it in my name (although my billfold is admittedly far, far to thin to support such an accomplishment on its own). I never thought that my first vehicle would be a Land Rover “Defender 110” (picture a Hummer, except way more hardcore, utilitarian, and square). Okay, well that’s all for me. Cheers-
Travis


ERIN:
OK, I don’t exactly know how this blog thing is supposed to work, other than that all the other kids are complaining about it, bribing me to do their blogging for them, and telling me I should be the first to write since I’m one of the only ones not loudly protesting. I guess I should introduce myself, for those of you who don’t know who I am. Just essentials, to start. I’m Erin Gotwals, from Telford, PA, just graduated from Goshen College with majors in Spanish, TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages), and secondary education, on this Africa adventure for the summer before I go to Cambodia in August to work with MCC for a year. And I’m here with Travis.

So I understand that this first blog entry is supposed to include the story of how we each got here. I left Goshen on the last day of May term classes, flew to Germany, and spent the following three weeks traveling around Europe with Travis and Ben and Anita, friends of ours from Goshen. That trip was amazing, but not the topic of today’s entry. For those of you I’ll see when I get home, I’ll be happy to fill you in with stories and pictures. I’ll try not to forget it all in the excitement of everything that’s happening these next five weeks.

A common complaint with this blog-writing assignment seems to be that we haven’t done anything so far worth writing home about. Contrary to popular belief, we’ve been doing all sorts of exciting things while hanging out in Cape Town waiting for the vehicle to be ready. Some highlights:
• Cramming all 7 of us into a tiny VW Chico for several hours a day, an experience which, even if I hadn’t felt comfortable with the Weavers before, has certainly brought us closer together. Literally. The typical setup included four of us in the backseat and one of us in the trunk, making faces at the drivers behind us and making some of them laugh and some of them angry. And making approximately one U-turn every five minutes, despite Nicole’s impressive skill as a navigator.
• Sharing our hostel with travelers from all over the world and a cat named Oreo, three dogs named Mango, Lychee, and Fred, and a goat named Cheese, who ate our box of cookies off of the coffee table yesterday.
• Test-driving and finally purchasing a Land Rover, complete with its own personal tent that pops up on the roof, where we will certainly be safe from attacks by hippopotamus and other such vicious animals.
• Collecting shells at the beach, and getting our precious last pairs of clean pants and underwear soaked by giant sneaky waves.
• Having family votes and family meetings, which tend to go around in circles, but have reached the following conclusions: we are leaving Cape Town tomorrow, and we will be driving along the Garden Route. No one knows exactly where, but that’s all part of the adventure. This is the way vacations should be.
• And of course, there have been truly noteworthy events like touring Robben Island, driving down the coast toward the Cape of Good Hope, and climbing Table Mountain, but I’ll leave the telling of those stories to other family members who I’m sure will be responsible bloggers and write in great detail about the main events of the trip so far.

So, until next time, from who-knows-where. We’ll keep you in suspense so you keep checking in to find out where we’re going next, unless the kids win the blog battle and get out of writing for the rest of the trip. On second thought, this writing wasn’t so bad. We’ll try to keep the complaining to a minimum and keep you and our blog entries posted.
Erin


NICOLE:
Probably the best way to get to know a city is to randomly drive around looking for car dealerships. Which is exactly what Dad and I have been doing for the last week. Despite my questionable navigation skills and countless U-turns, I now know Cape Town better than I ever thought possible. It is a beautiful, very fun little city but after being here for over a week, I am ready to get on with our trip, and see the rest of this country. I am especially excited about our brand-new (for us), tank-like Land Rover. Mom is not so excited about all the possibilities this newly purchased vehicle opens up for us, but the rest of us are very excited about hippo pools and sand roads, and getting stuck many times. There are even Land Rovers that come with their own specially designed snorkels! I’m not sure how they work, but my guess is you snap it on and you automatically have a Land Rover-like submarine. Unfortunately, ours does not come equipped with such a feature. Well, in just a short while we will pack up our ‘Rover and head out’. No one knows where, but I guess we’ll just have to have a family vote about it on the way out. Hopefully we end up somewhere. Until next time.

Dad is not happy. I did not meet my writing assignment requirements. I was supposed to write about the trip over. College assignments are more fun. But since I am required to pay for my share of the trip if I don’t meet the set requirements, here goes: The trip over was not as bad as I was told to expect. Dad and I flew out of Philly the evening of the 7th and arrived in Frankfurt sometime. All I know was that it was light outside, so it must have been day. At Frankfurt I proceeded to fall asleep in a straight-back chair for about 3 hours straight before Dad and I headed into the city for a bite to eat and a little sight-seeing. It was very fun ordering water, bratwurst, and cherries in my very limited, high school level German. The most amusing part of the day was listening to Dad give the language a try. German is a guttural language, but I think he might have exaggerated this fact slightly. After spending about 8 hours in Frankfurt, we got on a South African airways flight to Cape Town. This plane ride was amazing. Not only did we have our own personal entertainment systems right in front of us, limitless blankets, pillows, toothbrushes, and socks, but we also got an entire row of four seats to ourselves (since the flight was so empty), which is not quite as comfortable as my bed at home, but almost comparable. Being a 14 hour flight and all, this was very convenient. South African Airways - ladies and gentlemen. It’s the only way to fly.
Nicole

LISA:
I am looking forward to seeing creatures as big as Daddy. I am afraid they might be bigger.

So this is how the trip over went:

We got on this really lame plane. I almost barfed on my new sweatpants. And then I kept trying to sleep, but Renae kept pulling my hair and Mom wouldn’t stop singing. And the guy in front of me kept spilling his wine on my feet and I got really angry so I punched him. And then they made me sit in the bathroom for 3 hours. It was a really stupid bathroom. I kept falling asleep and my head would roll into the sink. When they let me out, Renae fell asleep across my seat. So I laid on the floor instead because I’m really nice and I didn’t want to wake her up, but they ran over me with the drink cart. I was getting kind of annoyed at this point, but I’m in Africa now so it’s okay.
Lisa


RENAE:
Okay, so we’re staying at this hostel right now, I like it, but Mom’s turned off by the cat that hangs around. We hiked Table Mountain today—really pretty—but it took FOREVER to come back down since Lisa is terrified of heights and we all had to wait for her, and it took just as long to climb up as it did to climb down. Then we got chocolate. And everyone’s happy now. And I found a porcupine quill. It’s pretty cool. And I’m really excited to drive in the Land Rover. And I’m really tired but I’m not allowed to sleep until I do this. So I hope Daddy’s happy with this. Bye.
Renae