Mid-term break
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Laura
25 Oktober 2013 | Zuid-Afrika, Johannesburg
Mid-term is over now, which means I’m at half my stay at Waterford. I have little over a month left here, it makes me sad to think about leaving this place. (So I won’t think about it anymore and carpe diem haha!)
When Mid-term was approaching, I knew I wanted to go back to Johannesburg to spend time with Jim, Janine and Duncan (Meg I missed you!). Duncs and I get along very well and as I mentioned earlier; it feels like coming home when I visit the Wards. I had a beautiful weekend; because of the rain we had these lovely lazy days, no stress, no rush, just relaxing, talking and having lots of fun.
Duncan made this amazing cheesecake which was finished by the time I left again, it was just too good. Just some cream cheese, fairy dust, lemon zest, cookies and the touch of an Angel’s wing; mix it together and what you get is this cake that almost melts on your tongue... Janine made muffins for breakfast, it was a proper treat! Imagine waking up to the muffin-perfumed air in the morning, delicious :) Jim made a whole bunch of Chitungwiza nuts, really ‘lekka’! and the soup he made for lunch was like magic in a bowl, I’m not exaggerating, I just really like any good food after six weeks of the food they provide me in the dinning hall here at school...
The entire weekend we laughed so much, like proper belly laughter :) Laughing is like one of my favourite ways of spending time, really. We had lots of random dancing in the kitchen, while listening to songs like ‘Treasure’ and ‘Get Lucky’ which then resulted in even more laughter ;) “Prating” Afrikaans and comparing it to Dutch was also one of the things I liked doing, I just think Afrikaans is so adorable! Oh and Duncs’ screen lock is just the best ever, it makes this sound of water dripping, whenever you touch the screen it is as if you dip your finger into a shallow pool of water :)
Time flew by so fast, I had so much fun and before I knew it, I had to pack my bag again and take off for the bus back to Waterford.
Monday afternoon, the bus was bound to leave at 2 o’clock. I thought I had already gotten used to African time, but was really annoyed when we only started driving out of the airport at quarter past 4. Because it was rainy and cold, it got darkish very early. When we left the Joburg highway and drove onto the long straight road, the weather became a bit wilder.
There was thunder and lightning all around us, it was quite impressive as every time there was lightning, the sky would completely light up as if it was daytime for 2 seconds. I’m not scared of thunder and lightning, but it’s a complete different story inside a bus... And I must say that it does change the whole ambiance, it always gives me the feeling as if something very bad is going to happen, because of the loud sounds and the dramatic lights.
I noticed some road signs with all these nice names like: Wonderfontein, Tevrede and Amsterdam (how cool is that?!)
I was listening to Adele, which made everything much more morose than it had to be, really. There were no streetlights on the side of the road, which makes me appreciate the Dutch infrastructure even more now.
The rain and the mist made the windows foggy, so once in a while someone had to stand up and clean the front window for the driver or he wouldn’t be able to distinguish the road anymore. I had respect for the driver, I was seated in the very front of the bus (so I had lots of legroom) and I had difficulty with properly seeing the road myself.
The scary part was that when another car approached us, they sometimes wouldn’t turn off their fog lights, so we would get completely blinded, I honestly don’t know how the driver could see where he was going whenever a car was approaching us (which was a lot of times...)
What didn’t really help either was that there were some reckless drivers on the road...
At once I saw the headlights of a big truck in front of us, they resembled angry eyes. We were driving very fast, and so was the other truck. I knew there was something wrong when I saw the eyes of the truck right in front of ours, not slightly to the right what would be normal for a passing vehicle, no RIGHT in front of us... I am not kidding when I say I didn’t know how this was going to end, I was absolutely terrified for 7 seconds (maybe even less) Seeing a truck driving like mad, approaching us more and more with every second and not seeming to move out of the way... At last our driver turned the steering wheel to the left and we just missed each other, I felt the bus vibrating because of the air that was moved inside the small space remaining in between of the two big vehicles.
I had to really catch my breath, calm myself down and relax my muscles again. After this the bus ride seemed to take sooo long as I watched the road ALL the time, I just wanted to be sure to be able to shout or scream if something similar would happen again. I really got stressed out when the driver decided to overtake other big trucks, which he did repeatedly... I forced myself to look at the window next to me and look at the raindrops that were making curvy roads on the glass instead. Of course I arrived safely, but I was a bit shaken...
(Yes, it seems I find bus rides very interesting to write about, you caught me)
Back at Waterford, a new volunteer had arrived. His name is Andres and he’s from Costa Rica, he seems to have similar Hippie-thoughts as I do so we get along well so far!
Lots of Love,
Laura
When Mid-term was approaching, I knew I wanted to go back to Johannesburg to spend time with Jim, Janine and Duncan (Meg I missed you!). Duncs and I get along very well and as I mentioned earlier; it feels like coming home when I visit the Wards. I had a beautiful weekend; because of the rain we had these lovely lazy days, no stress, no rush, just relaxing, talking and having lots of fun.
Duncan made this amazing cheesecake which was finished by the time I left again, it was just too good. Just some cream cheese, fairy dust, lemon zest, cookies and the touch of an Angel’s wing; mix it together and what you get is this cake that almost melts on your tongue... Janine made muffins for breakfast, it was a proper treat! Imagine waking up to the muffin-perfumed air in the morning, delicious :) Jim made a whole bunch of Chitungwiza nuts, really ‘lekka’! and the soup he made for lunch was like magic in a bowl, I’m not exaggerating, I just really like any good food after six weeks of the food they provide me in the dinning hall here at school...
The entire weekend we laughed so much, like proper belly laughter :) Laughing is like one of my favourite ways of spending time, really. We had lots of random dancing in the kitchen, while listening to songs like ‘Treasure’ and ‘Get Lucky’ which then resulted in even more laughter ;) “Prating” Afrikaans and comparing it to Dutch was also one of the things I liked doing, I just think Afrikaans is so adorable! Oh and Duncs’ screen lock is just the best ever, it makes this sound of water dripping, whenever you touch the screen it is as if you dip your finger into a shallow pool of water :)
Time flew by so fast, I had so much fun and before I knew it, I had to pack my bag again and take off for the bus back to Waterford.
Monday afternoon, the bus was bound to leave at 2 o’clock. I thought I had already gotten used to African time, but was really annoyed when we only started driving out of the airport at quarter past 4. Because it was rainy and cold, it got darkish very early. When we left the Joburg highway and drove onto the long straight road, the weather became a bit wilder.
There was thunder and lightning all around us, it was quite impressive as every time there was lightning, the sky would completely light up as if it was daytime for 2 seconds. I’m not scared of thunder and lightning, but it’s a complete different story inside a bus... And I must say that it does change the whole ambiance, it always gives me the feeling as if something very bad is going to happen, because of the loud sounds and the dramatic lights.
I noticed some road signs with all these nice names like: Wonderfontein, Tevrede and Amsterdam (how cool is that?!)
I was listening to Adele, which made everything much more morose than it had to be, really. There were no streetlights on the side of the road, which makes me appreciate the Dutch infrastructure even more now.
The rain and the mist made the windows foggy, so once in a while someone had to stand up and clean the front window for the driver or he wouldn’t be able to distinguish the road anymore. I had respect for the driver, I was seated in the very front of the bus (so I had lots of legroom) and I had difficulty with properly seeing the road myself.
The scary part was that when another car approached us, they sometimes wouldn’t turn off their fog lights, so we would get completely blinded, I honestly don’t know how the driver could see where he was going whenever a car was approaching us (which was a lot of times...)
What didn’t really help either was that there were some reckless drivers on the road...
At once I saw the headlights of a big truck in front of us, they resembled angry eyes. We were driving very fast, and so was the other truck. I knew there was something wrong when I saw the eyes of the truck right in front of ours, not slightly to the right what would be normal for a passing vehicle, no RIGHT in front of us... I am not kidding when I say I didn’t know how this was going to end, I was absolutely terrified for 7 seconds (maybe even less) Seeing a truck driving like mad, approaching us more and more with every second and not seeming to move out of the way... At last our driver turned the steering wheel to the left and we just missed each other, I felt the bus vibrating because of the air that was moved inside the small space remaining in between of the two big vehicles.
I had to really catch my breath, calm myself down and relax my muscles again. After this the bus ride seemed to take sooo long as I watched the road ALL the time, I just wanted to be sure to be able to shout or scream if something similar would happen again. I really got stressed out when the driver decided to overtake other big trucks, which he did repeatedly... I forced myself to look at the window next to me and look at the raindrops that were making curvy roads on the glass instead. Of course I arrived safely, but I was a bit shaken...
(Yes, it seems I find bus rides very interesting to write about, you caught me)
Back at Waterford, a new volunteer had arrived. His name is Andres and he’s from Costa Rica, he seems to have similar Hippie-thoughts as I do so we get along well so far!
Lots of Love,
Laura
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