The Swinging Bridge

Finally here!

After about 45 minutes on a bus with no air-conditioning, the traffic finally started moving again. Their group was going to a small community on the ocean towards the south end of South Africa. The mission was to build a school for the village because thier old one was ruined during a tsunami last year. The government had much more populated areas to worry about and it was up to the villagers to rebuild their community.

When they finally reached the village known as White River, Elizabeth saw a child about 7 years old building a fort made of rocks. She paid special attention to this because the fort looked like the fort that she made out of snow with her sister a long time ago. Elizabeth's sister died at the age of 6 after battling leukemia for half of her life. This was the sole drive behind Elizabeth's decision to become a doctor. She wants to give other young children the opportunity to see adulthood. When the child saw that Elizabeth was looking, she immediately ran into a hut about 10 meters away.

Andrew must have seen the look of disappointment in her eyes because a second later he put an arm around her shoulders. "Lets head on over to the others. There will be plenty of time later to get to know the locals." He said with a smile that was supposed to be reassuring. Elizabeth just nodded and let him lead her to the group in the center of the village.

"All right ladies and gentlemen, set up your tents and get settled in tonight because tomorrow the real work begins", echoed the group leader. The sun quickly diminished within an hour over the horizon. Each tent had three people in it and they were lined up just outside of the village. Their group consisted of 30 people, but they had a deadline to meet and there was no time to waste. The gap year program only allowed three months in each location. They awoke at 4:30am sharp the next morning.