The First Post

So somebody suggested to me that, if I wasn't into the group email thing (which I'm really not) I should do a travel blog instead. I can't remember who it was, but I remember they told me it was difficult to set up (or I may have misheard). But then Anna Needs told me it was in fact hella easy to set up, and that I should just google 'free blogs' and go from there. So I did. And long story short here I am, in Johannesburg airport with about 30 mins till my flight leaves for Nairobi, and 1 hour 10 mins battery power left on my laptop (I appear to have stuffed up with my international adaptors and so can't charge it), giving it a red hot go.

It being only a day and a half since I left Sydney, not much interesting has happened yet. I arrived in Joburg yesterday afternoon, with an overnight stay before getting my connecting flight on to Kenya. Got through immigration and customs without attracting the rubber glove treatment (still the proud owner of a 100 % record on that front) and got off to my airport hotel without too much difficulty - except that a lot of people kept doing small favours for me (like showing me where the shuttle bus left, driving the shuttle bus, opening the door of the shuttle bus at the other end, etc) in expectation of receiving tips in return. I had to keep saying "I'm sorry, I don't have any cash", which was not 100% literally true because I do have A$70 and $US150 emergency money, but was true in the narrower sense that I didn't have any South African money. People were ok about it, although one guy did say he'd accept foreign currency also - I weighed it up but the smallest denomination I had was US$5 and that felt like a bit too much for walking 20 metres with me to the shuttle bus stop. Note to self: upon return to South Africa, obtain South African currency as a priority.

That will do for the scene setting: here is one little story before I dash off to my flight. The organisation I've come to Kenya with, World Youth International, encouraged me to bring over any old clothes, toys etc that I had, to donate to the community where I'll be volunteering. They have an orphanage there with lots of little kiddies who have very little by way of possessions. Now, I don't have any kids' toys (and they're not getting my ipod); nor do I have any old clothing that would suit the Kenyan climate - even if I could carry it with me. So I did nothing about this request until my second last day in Sydney, when I grabbed a couple of things in KMart - a bucket of playdoh, some crayons and balloons. Still had a bit of an inferiority complex imagining a hundred desperate little kids with a couple of handfuls of playdoh to share between them, but hey, I'm just one man. Anyway the stuff wouldn't fit in my bags so, ingeniously, I threw them into a plastic bag to carry on to the plane with me. If quizzed about bringing on two carry-on bags I could say I had just bought the stuff in the airport.

Fail. The playdoh didn't even make it through the security check - when you think about it, it does bear an uncanny resemblance to plastic explosive, doesn't it? The now diminished bag of crayons and balloons (even less to go round) did leave Sydney with me, but didn't come off at the other end - I left it in the overhead compartment along with all the liquids I'd brought in my carry-on luggage (eye drops and stuff). Those poor kids - maybe they'd be better off WITHOUT me trying to help them?