I've Been Everywhere, Man, I've Been Everywhere

We hit the road Tuesday, January 19th at approximately 15:oo hours for what we dreaded would be an exhausting 3 days of travel. Unbeknownst to us, what we thought would be 3 days soon turned into 4 as the words "unfortunately, due to a medical emergency we will be soon be making our decent into Cairo," came droning out of the intercom. After 3 sweaty hours on the runway the happy announcements continued with "due to flight time restrictions, we will need to stay in the city for the day, and we will need to confiscate your passports."
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure Cairo is a wonderful place, but I would prefer to visit by choice, with my passport in hand, and with some language and culture skills. But, that was not to be, and as we exited into the Cairo airport we were greeted by friendly chaps with machine guns. After claiming our baggage we hopped onto a minibus where were whisked away by one, Mr. Drives-With-A-Deathwish. On the bus we had a lovely chat with a girl from Jo'Burg who informed us that South Africa was "horrible place," and that she was so glad to be escaping to the UK. We listened to pleasant anecdotes about rufee-ing in the clubs, sisters getting dragged into cars by men, your everyday muggings, and the nightly echos of gunshots. Cairo started to look pretty good right about then. "Maybe," we thought, "we should just scope out things here for 5 months. Who really needs the World Cup anyway?" But, alas, after 15 hours at the hotel, much-needed showers, new travel arrangements, calls to the fam, naps, amazing fruit, and a mini-breakdown on my part, we were back on the plane to Jo'Burg with fresh clothes but no wits about us.
After 10 more hours of travel, we finally landed in Cape Town, exhausted and overwhelmed, ready to just go home but not ready to get back on a plane. We made it to UCT where we barracaded ourselves--literally with our suitcases--in our temporary dorm room to try to regroup. As the sun went down, our spirits were unwilling and our bodies were weak, and we crashed with some hope that the next 24 hours would bring less adventure than the previous 65.

Pre-Departure

When most people set off for an adventure abroad they have a number of goals they wish to accomplish. They hope to try new things, expand their worldviews, learn foreign languages, gain spiritual insight, connect with humanity, blah blah blah, etc. ect.. That's all nice, but when I set off for South Africa this quickly approaching Tuesday, I go with three more pressing objectives in tow:

Objective 1: To avoid getting eaten by a shark. Swimming in the ocean is all well and good until someone loses a limb, and I certanly don't intend for that someone to be me. Thanks for the invitation, Mr. Ring of Death, but this live bait will be chillin' on the sand.

Objective 2: To avoid being a victim of crime. I can do without mugging, rape, murder, ethnic cleansing, human sacrifice, scalping, or--worst case scenario--bike rage, so I plan for this spring semester to involve minimal harm to my person. Mission Safety, Mission Life.

Objective 3: To embrace my inner black woman. I have long suspected that the section marked "caucasion" on my birth certificate was a mistake. I have often felt oppressed by the taboo-ing of clapping, dancing, rhythm, and general happiness in "predominatly" white church worship. I have always thought that the genre "Southern Gospel" had a cruelly misleading title--Sorry, Bill and Gloria. Some may be old souls, but I am a black soul longing to be freed from this scrawny, fair-skinned prison. Hand me a drum and save me a seat in the alto section, South Africa, for I am officially retiring the white-girl foot stomp.