My visa expired at the end of March, so I flew to Johannesburg (Jo’burg) for a quick visit before returning to Zimbabwe. One of my colleagues in the Faculty of Health Sciences has a niece named Ruth who lives in Jo’burg with her family. She contacted Ruth to alert her to my coming, and Ruth said she would be glad to meet me at the Jo’burg airport. After an uneventful flight, I arrived in Jo’burg and cleared customs by around 4 PM Thursday. There were quite a few people looking for new arrivals, but I wasn’t able to find Ruth, and as it turned out, she couldn’t find me. (Of course, the fact that we had never seen each other before didn’t help, and my Zimbabwe cell phone being unusable in South Africa was no help either.)
After waiting for over two hours, I checked with the man at the Information Desk, and after noting that there were no inquiries for me, he helped me book a room at a nice guest house not far from the airport. Once settled in, I was able to email my colleague in Zimbabwe, who then called her niece, who had been trying to find me all that time. Once we established an email connection, Ruth invited me to join her family the next evening. I met Ruth’s oldest son, as well as her mother and brother, and we had a delightful visit, including dinner at one of Jo’burgs top resorts that Ruth helps manage. Although we regretted the missed connection on arrival, we concluded that “All’s well that ends well!”
I flew back to Zimbabwe Saturday morning and received a new visa for thirty more days. I’ve revised my plans to fly home to mesh with the expiration of my visa, and so I’ll be back home in San Antonio at the end of April instead of early May. All is well indeed!
