24June 2005
I could not sleep. It was partly because of my cough and partly the excitement of going to Africa. I think I slept about 3 hours. I kept waking up checking the alarm clock fearing that I might overslept and missed flight. I felt encouraged that a friend, Peter V from work had offered to send me to the airport. But I had made prior arrangement with Ps Glenn to come at 4 am to send me to the airport.
I could not sleep. It was partly because of my cough and partly the excitement of going to Africa. I think I slept about 3 hours. I kept waking up checking the alarm clock fearing that I might overslept and missed flight. I felt encouraged that a friend, Peter V from work had offered to send me to the airport. But I had made prior arrangement with Ps Glenn to come at 4 am to send me to the airport.
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Sitting at my seat, waiting for the plane to take off to Perth for my connecting flight to Johannesburg, I was wondering why the plane took so long to take off. The plane was delayed because the panel in the cargo area was damaged during the loading of luggage. The ground crew has ordered a replacement part, the captain explained. The luggage had to be unloaded, damaged panel removed and replaced and luggage to be re-loaded. The ship that was current docking at Tanzania will leave at the scheduled time, if I missed the boat, I will have to find way to get to Mozambique to meet them. Fearing of missing the connecting flight, I prayed.
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We arrived in Perth 2 hours late. The flight to Johannesburg was waiting for the ‘missing’ 40 passengers from Melbourne. The flight from Perth to South Africa takes 11 hours. The passenger siting next to me was a Tibetan Buddhist monk, we had some interesting conversation about faith. Apparently, he knew some prominent evangelist in the Chinese speaking church. I guess the conversation about the religion will not be favourable. I told him where I was going and what would I be doing with Doulos. We had a very good chat. Finally, the plane landed in Johannesburg.
I checked into Holiday-Inn courtesy of South African Airline. The connecting flight to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania was 11am, the next day.
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25 June 2005
I woke up at 6am, I must have slept for a long time. Freshen up; I went down stairs for breakfast. It was very different atmosphere in the restaurant. There are so many Africans here. I have never seen so many Africans in my life. Serious! I slowly came to terms that I was in the continent. Duh!
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The Johannesburg International airport was very busy. The check-in queue was very long. So I tried to find things to do to kill time. Turned around, I started talking to the people behind me and found out they are Aussies from Sydney. The mother and daughter are meeting the dad in Nairobi for holidays. The kid was doing year 11. The mother was a teacher. After about 20 minutes, I said good-bye to them and went to the prompted counter. I managed to check in my luggage and got my boarding pass. The line through the immigration counter was not as long as I expected. I was wondering why all the immigration officers always have straight face? This one in particular. How about greetings like ‘Have a safe journey.’? Is this too much to ask for? Part of my airport tax goes to your salary.
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I went to the departure gate, checked my boarding pass and the gate number. Everything’s checked, now I just have to wait for the BUS. What? The bus? It is interesting that an international airport like Johannesburg transports passengers to their planes using buses. As I was going through my boarding pass, passport and other documents, I noticed my ticket which has the return trip to Australia went missing. Oops, I must have left it at the counter during check in. Looking around, there’s nobody at the departure gate and departure is 5 minutes away. I thought I could speak to the staff members of SAA and asked them if they could locate my ticket. Or I could call SAA when I get on board with Doulos.
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The bus has arrived; it’s time to get on. I rehearsed my line to ask for assistant about the missing ticket many times. As soon as I passed the boarding pass to the crew member, before I opened my mouth, he passed me my ticket and gave me the look.
Okay, I’m very sorry!
Thousand apologies.
Umm, got a plane to catch.
Thank you, have you nice day.
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Thousand apologies.
Umm, got a plane to catch.
Thank you, have you nice day.
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The guy sat next to me must be tired. He was carrying his pillow with him. It’s interesting to see some peculiar habits of people. The in-flight movie for the trip was ‘Hitch’. I’d not been to cinema for a long time. It’s somehow predictable movie, but still enjoyable. As the plane got closer to Dar es Salaam, the passengers were given immigration forms to fill. I pulled out my travelling documents so that I could answer the questions. Nobody knows their passport number by heart. There are some questions that I could not answer, i.e. the address of the place where I would be staying. So I peaked at the person sitting next to me. He’d got a letter with OM logo on it.
Wait a minute!
OM logo? Doulos?
‘Hey, he’s going to the same place I am going.’
OM logo? Doulos?
‘Hey, he’s going to the same place I am going.’
I introduced myself and told him where I was going. His name is Ryan. He just finished high school. His friend was serving on board with the Doulos. He plays the drums for the church.
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I walked through the arrival gate, right before me was a group of people holding up a sign. Doulos! Yes, there’s somebody there to pick me up. I greeted them and introduced myself. Amongst the people to be picked that day were Hack Chul from South Korea, Ryan from America and we were still waiting for a few more. My luggage was being loaded by the Noah who was also the driver. Ryan went off yo catch up with his friend whom he has not seen for a while. After some time, Jenny N from America who is the book store manager from Logos II walked out from the arrival gate. She was to relieve Daniel – the book store manager of Doulos while Daniel went home for a break. It worked out well because Logos II was on dry dock. Finally, Daniel from England walked past the arrival gate. He was waiting on a very long queue to pay for his visa to enter the country.
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The African road was like documentaries that was shown on TV. People walking on the side of the roads, women carrying their things on their heads. About 15 – 20 minutes ride on the Doulos van, we arrived at the port where the ship is docked. I was quickly greeted by Adam and Mark who would be my buddies during my stay on the ship. They showed me to my cabin to leave my luggage and then the tour to the rest of the ship. I was totally lost with all locations of the dining room, forward lounge, car deck & etc. I’ll have 2 months to work it out.
