Caroline on My Mind

One of the highlights of being in South Africa is sharing this experience with my family.  This past weekend was one of those wonderful mother-daughter times with my “African” daughter.  Caroline came to Johannesburg from Zambia to take the MCATs one last time, so we planned out a visit where we could relax and visit as well as see a little bit of Gauteng Province.  This blog is dedicated to that visit.

Even though there are glitches with skype, it has been a life-saver for me because it affords the opportunity to see the people I’m talking with.  I’ve had long visits with Ken while we catch up on what’s going on at JMU, at home, and here in Pretoria.  I get to have almost weekly visits with Suzy, Abbey, and Rebecca.  I’ve even had a short conversation with Ashlynn, who wasn’t too interested in sitting in front of the computer screen with me but sits there for ages with computer games!  As for Will and Stephanie, we have to keep up through Facebook.  Ben sends his occasional email and Rachel’s messages are even more infrequent.  With Caroline, we use skype as a way to talk, but she doesn’t have a computer camera so it’s voice only with her.  And while I love my life in South Africa, I do miss my family and having time to talk with them face to face.

So for weeks, all my colleagues heard from me was that Caroline was coming in for a visit.  I told everyone that I had to leave work early on Friday to beat the weekend traffic out of Pretoria so I could be sure to get to the airport in J’burg on time.  I also let them know that I was not going to be around on Monday and Tuesday because Caroline and I had lots of plans.  People asked about what we were going to do and offered suggestions on ways to spend the weekend.  I left the office early enough to miss most of the traffic, although with all the road projects underway for the World Cup, there are always delays here and there along the way.  I did manage to get to the airport almost 2 hours early!  Of course, I had work with me and just sat at a coffee shop with my large cappuchino until it was time for her flight to arrive.

Waiting for the plane to land, then for her to get through customs seemed to take forever, but she finally emerged and I got my big Caroline hug!  Don’t you just love watching reunions at the airport?  I whisked her away to the car (after having made copious notes so that I could actually find my way back to the parking garage and car when I left the arrivals area), and we headed out to Themba and Thembela’s house for the evening.  My dear friends hosted Caroline the last time she had been in town for the MCATs and they were most gracious to host both of us again.  Supper was cooking and they remembered that Caroline can’t have gluten so we enjoyed our home-cooked meal, complete with pap (my favorite).  We talked and talked and then watched Generations before making our plans for leaving VERY early in the morning to be sure we got to the test center in downtown J’burg in plenty of time.  While our getting up early wasn’t such a big deal for us, it did require that Themba, who had worked until the wee hours of the morning, had to get up to let us out of the gate.

We made it to the test center using our directions with no trouble at all.  Even better, Caroline finished almost 2 hours earlier than she had expected so we knew that our weekend was off to a good start.  Our optimism was short-lived, however,  when we couldn’t quite re-trace our route to get home.  After about an hour of driving around parts of J’burg few 2010 visitors will get to see and making 2 stops for directions, we managed to get onto the right road and head home in the weekend traffic.  The road home seemed unusually long, but we managed to get back to Pretoria, talking the whole way.  After a quick shower, we walked to the Ocean Basket restaurant for supper and then back home again to talk even more, watch a little tv, and turn in early.

By Sunday, the weekend was officially ours and Caroline was able to relax a little more from all the weeks of studying.  We walked to the little market that is held every Sunday at the shopping center, took a long walk through the university’s sports fields, and then back to the shopping center to pick up one of Caroline’s friends from Zambia who was in town for a special seminar at UP.  We went to the local mall for lunch and then caught a movie, The Last Train Station, (or something like that).

Monday held one commitment at work.  The dean of the College of Education was making her official visit to the department’s display at the library, so those of us who had made contributions to the display had to come.  This was the first project that I had done with my friend Annalie and became the basis for a conference proposal and an article so I was glad to show that to Caroline as well.  This also gave me the perfect opportunity to show off my eldest daughter to the people in my department who were thrilled to finally meet her.  All those comments like, “She looks just like you!” “Isn’t she beautiful!” were music to my ears. 

Once we finished up at the library, however, we went straight to the mall for some shopping.  Clothing in Lusaka is incredibly expensive so we were looking for some bargains here in South Africa and found a few things that Caroline had been hoping to get.  Although Caroline’s tolerance for shopping is limited compared to her sisters, she was definitely up for going out for lunch so we tried out a place that had been recommended to me – Huckleberry’s.  Our lunch was fantastic and really hit the spot.  It was a fish with pumpkin and greens over rice in a curry sauce and we both cleaned our plates.  Caroline needed a nap after all that, and I did a little work.  We had to walk to the store to pick up some groceries and had a quiet evening at home.  Thanks to Caroline the chef, we had a crustless quiche that became my supper for several more evenings.

Tuesday was our last day together.  We stopped by campus for the “Proudly Groenkloof” soccer celebrations and then headed to the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg.  We took our time going through the entire exhibit – one that is incredibly memorable – and then had lunch there at the coffee shop.  Having gotten a little bit lost on the way there, we checked with someone at the museum with a GPS to check on the best way to get to the airport.  He kept referring us to the R-23 and I was pretty sure that wasn’t correct.  As soon as we saw the signs for ORT airport, we ditched his directions and made it there with no trouble.  I dropped Caroline off at the international departure gate and headed back to Pretoria in the 5:00 traffic.

This week has turned out to be quite pleasant and I certainly have some lovely memories of the weekend.  Nkidi has booked tickets for us to have a girls night out at the musical performance of Africa Umoja for Saturday and Annalie and I have talked about a night out over the weekend.  I’ve got Skype on and am waiting to see who comes on line before I turn off the computer because of the current storm.  I hope you have a good weekend as well.