Isn't Air Travel Great?
January 8, 2007
We started school today, but that wasn’t our first headache.
Our trip back to Johannesburg was uneventful. We stayed in another hotel, swam in another pool, ate at another restaurant, and slept in a different bed. We killed some time at a mall, picking up some last minute items to take home with us. When we arrived at the airport we met up with one of my students. She was staying with her dad; her mom had already flown back to the mine so she was traveling with us. Our flight left at 12:40 am from Jo’burg and arrived in Nairobi around 5:50 am (local time; 4:50 SA time). Our next flight left at 8:50.
At 8:00 we learned that our plane was delayed until 11:30. Fortunately, there were a dozen folks from the mine also on the plane. We sat around a coffee shop and ran all over the airport for the next three hours, boarding our plane at 11:30. We sat on the runway for awhile and then headed off on our seven hour journey back to Bamako. Three hours later we landed in…Nairobi: technical problems! After two hours on the runway we took off again.
This time we were headed straight for Dakar. Normally the plane would stop in Bamako and then go to Dakar, but the delay meant that the pilots had to get to Senegal before their flight time ran out. We flew right over Bamako and landed in Dakar. Two hours on the runway and then off for Bamako, landing a scant 1 hour and 35 minutes later. We arrived in Mali at 12:30 am; twelve hours after our scheduled arrival.
We were carted off to a hotel where we grabbed a few hours sleep, piled into a van, drove back to the airport, and loaded the small plane for the last leg of the journey.
The big news is this: our boss no longer works for the main school. For reasons unknown he was asked to leave back in December. The whack part of the whole thing however, lies in the procurement of this knowledge. Anna met a woman on the plane who turned out to be a fifth grade teacher at the main campus. We had never met her as she had been hired late. She told us James was gone; our own office had neglected to inform us of anything! Talk about feeling left out of the loop!! You would think that if your boss got fired, somebody would have the decency to at least tell you, but apparently that’s not the way things work here.
At any rate, I have three new students, all girls. That brings the total to eleven ranging in age from six to nine with ability levels to match. It’s going to be a challenging week…
MJR
We started school today, but that wasn’t our first headache.
Our trip back to Johannesburg was uneventful. We stayed in another hotel, swam in another pool, ate at another restaurant, and slept in a different bed. We killed some time at a mall, picking up some last minute items to take home with us. When we arrived at the airport we met up with one of my students. She was staying with her dad; her mom had already flown back to the mine so she was traveling with us. Our flight left at 12:40 am from Jo’burg and arrived in Nairobi around 5:50 am (local time; 4:50 SA time). Our next flight left at 8:50.
At 8:00 we learned that our plane was delayed until 11:30. Fortunately, there were a dozen folks from the mine also on the plane. We sat around a coffee shop and ran all over the airport for the next three hours, boarding our plane at 11:30. We sat on the runway for awhile and then headed off on our seven hour journey back to Bamako. Three hours later we landed in…Nairobi: technical problems! After two hours on the runway we took off again.
This time we were headed straight for Dakar. Normally the plane would stop in Bamako and then go to Dakar, but the delay meant that the pilots had to get to Senegal before their flight time ran out. We flew right over Bamako and landed in Dakar. Two hours on the runway and then off for Bamako, landing a scant 1 hour and 35 minutes later. We arrived in Mali at 12:30 am; twelve hours after our scheduled arrival.
We were carted off to a hotel where we grabbed a few hours sleep, piled into a van, drove back to the airport, and loaded the small plane for the last leg of the journey.
The big news is this: our boss no longer works for the main school. For reasons unknown he was asked to leave back in December. The whack part of the whole thing however, lies in the procurement of this knowledge. Anna met a woman on the plane who turned out to be a fifth grade teacher at the main campus. We had never met her as she had been hired late. She told us James was gone; our own office had neglected to inform us of anything! Talk about feeling left out of the loop!! You would think that if your boss got fired, somebody would have the decency to at least tell you, but apparently that’s not the way things work here.
At any rate, I have three new students, all girls. That brings the total to eleven ranging in age from six to nine with ability levels to match. It’s going to be a challenging week…
MJR
posted by Bronx to Timbuktu at 3:24 PM
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