kkuter

My journey to Zimbabwe actually began with a decision: risk a weather delay or rebook my flights. I was originally supposed to leave on Saturday, Jan 13 from the South Bend airport. The route booked was rather straightforward and fairly efficient, I thought:

• Leg 1: South Bend, IN to Atlanta, GA. Depart at 2:30pm and arrive at 4:35pm.
• Leg 2: Atlanta, GA to Johannesburg, South Africa. Depart at 5:40pm and arrive at 4:05pm on Sunday, Jan 14 (local time).
  • Note the very short layover in ATL!
  • Also note that this flight is roughly 15.5 hours long!
• Leg 3: Jo-burg to Harare. Depart at 6:45pm and arrive at 8:30pm.

If everything went according to plan, the trip would only have taken 23 hours from take-off in South Bend to touch-down in Harare. Not too bad to get halfway around the world! However, that is a BIG “if” and a few things were making me nervous in the days leading up to my departure.

The main concern I had was the weather. The forecast for the weekend was predicting up to 8 inches of snow on Saturday and, in fact, a winter storm warning was issued lasting in effect until 7pm that Saturday. This coupled with the fact that I only had about an hour layover in Atlanta signaled to me a real possibility of missing the flight to Jo-burg, which would have meant either being stranded in Atlanta for over 24 hours to wait for the next direct flight on Delta to Jo-burg or possibly getting rerouted through other cities adding more connections and chances for my luggage to get lost. While I wasn’t completely opposed to taking this risk (and was actually recommended to do so by the Delta representative I consulted with), I reached out to my Program Officer at Fulbright and explained the situation. She did not think it was worth the risk and approved a change to my itinerary, departing a day or two later.

After touching base with Fadzi (my contact at the US Embassy in Zim), she suggested I arrange for arriving in Harare on Tuesday, Jan 16 due to the fact that she would not be able to pick me up from the airport on Monday on account of it being a US federal holiday (MLK Day) and so the embassy would be closed.

Thus, I decided I would delay my departure by two days and instead leave on Monday, Jan 15. My actual itinerary was the following:

• Leg 1: South Bend, IN to Atlanta, GA. Depart at 12pm and arrive at 2pm.
• Leg 2: Atlanta, GA to Johannesburg, South Africa. Depart at 5:40pm and arrive at 4:05pm on Tuesday, Jan 16 (local time).
• Leg 3: Jo-burg to Harare. Depart at 6:45pm and arrive at 8:30pm.

This time my layover in ATL was a healthy 3+ hours. A bit long, but not nearly as stressful as just an hour. (In reality, it was a good thing this layover was longer as my plane didn’t actually leave South Bend on time. We were loaded onto the plane on time, but then sat at the gate for almost a half an hour before departing, with no explanation as to why!) So with this slight modification to the itinerary, my actual trip took just over 25 hours. I traded a few additional travel hours for more peace of mind, which was well worth it in my opinion. And for the most part everything went very smoothly, apart from the slight delay in South Bend.

 I was worried about the mother and three young children seated in the row directly in front of me. But they actually did great, and fell asleep a couple hours after dinner. They all stayed asleep for about 8 hours, which was absolutely impressive to me! Unfortunately, there was a family on the other side of the plane a few rows in front of me that was not as lucky with their young child, who seemed to me to be either 1 or 2 years old. I am not sure what upset him, but something set him off and he proceeded to scream, and I mean SCREAM, for the better part of an hour. Eventually, a flight attendant came by and offered some milk which seemed to do the trick.

I was able to get some sleep myself, but it took awhile to get there due to the screaming child and the fact that we experienced turbulence for many hours, ranging from mild to somewhat significant and at times very significant. Eventually though, the ride smoothed out enough, children and other passengers quieted down, and I got tired enough that I was able to sleep intermittently for about 6 hours.

For the time that I was not asleep or trying to sleep, I was able to find adequate diversion via the in-flight entertainment (I watched Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning during takeoff and dinner, then some episodes of House Hunters once we started our descent) and my own entertainment that I had downloaded to my phone (ebooks and music, primarily). I had also received an excellent tip from my seatmate on the flight from South Bend: be sure to get up and walk around the plane as much as possible. I was already hoping to do that, but I know that I made more of an effort to do so than I would have without it. Walking around the plane I was able to observe the other cabins and compare their experience and amenities to my own. While I was definitely jealous of the so called “Delta One” cabin that provides each passenger with a private sleeping pod in which the chair reclines completely into a bed, I can’t say I was that envious of the middle tier cabins, “Premium Select” and “Comfort+”. Even though the “Premium Select” chairs reclined more than the standard, economy chairs and also included a leg rest, I felt I had plenty of room (especially without someone directly next to me). I also didn’t need most of the amenities offered, i.e., a sleeping mask, noise cancelling headset, ear plugs, pillow, blanket, since I had my own. I was grateful for the provided pillow though because my seat got very uncomfortable and sitting on the pillow offered a bit of relief. Finally, I was rather satisfied with the food I was served, which nicely supplement all the snacks that I had packed myself.

One final word about the actual trip I want to make is to call out how much nicer the service was on my connecting flight from Jo-burg to Harare. This flight was with AirLink, an airline based in South Africa. The flight attendants were nicer and more polite than most I have had in the US. They seemed genuinely concerned with the passengers safety and comfort on the flight. Also, even though the flight time was only about 1.5 hours, I still received a small dinner of very delicious food, not the typical airplane food at all! It was served neatly packaged in a box and contained a chicken quiche, pasta salad, chips that I would describe as a healthier seeming version of Bugles, and mint toffee sweet for dessert. They also provided a full beverage service including wine or other alcohol if you wished. All of this for no extra cost! It made the flight out and over thunderstorms with lightning, resulting in more turbulence, tolerable!

All that said, I arrived in Harare safe and sound, and pretty well fed! Getting through customs in Harare was very smooth and quite fast. My flight was the last flight of the day and there were not many people on it, I estimated around 50 and most were from Zim. Thus, there were only about 5 people in line ahead of me to get my tourist visa, which cost $30 USD and will last me 30 days, enough time to get my Temporary Employment Permit hopefully. After getting my visa, I walked the few steps to baggage claim and immediately saw both my checked bags on the belt. It probably only took me about 15 minutes to get from the plane, obtain my visa and bags, and get through customs.