Our trip through Africa has made us feel very thankful for our opportunity to travel as a family and see so much of the world. This time together is priceless.
Of course, seeing how difficult life is for so many makes us thankful for all that we have. Hopefully, we will all hold these memories close as we return to regularly scheduled life in 2014.
Thanksgiving provided us an extra opportunity to reflect. As our South African Airlines 737 drew closer to Jo'Burg, we encountered severe thunderstorms. The turbulence grew to a disturbing level as the plane was thrown about. We circled for approximately 20 minutes before decending to land. As our altitude dropped, the plane was rocked. Several people began screaming. Within a couple thousand feet of the ground, the pilot jerked the nose up and aborted the landing within a minute or two of expected touch down. We were then diverted to Durban Airport about 400km away for refueling and to wait out the weather.
After approximately an hour on the ground, we took off again for Jo'Burg. Once again, we encountered severe thunderstorms and watched with concern as bolts of lightning lit up the night sky. In an unwelcomed repeat performance, an approach was aborted in mid-decent. After circling the airport again, we finally touched down in Jo'Burg 14 hours after boarding a boat on peaceful Mumbo Island.
Roman and Mabret were tremendous throughout the ordeal. During the first attempt into Jo'Burg, Roman made some silly jokes and Mabret kept Roman occupied and gently patted his hand a few times. They were sitting together a row in front of us. On the second go'round, Roman slept through the entire flight after taking some Dramamine.
We recently received an extremely nice email from Mabret's teacher, Kevin Kromko. In the email, he described Mabret as "the calm before, during and after the storm. Foreshadowing, I suppose.
After landing, Mabret said to us, "those people screaming does not help anybody and will make other people scared. We just have to breathe and try to relax."
The experience is another chapter in a trip full of lessons.
Sorry we were out of touch on the holiday but we are back on the grid.
Headed to Zambia on a 10:40am flight.
More posts coming today.
Peace Out!
