Hello From South Africa!!

After two long travel days I have finally arrived in Cape Town. The first flight from Toronto to London with Air Canada was quite cozy. Nice comfy seats (including an empty seat beside me) and individual tv's on each seat with lots of movies and shows to choose from. After seven hours of flying I arrived in London at 6:30am local time (1:30am). I had debated going into London for a few hours to check out the sights, but by the time we arrived I was already quite tired and it was raining so I decided to just stick around the airport. 14 hours in an airport is a very long time!! I walked around the shops for about the first hour and then found myself a bench and slept for a few hours. When I woke up I just wandered around some more, read my book and chatted with various people. The second flight from London to Cape Town with South African Airways was not as comfortable. The aircraft was older, smaller and only had one movie for the entire 12 hour flight (they were supposed to have two others, but they only had them available in German.) Even though I was uncomfortable, I was still just as excited to get here. I was lucky enough to have a window seat and even luckier that the weather is amazing today!! The photo above was taken as we were flying over Cape Town, getting ready for our approach. The photo below was flying over a massive dessert somewhere over Africa. Not sure where exactly, but it was an amazing sight to see.

So I'm here now, excited, tired and a little overwhelmed. As soon as I arrived I was picked up by someone from the AVIVA team and brought to the house where I will be staying for the next 6 weeks. He had to pick some other volunteers up, so I had a very quick tour of the house before he had to leave. A couple of the volunteers were at the house and invited me to go the mall with them which is just a quick 15 minute walk away. I picked myself up some groceries to get me through the first few days, which was quite difficult. The selection here is very different from what I'm used to and it was also the first time using South African currency. I was very sad to find out that I can't buy tofu at the grocery stores here, it's one of my main food items!! Something I will just have to get used to...

I'm back at the house now, getting myself settled in and plan to take a nap very soon. There is a time difference of 6 hours and I'm still tired from all the travelling (I never sleep well on planes.) The other volunteers will be getting back to the house soon so I'm hoping to get a bit of sleep before it get loud. I'm sharing a room with 6 other girls for the time being, but it can fit up to 14. I was also told they might move me to another room at some point because all of the volunteers who are working at SANCCOB are in a different room. Right now I'm sharing a room with the Home of Hope orphanage volunteers who get up much earlier than the SANCCOB volunteers. I have a bottom bunk so I'm pretty happy with where I am : )

Tomorrow is my orientation which I've been told won't take long at all so not sure what I'll be doing for the rest of the day. Hoping to check out the area. Will post again soon!