Arriving at Swanage

We made it!! With very little drama we succeeded in getting to our homestead for the next 6 weeks.

The journey began in Terminal 5 where with the help of Riki's mum's uncanny ability to guess the weight of bags, Riki got through check in without having to pay more for his luggage. Every little helps right?

We got a little worried our trauma placement was going to start prematurely when one of the girls in the school group boarding in front of us proclaimed 'I have too much energy to get on the plane. I need to do a back flip'. With encouragement from her teacher (?!) she just about made it round the full 360 with Riki and I looking on anxiously ready to pounce with our ABCDE approach should this go terribly wrong. Fortunately we weren't sat too close to them on the plane so Riki had some peace and quiet to sit down and watch a film - probably the first time he's done so since his last international flight.

Not sure if this counts as seeing one of the big five? 

This was Riki's preferred position for most of the flight given the fact that Niagra falls had apparently teleported to his left nostril requiring him to plough through tissues like there was no tomorrow. 

10 hours later we landed with the backdrop of a beautiful South African sunrise. Our joy and excitement was quickly crushed on reaching the queue for border control which was sizeable to say the least. The inefficiency of this made Riki’s blood boil while I shrugged and responded ‘Welcome to Africa’. After sorting our phones we had a bit of a wait before we could be let in to our accomodation (I put this disorganisation down to the fact that we’d just finished our exams and hadn’t had time to properly plan, not just because we were incompetent. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it) so made use of the Airport wifi to look up previous blogs and elective reports from people that had done similar things in South Africa. If I’m honest, this did not help the nerves so trying not to think about the horrors that might be facing us in the trauma unit we picked up our car (name yet to be determined - it’s a little blue Hyundai i10 and we’re open to suggestions) and drove to our new home in Northern Johannesburg. This was a relatively uneventful journey, well at least for Riki. I on the other hand had to contend with the fact that for some UNKNOWN STUPID REASON the indicator is on the WRONG side of the steering wheel. This meant that at approximately 1 in the afternoon with clear blue skies I was sporadically turning on and off the wind screen wipers. That’s going to take a little bit of adjustment. On the plus side, the steering wheel is on the right (and also correct) side of the car so I won’t be continuously punching the driver side in my attempts to change gear as I have done in other cars. 

We were greeted by one of the sleepy elective students who had very kindly interrupted his post night-shift kip to let us in. All unpacked we chilled in the warm afternoon sun being kept company by the neighbourhood cat. 

We then met out host Alan when he returned from the Hospital where he works as a pulmonologist. In between phone calls managing a patient that had very inconveniently decided to make some very decent attempts at no longer living after he’d already left work, gave us a tour around his home. 

Us with Alan holding a name tag that was made by a previous Cam elective student

For dinner we ventured out with the 3 other elective students currently staying in Swanage to some local restaurants and bars and racked their brains for advice on how to get the most out of our time here. Saturday got off to a very sleepy start but we eventually made it out to the local supermarket and stocked up on some supplies. This evening, with Riki being cooking illiterate, he leapt on the chance to help Alan and one of his friends do some cooking. 

Miraculously, even with Riki's input, dinner was delicious 

These efforts were rudely interrupted when the power cut out. Apparently the local energy companies are on strike because they want a 15% wage increase and as a result there will be sporadic load shedding in the coming weeks. Yay. Thankfully Alan has prepared for such eventualities and has gas cooking and hot water so we shouldn’t be too affected. For now though, it means I am writing this in the pitch black. It did however make for an amusing situation where without internet (requires electricity) Riki decided to try and put some music on through his lap top (also requiring electricity). On picking it up to find out it had run out of battery he decided ‘not a problem, I’ll just get my charger’. Good one Riki.   

Tomorrow we’re hoping to visit a local market or two and mentally prepare ourselves to deal with the administrative team at the University and Health agency in order to get our forms sorted. We have been advised to go in to this with 110% sass. 

P.S for anyone in the future undertaking an elective in South Africa. Please be aware that winter does mean winter. No matter what your friends and family say and joke ‘oh you don’t need that extra jumper, you’re going to Africa’, please don’t listen to them. Especially those among us that are follicularly challenged, a wooly hat is essential for the early mornings and evenings.