International Student Trips Powered By Discovery Education
South Africa Adventure

We have arrived!

Saturday, June 6, 2009







After skipping across three continents, we have finally arrived in Cape Town! We took a total of five planes to get here. After the first leg of the trip(Little Rock to Dallas),we met up with the students and teacher from Dallas and shared the next four flights with them. The second leg of the journey took us to Frankfurt(what a beautiful city). The third leg from Frankfurt to Johannesburg was the longest. I never want to take another flight that long! Sleeping in an airplane for two nights straight isn't my idea of fun but to see the city was well worth it. We met up with the rest of the group from Discovery and Cedar Rapids in Frankfurt. Then the fun began: exhanging money, keeping up with boarding passes, and making new friends. There were no in-flight problems except that we had to be shuttled to a different airplace in Little Rock because our plane was late, and they were afraid we wouldn't meet our connection to Germany. I really appreciated their concern - it made my life easier. Hats off to people at the Little Rock airplane.
Yesterday we visited townships where the people literally live in shacks. It is only a few minutes from Cape Town but,in actuality, it is world's apart. While there we visitied with a lady named Rosie who cooks for the children of the township. She is feeding several hundred kids a day because she knows they need the nutrition in order to do well in school. The school doesn't have a free lunch program like we have in the United States. This one woman has an incredible drive to fulfill her mission to help feed the children of South Africa. Her story touched me because I see how fortunate our students are and they have no idea what lives other students are living in other parts of the world. I know the students from Iowa, Arkansas, and Dallas had their eyes opened. What an amazing opportunity for them. We spent the rest of the day getting the students ready for shark diving. If the weather holds out, we will dive this morning. If not, Discovery will provide another adventure for us.

2 comments:

Josh Wells said...

Glad you all are having such a good time.

Unknown said...

Sounds wonderful! Can't wait to see pictures and hear all of the details of the trip.

Post a Comment

Essential Programs Details

Duration 12 days
When June 2nd - 13th, 2009
Focus Wildlife Research/Conservation
Political History
Culture