My second day in Namibia began at 9am, when Dollar knocked on my door. He was going to show me around the town and help me pick up some things I needed, including a cell phone. Everyone here has a cell phone, and they all use them constantly. They’re very inexpensive compared to Canada (mine was N$350 or about $50 Canadian) and almost everyone uses “pay-as-you-go” cards. I also picked up some toiletries, which I was running low on, and a supper cheap sweater (it’s cold enough here that the two that I brought won’t be enough). The walk into town from where I’m staying is very beautiful and goes right along the ocean. As we walked there, some girls called our to Dollar, “Hey, Sunshine”. Apparently they recognized Dollar, but didn’t know that his band is called “Afroshine”.
Speaking of Afroshine, they have received a very enticing offer from one of the countries top two producers. Basically, he wants to take them under his wing, and work with them for a couple years to help them get going. It sounds like a great opportunity!
After a morning of walking and shopping, I needed a nap. Now I thought I was just tired from the long walk – one would think, having slept from 9pm to 9am, that I would be adjusted to this time-zone. Not so. I slept for about three hours before getting up around 5pm to go grocery shopping with Mrs. Venter.
Going out with Mrs. Venter is like going out with royalty. I don’t know if people behave the way they do towards her because they know her or because she just has an intangible quality about her, but the respect that she commands from people borders on reverence. When you’re with her, you just feel that you’re in the presence of greatness (which, of course, you are). So anyway, I picked up some groceries – mostly healthy things because one of my goals for the next three months is to get into better shape. However, Mrs. Venter was quite concerned that I hadn’t picked out enough “treats”.
When I got home, Dirk and Marie had dinner ready for me. We just ate in from of the TV and chatted, and talked about Wade, Fahim, Steve, Sam, and Lisa who they had hosted during our tour last year.
A little later on, Garth stopped by. We caught up and talked more Afroshine stuff. One thing that’s delaying Afroshine’s move to Windhoek is that Garth has a very good job at Standard Bank, and they won’t let him quit! Even the head of the company in Namibia has talked to him to try to convince him to stay. Garth has also been part of an advertising campaign for Standard Bank. Apparently his picture is in all the newspapers. I haven’t seen it yet, but I’ll have to check it out soon.
So back to the title of this blog entry. I went to bed last night at about 9:30pm, feeling quite tired and feeling that that was a reasonable time to be going to bed. Well, at 1am I woke up, and was completely awake. I couldn’t fall asleep again until around 4 or 5am. But when I did sleep I was out until about noon! So yeah, my sleep cycle is seriously messed up
-Joel.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Luggage, Passport Control, and My First Day
So the rest of my flight into Johannesburg was uneventful, apart from the amazing coffee that they served with breakfast. Usually I’m not a coffee drinker, but I though after “sleeping” on a plane for two nights straight it could do me good. It might have been the best cup of ordinary coffee that I’ve ever had. Anyway, enough with coffee. In Johannesburg, I was almost certain that I wouldn’t get my luggage. You see, the unnamed airline that I was berating earlier has an especially bad record when it comes to losing luggage. Thing like sending your luggage on non-existent flights and so on, so I could hardly expect them to successfully transfer it from Halifax to Montreal to Frankfurt to Johannesburg. So there I was, going through in my head what I would do if my luggage didn’t come, when lo and behold, there it was. I could hardly believe it! I don’t care that their customer service is terrible and their entertainment system didn’t work and their food was disgusting, because I had my bags!
So without having to spend hours creating a claim for my lost baggage, I had some time in Johannesburg airport. I spent most of it just looking around the shops. It was very strange to see the “Out of Africa” shop, which I’m sure people will remember from our first trip to Africa, without gaggles of Kokopellians.
The flight to Walvis Bay was nice and short on a very tiny plane. It was a beautifully clear day and you could see all the way to the ground for almost the entire journey. I snapped some good pictures from the air that I’ll post soon. Flying into Walvis Bay was like landing on another planet – the desert looks so surreal from above. But as we were about to land, a thought crossed my mind, a thought of slight panic. I was recalling our previous trips to Namibia and the immigration form that we had to fill out. One of the required fields was “Address while in Namibia”. Now, before I left home, I had a list of questions to ask Scott. Most of them were more for the sake of my mother than myself, but there were a few that I did need answers to. So I sent an email to Scott with all my questions, and got very useful answers to almost every question. Every question that is, except for what my address would be. I think he wrote that he didn’t know off hand, but that I would be staying where he is staying, which is with Dirk and Marie who are very nice people who hosted members of the choir last summer. At the time this answer seemed fine to me since I knew I would have people to show me around and such. I thought to myself, my mom probably just wanted to know in case she wanted to write. But hark; there was another reason why I needed to know the address. So I went up to the passport desk having left that one field blank and stood there looking very innocent. I did, however, remember one piece of information that was probably my ticket into the country. I remembered that Dirk was the manager of the Walvis Bay airport! So even though I could even give his last name, after pleading with the immigration officer I was able to get into the country with nothing written in the address field but “Swakopmund, Dirk and Marie”! Thanking my lucky stars that that worked out, I grabbed my bags and headed for the door. Engelhardt and Mrs. Venter were waiting for me. However, I guess I gave up on the innocent face a little too soon because before I could get through the door a police officer pulled me aside asking me if I want to declare anything to Namibian customs. I guess he wasn’t satisfied, so he sent me to an office where my things were searched. After that ordeal I was finally in the country for real! It was great to see Engelhardt and Mrs. Venter again. As we were leaving, Dollar also arrived at the airport, but I guess he got the time of the flight wrong.
Mrs. Venter and Engelhardt had some plans for me, but I insisted that before I do anything I needed a shower. So I had a shower at Mrs. Venter’s house while she dropped Engelhardt at choir practice and then we joined him there later. Engelhardt has been working with Linus’s high school choir while Linus has been in Canada, and they have a performance in Windhoek this weekend, so Engelhardt was having Mrs. Venter in to help them prepare. They were working on a couple pieces you might have heard of – Wilsbok and Hosanna Nkosi Pesulu. After rehearsal Mrs. Venter dropped me and Engelhardt off at Dirk and Marie’s to get settled before going to Mrs. Venter’s house to have dinner with Dollar, Jeremy, and Lindsay. I was great to catch up and hear about all the things Mascato is doing. I got home to around 9pm and slept until 9am the next morning.
So without having to spend hours creating a claim for my lost baggage, I had some time in Johannesburg airport. I spent most of it just looking around the shops. It was very strange to see the “Out of Africa” shop, which I’m sure people will remember from our first trip to Africa, without gaggles of Kokopellians.
The flight to Walvis Bay was nice and short on a very tiny plane. It was a beautifully clear day and you could see all the way to the ground for almost the entire journey. I snapped some good pictures from the air that I’ll post soon. Flying into Walvis Bay was like landing on another planet – the desert looks so surreal from above. But as we were about to land, a thought crossed my mind, a thought of slight panic. I was recalling our previous trips to Namibia and the immigration form that we had to fill out. One of the required fields was “Address while in Namibia”. Now, before I left home, I had a list of questions to ask Scott. Most of them were more for the sake of my mother than myself, but there were a few that I did need answers to. So I sent an email to Scott with all my questions, and got very useful answers to almost every question. Every question that is, except for what my address would be. I think he wrote that he didn’t know off hand, but that I would be staying where he is staying, which is with Dirk and Marie who are very nice people who hosted members of the choir last summer. At the time this answer seemed fine to me since I knew I would have people to show me around and such. I thought to myself, my mom probably just wanted to know in case she wanted to write. But hark; there was another reason why I needed to know the address. So I went up to the passport desk having left that one field blank and stood there looking very innocent. I did, however, remember one piece of information that was probably my ticket into the country. I remembered that Dirk was the manager of the Walvis Bay airport! So even though I could even give his last name, after pleading with the immigration officer I was able to get into the country with nothing written in the address field but “Swakopmund, Dirk and Marie”! Thanking my lucky stars that that worked out, I grabbed my bags and headed for the door. Engelhardt and Mrs. Venter were waiting for me. However, I guess I gave up on the innocent face a little too soon because before I could get through the door a police officer pulled me aside asking me if I want to declare anything to Namibian customs. I guess he wasn’t satisfied, so he sent me to an office where my things were searched. After that ordeal I was finally in the country for real! It was great to see Engelhardt and Mrs. Venter again. As we were leaving, Dollar also arrived at the airport, but I guess he got the time of the flight wrong.
Mrs. Venter and Engelhardt had some plans for me, but I insisted that before I do anything I needed a shower. So I had a shower at Mrs. Venter’s house while she dropped Engelhardt at choir practice and then we joined him there later. Engelhardt has been working with Linus’s high school choir while Linus has been in Canada, and they have a performance in Windhoek this weekend, so Engelhardt was having Mrs. Venter in to help them prepare. They were working on a couple pieces you might have heard of – Wilsbok and Hosanna Nkosi Pesulu. After rehearsal Mrs. Venter dropped me and Engelhardt off at Dirk and Marie’s to get settled before going to Mrs. Venter’s house to have dinner with Dollar, Jeremy, and Lindsay. I was great to catch up and hear about all the things Mascato is doing. I got home to around 9pm and slept until 9am the next morning.
Airport Benches, Airline Food, and the Friendliest German I Met
I’m writing this entry at around 3am Namibia time at around 30,000 feet. I should be landing in Johannesburg in about four hours, and then I’ll just have a four-hour layover before I get on my final flight to Walvis Bay. So out of a total of 42 hours of traveling, I only have about eight and a half left!
Phase one: Halifax to Montreal – check
This was a pretty short and uneventful flight. No airlines incurring rage yet.
Phase two: Montreal to Frankfurt – check
This was a longish and somewhat more eventful flight. First off, I’m seated next to a mother and her two to three year old daughter. I actually felt really bad for the mother by the end of the flight – she was obviously extremely tired and her daughter was not about to let her or anyone in the vicinity get any sleep. At one point she asked me how much time was left until we landed and I think she almost cried when I said about four hours (we were only half way through an eight-hour flight). Next, we had a certain airline behaving very much like itself. The flight was delayed taking off, but this was because two passengers had checked in their baggage and not gotten on the plane. That’s not the airlines fault, so I dealt with it. Then there was the entertainment system. I have to say, the plane itself was beautiful. It was a brand new 777, state of the art everything – the business class seats were especially cool. But the problem with this particular airline is that as hard as they seem to try, they just can’t get anything right. The entertainment systems were extremely confusing to use, and with the absence of any flight staff, I helped the people around me to figure out how to use the thing. Also, once you finally got the movie or TV show you wanted to play, you had to sit through about five minutes of commercials! Then, about five minutes into watching my movie, the whole system shut down. They said they were having problems with the system and would be resetting it. Whatever. Ten minutes in on my next try, same thing. This ended up happening four times at different points throughout the flight! I couldn’t help but laugh though when the flight attendant (whose first language was obviously French) apologized saying “a thousand excuses”. I’m pretty sure he meant “a thousand apologies” but I think “a thousand excuses” is bang on when it comes to this particular airline. Finally, the food – almost inedible. It was a chicken breast, mashed potatoes, peas and corn. The problem though, was that they were bathing in a “sauce” which I’m pretty sure was 90% ketchup. All in all though, this was one of the better flights I’ve had with this airline! I watched two movies that I’ve been wanting to see but couldn’t because Megan hates Nicholas Cage and Will Smith – National Treasure: Book of Secrets (trash, but enjoyable on a certain level) and I Am Legend (pretty good, but Will Smith didn’t look even close to fifty-two years old). I started to watch “There will be Blood” but it seemed a little deep for the last three hours of an eight-hour flight, so I shut it off and got some sleep.
Phase three: Frankfurt (fourteen-hour layover)
I got into Frankfurt around 7am on Tuesday. The first thing I wanted to do was find an internet café to see if Megan’s friend would be able to meet me at some point and maybe offer me a bed and a shower which were much needed by this point. I eventually found a sketchy place that had Internet. It was actually a shop of VLTs and only had a single computer available for Internet use. Unfortunately, Megan hadn’t heard back from her friend yet, so it seemed that I would spend the fourteen-hour layover on my own. I did manage a quick chat with Jessica Wu on facebook though! After walking around the airport shops a few times, I decided I had better do something with my day in this city that I had never been to. And here came my first mistake – asking for help. I found the train station without any difficulty, and suspected that the train I wanted was the “City Train”. However, being completely ignorant of this city, I wanted to make sure that this train a) led downtown and b) that downtown was where I wanted to be. So I asked the lady if that was the train I should take to get to some shops and restaurants. After a few moments of glaring at me as if I had just killed her puppy she said very curtly, “Downtown, track one”. “If looks could kill” would be an understatement here. So at that point I figured it would be best not to ask how to use the ticket machines that were all in German and simply thanked her and moved on. The ticket machine wasn’t actually too bad to figure out. I was then on the train and headed downtown. When I got downtown there were tons of business people on their way to work, so I figured I’d just follow the stream of traffic and see what I could find. Second mistake – following people aimlessly. About a block away from the train station I was surrounded by brothels and strip clubs and was approached by someone I presume was a prostitute. Deciding that this probably wasn’t where I wanted to be, I tried the next block over. This looked more promising – fancy hotels, and hark! Hoards of Japanese tourists! I little ways down this road and I reached the River Main and a nice park that went either side of it. Starting to grow tired I found a bench and just relaxed and watched people go by (tons of people running and riding bicycles). I also snapped a few photos of things that caught my interest. After a while I crossed the river and a footbridge to check out some of the interesting looking buildings on the other side. There were a couple museums and galleries, but I was far too tired to be interested. So I found another bench, snapped some more pictures, and eventually fell asleep. After dozing for about half an hour, I decided that I probably looked like a bit of a bum sleeping on this park bench, and I also wasn’t entirely comfortable falling asleep in the middle of a city that I’d never been to before in a country where I didn’t speak a word of the language when I had a flight to catch later in the day. I definitely needed sleep though, so even though it was only around 10:30, I decided to head back to the airport. This is when I met the guy who I’m pretty sure was trying to rob me. I was back at the train station, probably looking like I had no clue what I was doing (which I didn’t) when this guy came up to me and said something in German. Seeing my lack of comprehension, he said, “you’re American?” “Canadian” I replied (I took my backpack off, and made sure I was paying attention to where all my valuables were in my pockets). He asked me if I could spare a couple Euro because he was very thirsty and needed to buy some water. I told him I was only here for the day and barely had any money. He didn’t seem deterred though, and started questioning me as to where I was from and where I was going. He also gave a strange story of how he was a medical student, but that his mother wouldn’t give him any money (which was why he needed money from me). He also mentioned that he needed to go “caca” and uttered a profanity directed at the “Po-lice”. It all seemed rather far-fetched (though I believed him about the “caca” part). However, being in some need of assistance, myself, I asked him if he could tell me which train to get on to get back to the airport. It was very interesting as he showed me and helped me to buy my ticket the things he did to try to manipulate and distract me. I was one step ahead of him on everything though, and he seemed to realize that I knew what he was trying to do. In the end though, since he did help me to find the right train (which would have taken me a lot longer on my own) I gave him two euros to buy a bottle of water. Despite the fact that he was trying to rob me, he was probably the nicest German that I met that day. So I made it back to the airport and sought out somewhere to sleep. It was very crowded and noisy so I would get at best half an hour of sleep before moving on and finding a new spot. I didn’t particularly feel like anything to eat, so I just waited until around two hours before my flight and went through security. And that was my day in Frankfurt.
Phase four: Frankfurt to Johannesburg – in progress
Wow, this has been a long entry. It’s now past 4am, so we should be landing in about three hours. I’ve gotten a bit of sleep on this flight, and feel like I have a bit of energy left. I think once I finally get to Swakop and see a bed for the first time in two days, I’ll crash.
-Joel.
Phase one: Halifax to Montreal – check
This was a pretty short and uneventful flight. No airlines incurring rage yet.
Phase two: Montreal to Frankfurt – check
This was a longish and somewhat more eventful flight. First off, I’m seated next to a mother and her two to three year old daughter. I actually felt really bad for the mother by the end of the flight – she was obviously extremely tired and her daughter was not about to let her or anyone in the vicinity get any sleep. At one point she asked me how much time was left until we landed and I think she almost cried when I said about four hours (we were only half way through an eight-hour flight). Next, we had a certain airline behaving very much like itself. The flight was delayed taking off, but this was because two passengers had checked in their baggage and not gotten on the plane. That’s not the airlines fault, so I dealt with it. Then there was the entertainment system. I have to say, the plane itself was beautiful. It was a brand new 777, state of the art everything – the business class seats were especially cool. But the problem with this particular airline is that as hard as they seem to try, they just can’t get anything right. The entertainment systems were extremely confusing to use, and with the absence of any flight staff, I helped the people around me to figure out how to use the thing. Also, once you finally got the movie or TV show you wanted to play, you had to sit through about five minutes of commercials! Then, about five minutes into watching my movie, the whole system shut down. They said they were having problems with the system and would be resetting it. Whatever. Ten minutes in on my next try, same thing. This ended up happening four times at different points throughout the flight! I couldn’t help but laugh though when the flight attendant (whose first language was obviously French) apologized saying “a thousand excuses”. I’m pretty sure he meant “a thousand apologies” but I think “a thousand excuses” is bang on when it comes to this particular airline. Finally, the food – almost inedible. It was a chicken breast, mashed potatoes, peas and corn. The problem though, was that they were bathing in a “sauce” which I’m pretty sure was 90% ketchup. All in all though, this was one of the better flights I’ve had with this airline! I watched two movies that I’ve been wanting to see but couldn’t because Megan hates Nicholas Cage and Will Smith – National Treasure: Book of Secrets (trash, but enjoyable on a certain level) and I Am Legend (pretty good, but Will Smith didn’t look even close to fifty-two years old). I started to watch “There will be Blood” but it seemed a little deep for the last three hours of an eight-hour flight, so I shut it off and got some sleep.
Phase three: Frankfurt (fourteen-hour layover)
I got into Frankfurt around 7am on Tuesday. The first thing I wanted to do was find an internet café to see if Megan’s friend would be able to meet me at some point and maybe offer me a bed and a shower which were much needed by this point. I eventually found a sketchy place that had Internet. It was actually a shop of VLTs and only had a single computer available for Internet use. Unfortunately, Megan hadn’t heard back from her friend yet, so it seemed that I would spend the fourteen-hour layover on my own. I did manage a quick chat with Jessica Wu on facebook though! After walking around the airport shops a few times, I decided I had better do something with my day in this city that I had never been to. And here came my first mistake – asking for help. I found the train station without any difficulty, and suspected that the train I wanted was the “City Train”. However, being completely ignorant of this city, I wanted to make sure that this train a) led downtown and b) that downtown was where I wanted to be. So I asked the lady if that was the train I should take to get to some shops and restaurants. After a few moments of glaring at me as if I had just killed her puppy she said very curtly, “Downtown, track one”. “If looks could kill” would be an understatement here. So at that point I figured it would be best not to ask how to use the ticket machines that were all in German and simply thanked her and moved on. The ticket machine wasn’t actually too bad to figure out. I was then on the train and headed downtown. When I got downtown there were tons of business people on their way to work, so I figured I’d just follow the stream of traffic and see what I could find. Second mistake – following people aimlessly. About a block away from the train station I was surrounded by brothels and strip clubs and was approached by someone I presume was a prostitute. Deciding that this probably wasn’t where I wanted to be, I tried the next block over. This looked more promising – fancy hotels, and hark! Hoards of Japanese tourists! I little ways down this road and I reached the River Main and a nice park that went either side of it. Starting to grow tired I found a bench and just relaxed and watched people go by (tons of people running and riding bicycles). I also snapped a few photos of things that caught my interest. After a while I crossed the river and a footbridge to check out some of the interesting looking buildings on the other side. There were a couple museums and galleries, but I was far too tired to be interested. So I found another bench, snapped some more pictures, and eventually fell asleep. After dozing for about half an hour, I decided that I probably looked like a bit of a bum sleeping on this park bench, and I also wasn’t entirely comfortable falling asleep in the middle of a city that I’d never been to before in a country where I didn’t speak a word of the language when I had a flight to catch later in the day. I definitely needed sleep though, so even though it was only around 10:30, I decided to head back to the airport. This is when I met the guy who I’m pretty sure was trying to rob me. I was back at the train station, probably looking like I had no clue what I was doing (which I didn’t) when this guy came up to me and said something in German. Seeing my lack of comprehension, he said, “you’re American?” “Canadian” I replied (I took my backpack off, and made sure I was paying attention to where all my valuables were in my pockets). He asked me if I could spare a couple Euro because he was very thirsty and needed to buy some water. I told him I was only here for the day and barely had any money. He didn’t seem deterred though, and started questioning me as to where I was from and where I was going. He also gave a strange story of how he was a medical student, but that his mother wouldn’t give him any money (which was why he needed money from me). He also mentioned that he needed to go “caca” and uttered a profanity directed at the “Po-lice”. It all seemed rather far-fetched (though I believed him about the “caca” part). However, being in some need of assistance, myself, I asked him if he could tell me which train to get on to get back to the airport. It was very interesting as he showed me and helped me to buy my ticket the things he did to try to manipulate and distract me. I was one step ahead of him on everything though, and he seemed to realize that I knew what he was trying to do. In the end though, since he did help me to find the right train (which would have taken me a lot longer on my own) I gave him two euros to buy a bottle of water. Despite the fact that he was trying to rob me, he was probably the nicest German that I met that day. So I made it back to the airport and sought out somewhere to sleep. It was very crowded and noisy so I would get at best half an hour of sleep before moving on and finding a new spot. I didn’t particularly feel like anything to eat, so I just waited until around two hours before my flight and went through security. And that was my day in Frankfurt.
Phase four: Frankfurt to Johannesburg – in progress
Wow, this has been a long entry. It’s now past 4am, so we should be landing in about three hours. I’ve gotten a bit of sleep on this flight, and feel like I have a bit of energy left. I think once I finally get to Swakop and see a bed for the first time in two days, I’ll crash.
-Joel.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Montreal
I'm in Montreal airport right now and just realized that I have free wireless internet, about 10 minutes before I get on my flight to Frankfurt! So, I'll keep this brief. This morning I got a small send off from Steve, Tristan, Jessica Wagner, Brad, and Cassie as they were staying later in Halifax. We had a quick lunch - I got Tim Horton's for the last time for a long while. Then we said our goodbyes and I was off. After a short flight, I grabbed some food in the Montreal airport since I think I'm only getting breakfast on my next flight.
Here is a picture of my $8 sandwich. The bread was stale.
I'm now looking about 38 more hours of travel until I get to Namibia, but at least I'm on my way!
-Joel.
Friday, May 16, 2008
Who am I and Why am I Writing on this Blog?
Hello all,
So in a past life this blog existed for the purposes of recounting the events of last year's tour to Africa. For this summer, however, though Africa will remain a primary topic, this blog will be my personal account of my experiences as an exchange chorister with Mascato. I am lucky enough to be spending most of the summer with Scott, and several other Koko/Oran members will be visiting from time to time, so hopefully they will also offer some input.
So how's the trip going so far? Well, though I have left home and won't be back until Sept. 14th, I am not yet in Namibia. I'm with Kokopelli, and we are currently having a great time in Sackville, New Brunswick at the Podium Festival. Last night we were reunited with our fearless leader, Scott, and previous Mascato exchange chorister, Linus, who both flew straight from Germany where Mascato had been touring. Today, we assisted Scott with an African music workshop for festival delegates, attended workshops with various choral professionals (including members of Rajaton), attended two concerts featuring groups such as Soundtrax and the Canadian National Youth Choir. We also had a great dress rehearsal for our "cameo" concert tomorrow which we'll be sharing with Prairie Voices.
10 days until I leave for Africa.
-Joel.
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