Saturday July 5th 2008: Today we met up with our group at JFK airport in New York. It was amazing to finally put names to faces and also to meet some of the parents who are entrusting us with their children! After a few goodbye hugs our group headed to the gate where we waited for our flight to board. We played a myriad of name games, ice breaker games, did the human knot, grabbed a few sandwiches and boarded our flight at about 5pm.
The plane was really nice and all the seats had TVs with a bunch of movie options. The dinner was a decent piece of salmon, some rice, salad, etc... We landed in Dakar, Senegal about 8 hours later and had a one hour layover where we stayed on the plane.
Sunday July 6th, 2008: Landed in Johannesburg at around 5pm and cleared customs. We then met up with James (our 3rd leader from Australia) and headed to the hostel. It was here that we saw our group take the reins from us and prepare an amazing stir fry dinner. Every single student was involved in the preparation of this meal, the clean up, the dishes etc... and it turned out fantastic. It was great to share our first 18 person meal together as we strung together 3 tables at the Airport Backpackers hostel. The students were able to call home for a few brief minutes as we prepared dinner.
It is CHILLY here though! I'm not sure the students were mentally prepared for the cold temperatures but they seem to have plenty of clothes and are in great spirits.
We just had our first group discussion outlining our safety procedures and creating some awareness of the situations we might be facing on our program. We then had our evening discussion in which the students shared their "highlights of the day" and expressed any "consissuements" (concerns, issues, compliments)- lots of laughter and sharing of our new memories and friendships ensued. We went over our plan for tomorrow- we are drivng 2 hours to Klerksdorp and visiting a hospital, working with young children at a hospice, and hearing an AIDS lecture from a Peace Corps Volunteer. As James put it "we're going straight to the deep end tomorrow!"
We seem to have a fantastic group with a lot of positive energy. It is 11:15 pm and I am very jet-lagged so I am signing off....
Much love from the brisk land of South Africa,
Thatcher on behalf of the Bridge South Africa 2008 Crew
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