The Beginning 6 Leaving

As I struggled up from the depths of sleep on the morning of Friday the 6^th of April the realisation hit me that it was leaving day. I had just slept my last night in SA.

Last night we had a wonderful dinner with Andre and Lizel. They treated us to a real South African braai and we will always remember it as our last braai while still living in SA. This morning though we were all a bit quiet and subdued............

We were to meet the family, except for my brother and his family who were on holiday, for a last breakfast together. I really did not feel up to it and wished that we didn't have to.  This is not because I didn't want to see all of them but I dreaded the inevitable emotions and sadness........... The trouble with saying goodbye is that everyone says goodbye to only us but we have to say goodbye to so many people that we know and love.

In the end though it was great spending the time together and we really appreciated everybody’s well wishes and blessings. Luckily there were no emotional breakdowns and everybody was very brave. I know I sound callous and hard but its just a question of not being able to cope with it at that particular point in time as I was in pure, unrefined survival mode.

During the last weeks and days before leaving people would constantly ask me how I was feeling. Although I pretended that I was all excited and scared, there was in actual fact just a big empty space of emotional nothing, and that last day was no exception. I was feeling disconnected, going walkabout in a desert devoid of any emotion.

 I had to get the house cleaned and ready for the tenants, so could not think of all the things we still wanted to do and see in SA.

 I had to sort  the house keys into two sets, one for the letting agent and one for the tenants, so could not worry about whether our workers would be cared for by their new employers.

 I had to pack our hand luggage, so could not think about all the wonderful family we were leaving behind.

 I had to get the kids ready for the long flight, so could not afford to think about this beloved Africa of my blood.

 I had to remember all the passports and check-in papers, so could not worry about our house that we were entrusting to strangers.

I had to remember to get some cash from the ATM to pay the airport shuttle, so could not think about all our wonderful friends that we were going to miss so much.

I had to see to it that all 6 big suitcases were packed and within the specified weight limits, so I could not think about the wonderful school that we were no longer a part of.

 I had to remember to give the kids Avomine for motion sickness before the flight, so could not think about all the good people that we did not get to see before our departure.

Leaving day was so jam-packed with stuff to do, remember, finalise and arrange that there was just simply no time for an emotional hurricane to make landfall.

All our suitcases

 At 7:15 pm the shuttle arrived to pick us up, of course with a mini bus as there was no way all our luggage was going to fit in a car. We arrived at the airport nice and early-Kobus likes to be in first. We were first in the queue and full of bravado we strolled to the counter thinking we can quickly  book in our bags and then spend some time relaxing in the shops and restaurants before boarding the plane. Of course Murphy had other plans. When the guy behind the counter swiped Kobus' en Cilliers' passports the computer system pulled a fast one and blocked their passports.

At first I thought that maybe there was something wrong with the passports but Kobus used his without any problems 4 weeks previously. Nightmarish scenarios of us spending weeks at the Department of Home Affairs trying to sort out passport problems reared their ugly heads. What if it was a problem with the Canadian visas, would we have to camp out there on the embassy's sidewalk too?? We didn't even have any camping equipment left!!

 It transpired that KLM and Air France had rolled out a new boarding computer system 3 days previously and we were the lucky winners of the first major glitch. When the first guy realised he could not fix the problem he called the next in line, and so it went with one person after the other unable to make any sense of the big red warning flags on the computer screen.

 Eventually Dudu arrived and apparently the buck stops with her. By this time we have been standing, sitting and slouching in the check-in hall for well over 90 minutes. All our hopes were on the very intelligent and capable looking woman who quickly took charge in such an efficient and friendly way.

 However, even Dudu was dumbfounded by the system's idiocy. Eventually she phoned the system designers in Amsterdam. But, after spending 2 and a half hours on the phione with them, even they just shrugged and said they have no idea how to fix it. How can even the guys who designed the system not know how to fix it...duh!!!!

By this time we have spent 4 hours in the check-inn hall and the plane was warming up its engines and straining at the chocks. Dudu made an executive decision, wrote out our boarding passess by hand and dispatched a runner to escort us through passport control, through security and onto the plane.

I wondered why this decision to go all old school and do things manually could not have been made at a much much earlier time.......

The shops and restaurants that we wanted to spend some time in were just blurry images flitting by in our mad dash to get on the plane. Huffing and puffing (we are definitely not the world's fittest forty somethings) we stumbled  onto the plane and tried valiantly to disappear into our seats. The plane was delayed by 20 minutes, waiting for us, and the deep displeasure of the other passengers was curling in the air. I wanted to stand up and shout that it was not our fault, that we were the hapless victims of an evil computer system, that we were hungry and thirsty and irritated and tired and frustrated and annoyed and upset and...and.....and......

At last we were on the plane on our way to Canada. The 11 hour flight went smoothly and all of us slept most of the way, arriving safely at Schiphol airport in Amsterdam. We had to wait 6 hours for our flight to Toronto but fortunately Schiphol is probably one of the nicest airports to spend time in. We browsed the shops, found a great restaurant, sampled most of their menu and slept on the very comfortable benches.

The boys at Sciphol

Having travelled for 26 hours we eventually landed  in Toronto at 7:30pm, Saturday night local time. Getting through immigration was a breeze but our elation soon disappeared when we stood next to the baggage carousel and as it went round and round and round none of the bags coming out even closely resembled ours. Our bags, al 6 of them, were not there!!  It seems that although we made it onto the plane our bags did not. They only left Johannesburg 24 hours after we did

I wanted to cry, I was so tired, felt so dirty and wanted nothing more than to get to our hotel, have  a bath, get into clean pj's and sleep.

The shuttle deposited us at Staybridge Hotel in Guelph, about a 45 minute drive from the airport, we checked in, had a bath, dressed in our dirty shirts and surrendered to Morpheus.

We have arrived.......................