Mozambican Adventures of the Beilfuss family (Madison chapter)
08 April 2008
Africa-Bound
We began our long journey home to Gorongosa on St. Patrick’s Day. We traveled on an overnight flight to London, where we taxied to the home of long-time friends of Katie’s family near the airport, where we found Gram (Katie’s mom Barb)! (Barb had flown to London the previous week to be able to spend some time with friends). After a delightful lunch and rest, we headed back to the airport for overnight flight #2 en route to Johannesburg. Theo was a trooper on both flights, doing a lot of sleeping and generally keeping pretty quiet, as far as babies are concerned! We had a baby bassinet that was a dream for Theo. I was thankful for the loud drone of the plane as it disguised Theo’s occasional cries.
We arrived Joburg at 9-ish in the morning, where we Beilfi sailed through immigration and managed to retrieve all of our bags. But no Barb! Because our seats had not been together on the plane, we had not gone through immigration together. After a long wait, I talked with some officials who said there was another international arrivals area (to which other airlines are directed) at which she could have erroneously ended up. I managed to talk my way through various security barriers to get into this other area, where I did manage to find her. (She wasn't, I should point out, the only one who went to the wrong place -- many others from our flight were there as well. Poorly signed!) She was worried that we weren’t in her section and that her baggage didn’t seem to have arrived, but nobody had bothered to tell her she was in the wrong place! Happily all of this time was less than an hour, and then we were on our way again.
We had 3 days in Johannesburg so that we could get some doctor and dental appointments in before heading back to rural Mozambique – in particular, the boys both needed immunizations. Turns out Easter holidays in South Africa are akin to Labor Day in the US – the whole country shuts down for the Friday through Monday around Easter, with even most shops closing up tight Friday at noon. So our stay wasn’t quite as productive in terms of getting errands done, but we did enjoy a relaxing afternoon at the Johannesburg Zoo.
Our family has moved back to Madison (we returned mid-August 2008) for a variety of reasons. While we are very sad to have left the Chitengo family we had come to love -- and the extraordinary natural resource, Gorongosa National Park -- we are very excited to be back in our old Jean Street neighborhood in Madison, and to be able to see and communicate with our friends and family more readily.
"A Complicated War: The Harrowing of Mozambque" by William Finnegan.
"Drawn from the Plains: Life in the Wilds of Southern Africa", by Lynne Tinley, wife of the ecologist who documented the plants and animals at Gorongosa before the wars. Out of print but available through www.abebooks.com
"The Safari Companion: A Guide to Watching African Mammals" by Richard D. Estes
We began our long journey home to Gorongosa on St. Patrick’s Day. We traveled on an overnight flight to London, where we taxied to the home of long-time friends of Katie’s family near the airport, where we found Gram (Katie’s mom Barb)! (Barb had flown to London the previous week to be able to spend some time with friends). After a delightful lunch and rest, we headed back to the airport for overnight flight #2 en route to Johannesburg.
Theo was a trooper on both flights, doing a lot of sleeping and generally keeping pretty quiet, as far as babies are concerned! We had a baby bassinet that was a dream for Theo. I was thankful for the loud drone of the plane as it disguised Theo’s occasional cries.
We arrived Joburg at 9-ish in the morning, where we Beilfi sailed through immigration and managed to retrieve all of our bags. But no Barb! Because our seats had not been together on the plane, we had not gone through immigration together. After a long wait, I talked with some officials who said there was another international arrivals area (to which other airlines are directed) at which she could have erroneously ended up. I managed to talk my way through various security barriers to get into this other area, where I did manage to find her. (She wasn't, I should point out, the only one who went to the wrong place -- many others from our flight were there as well. Poorly signed!) She was worried that we weren’t in her section and that her baggage didn’t seem to have arrived, but nobody had bothered to tell her she was in the wrong place! Happily all of this time was less than an hour, and then we were on our way again.
We had 3 days in Johannesburg so that we could get some doctor and dental appointments in before heading back to rural Mozambique – in particular, the boys both needed immunizations. Turns out Easter holidays in South Africa are akin to Labor Day in the US – the whole country shuts down for the Friday through Monday around Easter, with even most shops closing up tight Friday at noon. So our stay wasn’t quite as productive in terms of getting errands done, but we did enjoy a relaxing afternoon at the Johannesburg Zoo.
