Journal #8 from Cape Town

The Olivet College women's volleyball team is on a 10-day trip to Cape Town, South Africa. While there, the players will be writing blog posts and sending them back to the U.S.A. to be posted on the website. The home page for the blog, where future posts will be linked to is: www.olivetcomets.com/sports/wvball/2019-20/cape_town_blog/

MONDAY-TUESDAY, DEC. 16-17 -- written by Jax Keene

The past two days have been an adventure as well as the perfect ending to an unforgettable trip.

On Monday, our last day in South Africa, we started out our morning by eating one last breakfast in South Africa and weighing our suitcases to make sure we didn’t exceed the weight limit with all of our souvenirs. At 11 a.m., we left our luxurious hotel rooms to head back to the orphanage one last time. 

When we got to the orphanage, most of the kids were still in their houses because they weren’t expecting us to come there again. The kids were ecstatic when they saw us. They were especially happy when we started to give them OCVB shirts we had brought all the way to South Africa just for them. Not only did we give them the t-shirts, but Andy bought soccer and rugby balls to give the kids. Once we had given then the balls, we instantly all started to play together. Most of us got into a big circle with the kids and started passing a soccer ball around. It was extremely heartwarming to see how happy they got for having the ability to play with an actual ball instead of a ball made out of plastic bags. After we had spent about two hours with them, it was time to go. No surprise here, but we cried. No one wanted to leave the kids after growing so attached to them in the short amount of time we had known them. A handful of the kids gathered at the gates and waved us off as we drove away. After we left, we got a quick lunch, changed our clothes and headed to the airport. 

Once we got to the airport, everything went smoothly, except for the fact a few girls had some issues with their visas for when we got to Turkey. Those problems were quickly resolved and we were on our way. The flight from South Africa to Turkey wasn’t bad and we had some great views from the airplane windows. Most of us had pasta for dinner and others had fish. The next morning, we were served waffles and fruit for breakfast before we landed in Turkey. 

We landed in Turkey at 5:30 a.m. and after we got off the airplane, we headed to a tour desk to get tickets for a bus ride tour of Turkey. The tour was a lot of fun and we were able to see things like the Golden Bridge and a handful of mosques to name a couple. It was interesting to see yet another countryside that is so much different than our own. After the tour, we headed back to the airport to eat some dinner before getting onto the last flight home. 

Before we were allowed to board our plane, we had to go through an extensive security check. Our carry-on luggage was hand checked (even after going through two different security checkpoints) and our bodies were patted down. It was very confusing yet interesting at the same time because no one on the team, including Coach Merchant, had experienced this before when trying to fly back into the country. After the extensive security check, we were finally allowed to board our plane to go home. 

The flight home wasn’t too bad, but most of us had a hard time sleeping from what I could tell. At last, we landed in Chicago and then it was time for us to go through customs. Customs didn’t take too long to get through even though the lines were long. Some girls had trouble getting their suitcases back due to a lost luggage can, but the can was found and everyone left the airport with their luggage. 

This trip is one for the memory books and it will always hold a special place in my heart, along with everyone elses. This trip was full of one of kind activities and memories whichwill last us a life time. We’re all sad we had to leave the warm weather to come back to Michigan, but we’re happy to be back with our families telling them of our travel stories. 

Click here for today's photo gallery and click here for a photo gallery from the entire trip.