The beginning of the next week we spent an afternoon learning some crafts. We made bracelts out of beads and safety pins, and painted fabric, and discovered just how time consuming the work these women do is to generate such a small income. We spent the next few days planning the last bits of the health workshop we hoped to do, as well as some interviews of the facilitators and participants in the Women's Circle in order to generate an evaluation for them of how well they were using their participatory methods. Wednesday we met with the administration again, and asked who are audience wou
ld be for the workshop. Apparently, they had not found us an audience, and there was no point in putting on something if no one was there. So that was a bit dissapointing, but we survived. Friday I worked with Lucy a bit. She was a Phd student who had done the Masters program last year and came to help us. She was one of our drivers helping us get around to meetings and interviews, and on Friday since our group was pretty much done and another group had a lot of interviews, Lucy was going to be doing a lot of chauffering. She got quite stressed and flustered driving in a strange city, so I became her navigator, and between the two of us we did quite well. Later that night our professor had a book launch we went to followed by a big group dinner. I had been counting the days till I could see Jon again, and the next day, after a brief trip to a museum, we packed up and headed to the airport! Unfortunately, things did not go well. We arrived in the Cape Town airport, and instead of checking us in for all our flights, they only checked us into the local flight from Cape Town to Johannasburg. So when we got to J-burg, ,we had about an hour before our next flight, the international one. We got to the counter to check in and they said "I'm sorry, you're flight has been closed." What??? I began to panic, as did the other 13 of us who were travelling together, especially after they added that our seats had been given away. We demanded action, so they began to see what they could do. They finally began to upgrade other people and give us their old seats, one by one. We finally all managed to get through and ran towards the gate, only to be stopped by a long line for customs. We tried to ask if we could go ahead since our flight was literally about to leave, but they would have none of it. Apparently many of the connecting flights had encountered the same problem as us with connections being booked too closely together. We finally made it through customs, and we ran to our gate and barely made it in time. I gratefully took my seat, not minding that my seat wouldn't recline and my tray table had orange caution tape around it saying "unservi
ceable". The steward even felt bad enough about it to give me a voucher. Next, we arrived late in Paris due to our late take off in Johannasburg. We had to run to that gate as well, unsure as to whether we had all made it on the plane or not. Turns out we had and arrived in Manchester at last! I met Jon and quickly left the cursed land of airports and awaited my friends at the train station while they got their bags at baggage claim. I saw the sad lot of them coming, bagless. Turns out some of their bags were in Paris, some in Johannasburg, and some had things stolen from their bag. :( Boy was I glad I hadn't checked a bag! So ended my adventures in Africa...
ld be for the workshop. Apparently, they had not found us an audience, and there was no point in putting on something if no one was there. So that was a bit dissapointing, but we survived. Friday I worked with Lucy a bit. She was a Phd student who had done the Masters program last year and came to help us. She was one of our drivers helping us get around to meetings and interviews, and on Friday since our group was pretty much done and another group had a lot of interviews, Lucy was going to be doing a lot of chauffering. She got quite stressed and flustered driving in a strange city, so I became her navigator, and between the two of us we did quite well. Later that night our professor had a book launch we went to followed by a big group dinner. I had been counting the days till I could see Jon again, and the next day, after a brief trip to a museum, we packed up and headed to the airport! Unfortunately, things did not go well. We arrived in the Cape Town airport, and instead of checking us in for all our flights, they only checked us into the local flight from Cape Town to Johannasburg. So when we got to J-burg, ,we had about an hour before our next flight, the international one. We got to the counter to check in and they said "I'm sorry, you're flight has been closed." What??? I began to panic, as did the other 13 of us who were travelling together, especially after they added that our seats had been given away. We demanded action, so they began to see what they could do. They finally began to upgrade other people and give us their old seats, one by one. We finally all managed to get through and ran towards the gate, only to be stopped by a long line for customs. We tried to ask if we could go ahead since our flight was literally about to leave, but they would have none of it. Apparently many of the connecting flights had encountered the same problem as us with connections being booked too closely together. We finally made it through customs, and we ran to our gate and barely made it in time. I gratefully took my seat, not minding that my seat wouldn't recline and my tray table had orange caution tape around it saying "unservi
ceable". The steward even felt bad enough about it to give me a voucher. Next, we arrived late in Paris due to our late take off in Johannasburg. We had to run to that gate as well, unsure as to whether we had all made it on the plane or not. Turns out we had and arrived in Manchester at last! I met Jon and quickly left the cursed land of airports and awaited my friends at the train station while they got their bags at baggage claim. I saw the sad lot of them coming, bagless. Turns out some of their bags were in Paris, some in Johannasburg, and some had things stolen from their bag. :( Boy was I glad I hadn't checked a bag! So ended my adventures in Africa...
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