Arrival

Landing at Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg signaled just the beginning of our journey. After we picked up all the luggage, customs was a breeze (took about 30 seconds), and we were so-far, so-good. Next challenges: get money, cell phone, and game tickets (I wish they were all this big)!


We met our contact and host in South Africa, Warren, who was such a cool guy and helped us with everything. He escorted us to our guest house and his pickup truck was a life-saver when you consider we rented a 7-seater Toyota for eight people and luggage (Don’t worry, Tariq enjoyed riding on the roof).

Dad hit our first cultural barrier by opening the door on the left side of the car. I admire his enthusiasm, but it’s awful hard to drive without a steering wheel in front of you. So he hopped into the right side and then learned the new controls. I think he’s used to it now, but there are artifacts of his left-side-driving ways. For instance, every time we want to turn, we indicate it to South Africans by turning on our windshield wipers rather than our blinkers. The humor in it probably won’t get old to us any time soon. So, driving on the left side of the road offers some challenges, but Dad’s doing pretty well.

We drove about an hour outside of Johannesburg taking slow and arriving at our guest house in Nigel, an area known historically as a gold mining town.


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Unfortunately, we arrived late in the night and we were all hungry, so we hit up KFC for our first authentic South African meal. The first thing we learned is that most (if not all) shops close here by 8 PM at the latest. Along the way, I felt very at-home. The highway signage is similar to the US and the road system is just as good. Suburban roadways are lined with shopping centers, strip malls, and McDonald's. Everything is in English, though South Africa officially recognizes a host of languages (IsiZulu, Afrikaans, and many more) due to the history of the region and the diversity of cultures living together in this country. We noticed the smell of burning trash and a roadside brush fire. Warren informed us that these are pretty common. Some are controlled burns and sometimes brush fires spring up, as is common anywhere with dry grasses. The smell of trash reminds me of trips to Lebanon when I was younger, and the brush fires are nothing new when you live in Southern California. After tearing through the KFC like hungry hungry hippos we hit the sack. My laptop wouldn’t work because my international adapter didn’t come with the correct attachment. It feels like I’m plugging in a nuclear reactor the plugs are so big.