Tag Archives: OR Tambo

Journey begun/Return

Last packing, last call to family, last day of work, last night. Waking early, too early. The driver picking me up is early. Hasty last-minute checks and I’m gone. My pack, my passport and a world awaiting.

Departure seems so distant now, so overwrought. Was I really that terrified? Was that really me?

This seems so hollow now, this back, returned, sitting in an office, walking around my house that doesn’t feel like mine. The familiar made unfamiliar by a whirlwind of change. The empty evenings weigh heavily on me. Mornings, I struggle up the hill to work, struggling to find the rhythm, the routine. Struggling to want to find it.

We get to Durban airport early. It was a free lift with a colleague whose flight is earlier than mine. I have admin to do, but first breakfast. A last bit of South African-ness before departure. From the window of the Spur, I can see the VIP pick-up/drop-off point for COP 17. I wonder if I’ll see any famous people. I wonder if I’ve missed any through my tiredness while I’ve been here already.

At the money-changing place, the teller asks me if I’ve ever done business with them before. I say no but she finds me on her system anyway. I had forgotten – before I left for Korea. What a strange, distant time ago. The twisted strands of stories linked together over time.

I buy a book. I drink coffee. I wait. I miss a call from Richard. I call back and John tells me Richard is at Cappello at OR Tambo Airport. My favourite. I haven’t even left Durban yet. I wonder idly if today’s pilot will be Captain Sunshine. Quite seriously, I was flown to Joburg by someone called Captain Sunshine just a few days ago.

The trip back from Uganda to Durban was long. Tired. An early start in Kampala. Waking up what seemed like just moments after a last video diary and a goodbye to the friends with whom we’d shared so many weird and wonderful experiences. Our taxi was waiting. He waited for ages because he had the time wrong. It’s starting to get light. Last sights of Kampala. The trip to Entebbe. First glimpse of the lake. We’re early. Coffee and samosas for breakfast. Waiting. A day of half-finished cups of coffee.

I get to Joburg and head across to Cappello. My airport. Familiar, friendly, home. The one constant in all my journeys. I’m glad we’re leaving from here. I find Richard and Reneilwe and we have coffee and chat. They change money, then up to the African airlines section to check in. RwandAir is right on the edge. They quibble over luggage weights. We move things around. Suddenly it’s fine. Someone else in the queue appears to be trying to take the contents of a house on the plane. Our flight is late; the check-in staff don’t seem to think it is worth mentioning. They hand us boarding passes and we’re set.

The weather doesn’t help my mood. After the gorgeous heat of Congo and Uganda, it is chilly here and misty and raining. I long to stay in bed and pretend the world out there is somehow different.

The work I rushed back for gets done in a day. I find myself with nothing to occupy my mind. I try to throw myself into academic work but the feeling of emptiness keeps coming back.

Through security at OR Tambo, Johannesburg. The passport control person looks at my passport picture twice. I’ve cut my hair for this trip and look nothing like that picture. We still have ages to wait but eventually it is time. We leave from the main international section, gate A10. Near where I caught the Delta Flight in August. Not the downstairs section with the African flights. I wonder if this is where I caught my flight to Korea. I can’t seem to place it. I love the feeling of this place – excitement mixed with nerves. It’s strange to be here with other people.

Entebbe to Kigali. I take the window seat so that I can see the lake. Africa from the air. All day, I notice other destinations. From Entebbe, a flight leaves for Juba. The in-flight Air Uganda magazine is all about Bujumbura. Kigali sits, tantalising, just beyond the airport windows. I muse and wish and contemplate, not wanting the journey to end. In Kigali, our flight is never listed on the board. We wait for RwandAir to return out passports and boarding passes with no idea if we’re on time. I walk. Pace, really – the airport is not that big. I look at all the things in the duty-free shops. I contemplate buying coffee but we have no local currency and I’m out of dollars. I am restless

Kigali at night. The flight lands way later than it is supposed to. I’ve lost track of time. It is night and the airport staff are rushing. They hand out pre-printed boarding passes to passengers transferring to Uganda. But not to everyone. I’m asked to take my boarding pass and go through but I don’t fancy the idea of losing the others – I don’t even know where I’m going. Confusion. Someone’s passport gets lost. It delays the flight further. Finally we’re gone. I’m sitting far from the others. Across the aisle from me is what can only be a South African farmer/game-ranger – complete with hat. He appears to be taking care of two small children. Or perhaps they’re just unaccompanied minors and he is a Good Samaritan. He tells me he is going to visit his girlfriend.

The shops are the strangest. Everyone said I’d find it hard to come back. So many people seem to find themselves revolted by the variety and luxury of shops back home after a trip like this. I don’t. I love the shops. I love the variety. I walk the aisles of my local Spar and feel joy that I live in a country where everyone has this kind of choice and opportunity. The first time I walked into the meat section, I nearly cried. And the fresh fruit and vegetables grown right nearby but washed and packaged and properly refrigerated so they haven’t gone off by the time you buy them. Fresh milk and cheese and ice-cold sodas. Herbs and spices. Kampala has these things – at Shoprite if nowhere else – but I keep thinking of Bunia and Epulu. And then I’m not thinking of those places. I’m thinking of home. I’m thinking of how this is the goal, the aspiration of so many African people.

Landing in Uganda. Entebbe is a much more impressive airport than Kigali. It looks bigger and more modern. There are sky-bridges. We go inside and fill out the obligatory forms and I find myself wondering, again, if anyone ever reads those forms. USD50 for a visa. Digital photo, fingerprint scanner. Richard gets a sticker, we just get stamps. Nearby, a team of cleaners is washing the floor by throwing wet cloths across the tiles and then pushing and pulling them, on hands and knees.

Flying back to Joburg. Richard falls asleep. I have a book and I read a little but I’m distracted. I feel like talking. I end up watching the bad teen movie they’re showing on the plane. We land easily. Joburg is green and beautiful under building thunderstorn clouds. So many houses, so many tar roads. Through passport control, luggage already on the carousel, meet John at the doors. I barely even noticed the little thrill of walking through those doors; I must be tired. Then check-in for my last flight and coffee. Good, proper coffee with hot milk and conversation. The last conversation. The travel-bubble bursts.

We find our driver at Entebbe and head off to our backpackers/guesthouse. At one point, the vehicle took a pot-holed turn too sharply and the spare tire was knocked off the bottom of the car. The driver and Richard fixed it and we went on. We arrive at ICU and checked into the room. Our fourth travel-companion, for this leg of the trip, is already there. She wakes up and joins us at the rooftop bar. We are all too tired to sleep, too much to say, too much nervous energy. Richard updates his journal, setting the pattern for the trip. Here we sit, finally, in the middle of the night, in a rooftop bar in Kampala.

Return. I have moments of feeling that it’s all pointless. I feel like a cliché. The ruthless, heartless, profit-driven businessman goes on a holiday to [insert name of poor country here] and comes back wanting to sell everything and become a good person. But I work in development already. I’m already on a path to working in places like the ones I’ve just seen. I am frustrated. I find myself not wanting to settle back into routine. I’m so scared the routine will swallow me up and weigh me down. I don’t want to get stuck. I struggle to focus, I struggle with the idea of waiting. I’m tired of waiting. I want to pack my bags and go now and do and be there. Not to be here.

I wake up to misty rain. Soft, soaking, ordinary rain. That is the metaphor. That afternoon, Christmas Day, just after we returned from wandering through the second-largest rainforest in the world, there was a thunderstorm. Watching the storm build up so quickly and the storm light turning everything golden-green. The storm was huge and powerful. The air was electric. As we walked back from town, the rain started. By the time we got back, we were soaked. So powerful, so beautiful, so exciting.So far removed from the soft, soaking ordinariness of return.

Homeward Bound

I spent my last night in Korea at a Seoul backpackers. The next morning I was on my way by 11am, having left a selection of books, heavy jerseys and other bits and pieces behind for fear that my suitcase would be overweight (not that I couldn’t have made a plan if it was but I have an aversion to airport admin and try to avoid it whenever possible).

I rolled my large, heavy case along the uneven pavement (and road where there was no pavement). Two different taxis gawked at the funny-looking foreigner and drove merrily on by. I grumbled under my breath. The third taxi driver was kinder and dropped me at the subway station, even helping me get the large case onto the pavement.

I crossed under the road via the subway (big suitcase + subway steps = fail, btw). I was taking the Airport Limousine to Incheon Airport, the giant airport in the coastal city of Incheon, which is currently being swallowed whole by the capital.  Airport Limousine Buses are a marvellous invention. Although Incheon Airport is connected to Seoul by train and subway, both are a huge mission with luggage. Taxis are an option but are rather expensive. Airport limousine buses run between the airport and most areas of Seoul for a reasonable fee and can handle plane-sized luggage. They also run to all other major cities in Korea (express – no stops in between) so they really are the best way to get to and from Incheon Airport.

I arrived at the airport early and waited for the check-in counters to open. My bag was overweight. Of course. Luckily only a kg or two, so they simply sighed and checked it right through to Joburg. I wasn’t sure they’d be able to do this because my second flight was with SAA but they did – Yay for Cathay Pacific. Sadly, I didn’t get a window seat. I may be alone in this but I deeply resent the new airline policy that allows people to choose seats in advance and links window-seats to ticket-prices. I liked the way it worked before, when I could rock up at the airport early and be guaranteed a window because I was the first person to check in. Window-seats as a reward for being on time – that’s how the world should work! At least I was on the aisle – middle-seats are no fun.

It was lunch time and I was hungry, so I tried to grab lunch before heading through security. The only restaurant that appealed was staffed by a particularly surly Korean who looked me up and down and informed me that they “didn’t seat single diners”. I resisted the urge to punch her in the nose and decided I eat beyond security.

Security check done – and thankfully no taking off of shoes required; next stop immigration. I handed the woman my passport and my Alien Registration Card (ARC) – the card that has been my ID in Korea for the last year. I’d have liked to keep the card as a souvenir but they have to be handed in at departure, I suppose to stop the horrible foreigners coming back. The customs lady asked me if I was returning and warned me in a stern voice that she would have to cancel my visa now. I don’t think she appreciated my broad smile and enthusiastic nod. She scowled and stamped my passport. Filled with joy, I thanked her politely and headed on, into no-mans land and the journey home.

Seoul (Incheon) to Hong Kong
Airhostesses have to be tall. That’s the rule. Or at least it used to be the rule. It’s always seemed arbitrary before. I am more sympathetic to the idea after a tiny, doll-like Cathay Pacific cabin attendant nearly knocked me out trying to stow a suitcase in the overhead compartment above me, while standing on the edge of my seat and swinging it past my head.

The food on Cathay Pacific was fine and the in-flight entertainment was good. It was a short flight – 3 or 4 hours, so not too much time to kill but I find I’m always more restless on a plane when I don’t have a window to look out of. I found some episodes of Glee to watch instead.

In Hong Kong (my 6-hour stop-over) I went through the quick transit security check and set off to explore this sprawling air transportation hub. Hong Kong Airport is one of the busiest in the world. In 2009, over 46 million passengers used the airport. That’s nearly the population of South Africa. Shops, pharmacies, liquor and cigarette duty frees, bars, restaurants, spas and lounges dot the area around the many, many moving walkways. At intervals, electronic signboards show destinations from Paris and Sydney to Beijing and LA. I walked and walked and walked. You hear all the time about people who spend hours and hours travelling and get all sorts of aches and pains from lack of exercise. Do these people not have stops on their flights? Or do they simply not feel the need to wander around the airports where they stop? I like exploring airports. I like airports. This one was spacious and classy, although I did end up having Burger King for dinner, but mostly because I wasn’t sure whether the other restaurants would take the currency I was carrying.

Hong Kong to Johannesburg
I sat down in my aisle seat (again) and waited for the rest of the passengers to board. People came in ones and twos. Eventually, the cabin crew started closing overhead lockers and talking people through safety procedures. There was a window seat next to me. It was empty. I watched and waited and then, before I knew it, they were preparing the doors for take-off. Joy of joys – not only could I claim window but I had two whole seats to spread out across.

I watched a rainy Hong Kong fall away below me and relaxed into the South African accents and languages floating back and forth. In thirteen hours, I would be back in the RSA but already, just being on an SAA flight I was a little bit closer and a little more at home.

The flight to Joburg wasn’t bad. SAA isn’t the world’s best for in-flight entertainment but you can usually find something to watch. My jet-lag kicked in, of course, so I was awake from about 3am SA time. This did mean that I got to watch the sun rise over the stunning clouded edge of Africa. I kept the window blind open for the whole flight and no-one made me shut it, unlike previous east-ward flights, so I was able to watch the whole sky-scape turn from night into dusky-dawn. At one point, a tray of typical SAA breakfast in front of me, I watched the early sun reflecting the SAA colours from the wing-tip across the wing-surface towards me. It could have been an SAA advert.

Joburg. South Africa. ‘My’ airport. I tried to hold back the tears as we dropped, lower and lower, across the highveld but there was no point. As the plane touched down, with the sun slanting through the red winter grass, I cried and cried. I was home. The familiar form of OR Tambo rose before us. The voice, the same voice as always, welcomed us to Joburg with all the words I remember from all those flights.

We disembarked and followed the signs to passport control, which was efficient and organised and clearly very ready for the Soccer World Cup. The whole plane-load must have passed through in about 10 minutes. Baggage claims took a little longer. I suppose that much baggage takes a while to off-load. While we waited a guard, with something like ‘agricultural products control’ on his vest, led a small dog in and out, letting the dog sniff at people’s baggage and clothes. It was unobtrusive and non-invasive and seemed a very efficient way to check things. I loaded my bag onto a trolley and walked out into the circular arrivals area of the new OR Tambo.

The airport was looking great – all sparkly and new and decked out in bright colours for the World Cup. I had several hours to wait for my domestic flight but this wait was more of a home-coming than a delay. I had breakfast at Wimpy and only just managed to avoid crying into my first proper Wimpy coffee. I wandered around a bit to see what they’d done to the place. I found a spot, on the departures level, from where I could comfortably look down on the arrivals circle and people-watch. To my left, a group of police-men stood chatting, interrupting their conversation frequently to give directions or help out lost foreigners. The taxi drivers, the porters, the airport volunteers – everyone was helpful and competent. Down below, a group of Argentineans got into a singing match with some Chile fans. Their hearty singing was complemented by the occasional Vuvuzela blast. Everyone watched and clapped. The atmosphere was fantastic.

Eventually, tired after all the flights, I checked in, went through security (ah, so good to be back at a familiar airport) and spent some quality time in the premier lounge. I was flying 1time but I figured I’d be tired so paid the extra for the lounge – definitely worth it if you want to get work done or have a long wait. Nearly 24 hours after leaving Incheon, I landed in East London, where I was greeted by singing and dancing. The singing and dancing was obviously intended for someone else but it was still pretty awesome. We (my parents and I) stayed in EL for a few hours and did fun things like buying Fest tickets. I should have been exhausted but I was buoyed by the joy and wonder and relief of being home.

I’ve been back for two weeks now. I can’t believe it has been so long. I keep finding things I love about this country and reasons I’m glad to be back. The moment that made me realise just how homesick I was in Korea, the moment I keep coming back to and that I suppose will always be a reminder of why I’m not cut out to be anywhere but Africa, is that joyful, tear-filled moment when the plane touched down in Joburg and the morning rays of sunlight softly touched the winter-red grass.

An unusual attachment to airports

I just read this great description of airport-hopping across Africa, which, of course, made me want to go and explore my own continent. Exploring Africa is a running theme in my life at the moment, partly because it’s just generally amazing and partly because of my amazing friend who is currently travelling from Cape Town to Cairo on public transport. He’s been a little quiet lately – presumably because the internet is not a mango. Rumour has it he has made it to Ethiopia and is still in one travel-happy piece.

Reading about travel always makes me think about airports. When I first started working, I plunged straight into a somewhat crazy job where I found myself spending 3-4 days each week travelling. Until that point, I had no memory of flying, although I apparently flew occassionally as a small child. Literally within 7 days of working, I was (rather nervously) on my first flight to Cape Town. From then on it became a regular part of most work-weeks. There were 7am flights to Durban, 6am flights to Uppington and flights at all sorts of times to Cape Town and East London and Joburg. I became one of those people who could pack for a week away in the space of 5 minutes and once in less when I suddenly and unexpectedly had to fly to Polokwane on a Friday afternoon.

I became familiar with many of the airports in South Africa. Richards Bay airport is teeny-tiny – or at least it was the last time I was there – with one luggage carousel and a little cafe counter, run by a little old lady, where you expected to see them serving tea in proper china cups. Upington for some reason struck me as more tourist-y. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that they have, apparently, one of the longest runways in the the world – someone once told me that a space shuttle could land there if it wasn’t able to land in the Northern Hemisphere, but that may just be urban legend.

My least favourite airport in South Africa is Port Elizabeth. It is also the airport where I always, for some unknown reason, get stuck waiting for hours and hours. I once spent 6 hours there with a friend, this time due to poor planning on my part, and we were so bored we ended up sitting on a bench outside redoing the words of show-tunes to express our desperate longing one day to escape the PE airport. And that wasn’t even the last time I spent far too many hours there.

My second worst is Durban, purely because the design is horrible. I will never understand why anyone would put a security check-point, particularly at an airport where everyone in the family seems to feel the need to come along to see people off, in the middle of a crowded corridor. Durban has also been the site of far too many delays and problems. Yet another reason I’m not a fan of the city.

In the later years of working for a large organisation, most of my airport-travel was from Cape Town. At that stage, I was working between South Africa’s two largest cities, travelling up and down every 2 weeks or so. I think some part of my brain is still waiting every week for the 4:30am Monday wake up to catch an early plane so that I could make my meeting in Joburg. At one point, in the process of renovating the place, they removed about half of the chairs between the security check and the boarding gates. This airport is particularly busy on Monday mornings, so the choice was to stand around until someone finally decided that the plane was ready for boarding (an often-delayed event on those busy days) or to sit on the floor. I can’t count the number of times I sat near the boarding gates checking mail while I waited, with bleary-eyed tourists stealing bemused glances at the woman in business clothes sitting on the floor.

Apart from East London airport, which is special because it means going home – oh, and because they still have the light fittings in old-SAA colours from the 1970s – my favourite airport in South Africa is OR Tambo in Johannesburg. There are several reasons for this. The first is just that it’s a nice airport. It is spacious and modern, with good facilities and has necessities like a pharmacy, stationary shops and book stores, which are precious to find when you’re spending so much time in meetings and trainings that the only time to buy things is between flights.

It is also a fairly efficient airport. At least, I’ve always found it that way. Everything seems logical and well-designed, although possibly just because I’ve spent so much time there that I can find my way around while half-asleep purely on muscle-memory and instinct. The staff have generally been pleasant to me, too. And after a while, either because my name popped up in their computers as someone who flies an awful lot or just because I started to look like I knew what I was doing, I became one of those people who always gets the good seats and sometimes gets bumped up a class when they’re overbooked (although that only happened a couple of times).

The other reason I love Joburg airport is that it’s a great place to relax after a hectic day of work. Again, this may just be because I’ve spent so much time there. There is a bar near the domestic boarding gates, which became, for a time, my ‘local’ – the place I’d go after work on a Friday to have a quiet pint and calm down after the week. The Wimpy nearby has been the source of many quick meals. And I’ve spent many happy hours, when I arrived early or the plane was delayed, sitting reading or writing near my boarding gate. A friend of mine once pointed out that airports are a great place to write and to think. Joburg (OR Tambo) was that for me for a long time.

Of course, there are bad things too. At one point when I was (quite literally) commuting between Stutterheim (East London Airport) and Pretoria (OR Tambo), I  regularly dealt with Friday 5pm flights to one of the smaller airports, invariably involving a nightmare combination of crying children, irritable, demanding politician-types and far too many people who have never flown before.

But on the whole, Joburg airport is a little home-away-from-home. Coming here (to South Korea), when I was entirely terrified of everything, it was a comfort to be leaving from ‘my airport’. I think that – along with the much-needed hand-holding of a particularly sympathetic and amazing friend – is what actually got me on the plane. The trip here is a bit of a blur except for the moments of calm at each airport – Joburg, Dubai, Incheon and finally Daegu, each with its own peculiarities and atmosphere. Dubai, huge and glittering and with palm-trees. Incheon, a maze of escalators and underground trains and following signs to try to find the right check-in desk. Daegu, small and empty and mostly closed for the evening by the time I arrived.

In the 5 and a half months I’ve been here, I’ve only once been near the airport, and that was just on a bus-ride driving past. Among the many other things I miss, I kind of miss South African airports. I miss the early morning rush and the check-in staff trying to get everyone onto the plane while dealing with the idiots who can’t understand why their precious oversized wooden giraffe will not fit in the overhead luggage compartment. I miss the ease of slipping one item of check-in luggage onto the weighing-thingy, asking the smiling check-in person for a window seat and walking away with boarding pass in hand. I miss hot coffee from Wimpy and watching the early morning mist or the frost on the ground or the rising heat of the day through the huge windows at the boarding gates. I miss sitting on the floor with my laptop sending one last email before getting onto the plane. I miss the every-time thrill of take-off as the plane speeds down the runway and I lean back against the headrest and watch from the window as Joburg slips away and away below us.

I miss the going and the waiting to go, the ‘molweni‘ and the ‘totsiens‘, the anonymity and the calm-in-the-chaos of those moments. In the midst of a life of taxis buses and subways and cavernous airport-like KTX stations, I find myself missing, just a little, the way I feel when I’m sitting alone at an airport.