Airport Musings

I have always loved to people-watch and there is no better place to do this than an international airport.  I have found in the last 10 months that I am at Johannesburg's O.R. Tambo International Airport about every two or three weeks either picking up or dropping Jon off.  The photo above is of the international arrivals area where everyone pours out after having passed through immigration, baggage claim and customs.  I have noticed two amusingly consistent things:

Singapore Air
flight attendant

1. International arrivals often arrive together in clumps.  The flight crews always come through the doors first, never having to wait for bags and passing through crew immigration gates.  As I stand waiting for Jon I have learned to recognize some of the prettier flight attendant uniforms such as those of Emirates Air and Singapore Air.  I can always recognize the American flight attendants, not for their beautiful uniforms but for the Bed, Bath and Beyond and Target bags strapped to their luggage carts.  When I see those shopping bags coming out the doors then I know Jon isn't far behind.

Emirates Air flight attendants

2. As you can see from the photo, O.R. Tambo is a huge, modern airport. There is really nothing traditionally African about it.  Even the music playing through the airport is American.  What is fun to watch are all the tourists arriving for the first time in Africa to venture out on their long-anticipated and usually costly African safaris.  For many safaris in southern Africa, Jo'burg is the starting point. It is just a few hours drive from here to the Kruger National Park.  These tourists come through the arrival doors looking at the drivers' signs hoping to see their last names or the tour company name for the ride that will start them on their great African adventure.  They are completely decked out from head to toe in their safari clothes. They have bought out their local Columbia store and are wearing their Sunguard safari hats, their zip-off safari trousers, their hiking boots, trail packs....only to step out into the flourescent lighting of the three-story tall arrivals atrium with Lady Gaga singing on the loudspeakers.  I want to tell them that the only wild animals they are going to see in Jo'burg are the giant rats that skitter across intersections and sidewalks under cover of night.  But soon enough they will be out in the Bush capturing the Big Five on camera, and since this will be the last air conditioning they will enjoy for a few weeks, I just smile to myself and keep watching for a blonde man in a blue blazer to come through the doors.  I left my sign that says OSLER in the car.  I hope he recognizes me.

Latest Happenings in SA

This past weekend down toward Cape Town was the 20th annual Hermanus Whale Festival. 
Hermanus/Walker Bay area is reputed to be the best land-based whale watching area in the world. Every year at this time the Southern Right Whales return to this area for the spring/summer season.  It is estimated that 200 whales will come to the bay and the Festival brings 150,000 people to watch.  If we are here next year I would definitely like to go.

I am still volunteering at the Diepsloot Combined School. I am up to 3 mornings per week right now as we have added a new project, which is cleaning up the library and getting it to a point where it is usable.  The school hasn't had a librarian for over a year, in which time the library has fallen into a mess of unpacked boxes, stacks of periodicals, and stacks of unshelved books.  At some point there was a drive in the white community to donate used books to the school library (which serves students in all 12 grades).  These boxes have been collecting over the year and have simply piled up, unopened.  We estimate there are over 100 boxes plus stacks and stacks of magazines.  There are also unopened, still shrink-wrapped school-purchased books, novel sets and teacher resources that are sitting in a corner collecting dust.  Three of us started last week unpacking and sorting the used books by general subject or topic: fiction, non-fiction, history, math, science, etc.  Sadly, many of the donated books are useless to the students here.  It is obvious that people just cleaned off their bookshelves of unwanted books (medical texts from the 1960s is one example) and so after unpacking them, we repacked them to ship them to the local prison library.  Our ultimate goal is to get all the books unpacked, sorted, Dewey Decimal numbered and shelved.  Then we would like to start having classes come through for a library orientation and train students, teachers and volunteers how to keep the library in working order and to ensure the library functions as a useful resource for students and faculty. We estimate it will take 6 months or so to do this.

Hope all is well with everyone. Please stay in touch!  Jody