There are so many things to learn in life!
After having spend nearly 3 month in South Africa, I feel it is time to reflect on what I learned so far. So this will be a rather personal blog post.
After having spend nearly 3 month in South Africa, I feel it is time to reflect on what I learned so far. So this will be a rather personal blog post.
When you grow up you learn new skills so frequently and whether you succeed or struggle, everything is new, exciting and challenging - every literal step you take a big achievement. I have the feeling, with age and experience decreases excitement and this fascinated glow so prominent in children's eyes hardly shows anymore. This is one reason why I like travelling so much.
To me travelling does not necessary mean to be constantly on the road. Although right now Stellenbosch is my homebase, the experience comes close to travelling as many new impressions hit you each day. It is the encounter with different kinds of people, culture and nature that evokes curiosity. Subtly as well as vibrant and vivid - it can hit you by surprise how much small moments or experiences affect your own perceptions and views. The experiences do not have a uniformed shape or colour, but it can be the incredible kindness of some people as well as the feeling of standing in the middle of nowhere in the Kalahari desert and starting to question whether this is beauty at its best or so deserted that it seems like a surreal moonlandscape. It is not only the good, beautiful and lighthearted encounters but for me it is the interconnectedness of the positive and negative experiences while travelling that makes for such an influencial combination. By getting out there, you question your own reality and enrich yourself with the wisdom of people you might only know for a moment, embrace yourself in a foreign culture and experience being part of nature in a quite reciprocative way. Once you experience your mind is set to want to enrich and share with others as well.
It is a small portion of these experiences that I want to share with you.
Me, my camera and the road: NamibiaI will start with... Nature
I have been swimming with 6 Great White sharks close to Danger Point in Shark Alley. We saw 13 lions just some footsteps away. A herd of elephants marching towards a waterhole. Uncountable pairs of Zebras resting their heads upon each others backs. Sundowners in all colours and shades. Endless roads and deserted landscape yet followed by the similarly endless Namaqua fields of purple, orange, pink and yellow flowers. With a speed of 74km/h I experienced a weightless sensation rushing down a sand dune facedown ...
“When you're lost in those woods, it sometimes takes you a while to realize that you are lost. For the longest time, you can convince yourself that you've just wandered off the path, that you'll find your way back to the trailhead any moment now. Then night falls again and again, and you still have no idea where you are, and its time to admit that you have bewildered yourself so far off the path that you dont even know from which direction the sun rises anymore.” - E. Gilbert
Nature can have such a miraculous effect on me. It gets you when you least expect it and that is not always pleasant. On our first hike, we underestimated the steepness of the way down the summit. Soon we found ourselves stuck in midst of bushes with thorns and thick lichen. We fell, we screamed and we sweared loudly! We took our hands and helped eachother up when one got stuck. I called a friend to rescue of if we are not back before sunrise and we screamed a little more. We repeated "nearly there" "looks better down here already" "we'll be okay" very self-assuring and before only a moment before the sun did set, we made it down. Finally! Relief!!
Injured, desperate and exhausted but still smiling - that's survival spiritI hardly slept the night before I dove with the Great Whites. However, after the first fint was visible and I jumped into the cold water, I found myself calm and curious waiting for action. The intense fishy smell of the lure and the very very very freezing cold of the Atlantic ocean are forgotten the moment you do see the animal upclose. A similar experience happend on a roadtrip through Namibia. Honestly, the desert appear less beautiful when you arrive at a lodge after a day of driving just to discover a superlarge black spider moving quickly on the wall of your room. After a first rush Australia-experienced Johanna had the situation under control ... just so we could find out minutes later that there were literally dozens and dozens of tiny little spiders ALL over our beds. So, I woke up the next morning in our small VW Polo while the girls were still sleeping and was faced with an orange-yellow-red sunrise which I could see without getting out of my sleeping back. I climed out of the car and the air was humid and breezy although I could feel that it would be a hot day. It smelled like morning and last night's spider shock just did not matter at all. So in the end, nature is always rewarding. You cannot control it, once it rains it rains and there is nothing you can do, yet it is an inexhaustive source of surprises. When you want to watch wildlife, you often need to wait for hours, so you have to be patient, a quality which I often find lacking in my daily life. Nature has a somewhat entertaining effect. Actually, once you are out there - it keep you busy. We found ourselves observing two rhinos at a waterhole for several hours and I could sit for days watching the sea with a good glass of wine and some people to talk to. Some say, you travel back to your roots when you go out into nature. That might be far reached but you relax, you experience more intensive .. you notice and enjoy. To observe I realized is so close to absorbing. I am not a very passive person but some time it is good to lower your pace and let things go. If the Buffalo doesn't want to show, you will not be able to find it. Taking things as they are and not as we want them to be!
I keep wondering what life would be like without all the worldly technology and other distractions. Some people might think it is a rather hypocritical thing to say checking my emails daily and loving to watch a good movie or two. Admitedly, I will not delete my facebook account and I think it is an exaggeration to completely turn my back on what is so often called typical Western culture. This world exists and it does not need to conflict with nature. That of course requires some action and decisions so I try to rethink my consume. If I have children one day, I hope they will still be able to see wild lions, surf the dunes and smell clean air in the morning. I would so much rather see a child know how to make light a fire with only wood, the sun and a mirror instead having it highscore in counterstrike - although fire does sound more worrying, I am sure you get my point: Getting your cloth dirty and coming home exhausted, sandy and ... happy!
Something my friend Emma discovered in the desert and a message I learned:Keep it real!
People
Some of these kind of children I met in South Africa. They are incomparably less fortunate when it comes to chances in life and quality in life standard, however - like everyone discribes who has been to Africa - the smiles on these faces are real. Once a week, I am volunteering for the Watergarden Project. I join a group of people to Klapmuts an informal settlement just a 2o minute drive from Stellenbosch to play, teach and assist in the local community. We drive through the streets of shacks and call the children "Come, come Watergarden vir die sport veld". Most of them are already playing next to the dirt road so they drop whatever they are doing and run behind the car to a sportsfield close by. First we sing and dance with the children and I think it is amazing to see how open they and engaging they are. Most of them are quite noisy and they love to play with out hair, hug and of course there is Williwalli. "Williwalli doen, ja??" says a small girl looking up to me with big eyes and a huge smile on her face. So I take her arms and start swinging her around like a merry-go-round. While I am swinging the one girl as fast as I can the next kids run around us announcing that they are up next. Let me tell you, once you start williwalli it is impossible to stop! The kids fight to get another turn and jump and laugh from excitement. It seems sometimes you just have to say what you want and openly encounter other people, in order to get what you are looking for - although not for everything, it surely holds true for williwalli and many other things in life. Mostly I admire how much the children enjoy life although what we have to complain about it more than minor in comparison to for instance loosing your parents to AIDS or getting stapped in your neighbourhood. When starting one story from Klapmuts, many others come to my head instantly. It is like a chain reaction for me and the other volunteers as well. Whenever we talk about Watergarden, we each have other stories to tell and most of the time, the conversation alone makes us laugh and smile. The project is giving space for positive interaction which seems to be mutually beneficial. You bond over the things you share and the experience of stepping into a world which is so different from the eating Pasta at Java, having a Robertson wine at Bohemia or catching a movie in Eikstadmall is purifying as it puts things into perspective. It really is the children who teach you in return for the time and energy you invest.
Not only did I learn from the Klapmuts children. Sometimes you meet people just on the way and there is something that you will remember about them or you get to know new people and learn new things about them and yourself along the way. There is always something you take away!
...
I wish I had more time to keep on writing and posting pictures, but I have to cut it short because I don't want to stress your concentration too much.
Hang on for only one moment longer!
What now will I do with all these of new learnings? I really want to multiply them.
The intention and scope of this blog post is to give you only an extract of what keeps me thinking here in South Africa. When all exams are taken and the semester ends, I will be travelling through the South of Africa and I am excited to learn more more more ... Before I left Germany and alike millions of other people, I read the book Eat, Pray, Love. As much as this is a cliché (oh boy, it really is), I have to admit, it had a lasting effect on me. I think this quote shows what I want to be the guideline of my further travels and time in South Africa.
Keep it real!
I will be back soon,
Jule
Some of these kind of children I met in South Africa. They are incomparably less fortunate when it comes to chances in life and quality in life standard, however - like everyone discribes who has been to Africa - the smiles on these faces are real. Once a week, I am volunteering for the Watergarden Project. I join a group of people to Klapmuts an informal settlement just a 2o minute drive from Stellenbosch to play, teach and assist in the local community. We drive through the streets of shacks and call the children "Come, come Watergarden vir die sport veld". Most of them are already playing next to the dirt road so they drop whatever they are doing and run behind the car to a sportsfield close by. First we sing and dance with the children and I think it is amazing to see how open they and engaging they are. Most of them are quite noisy and they love to play with out hair, hug and of course there is Williwalli. "Williwalli doen, ja??" says a small girl looking up to me with big eyes and a huge smile on her face. So I take her arms and start swinging her around like a merry-go-round. While I am swinging the one girl as fast as I can the next kids run around us announcing that they are up next. Let me tell you, once you start williwalli it is impossible to stop! The kids fight to get another turn and jump and laugh from excitement. It seems sometimes you just have to say what you want and openly encounter other people, in order to get what you are looking for - although not for everything, it surely holds true for williwalli and many other things in life. Mostly I admire how much the children enjoy life although what we have to complain about it more than minor in comparison to for instance loosing your parents to AIDS or getting stapped in your neighbourhood. When starting one story from Klapmuts, many others come to my head instantly. It is like a chain reaction for me and the other volunteers as well. Whenever we talk about Watergarden, we each have other stories to tell and most of the time, the conversation alone makes us laugh and smile. The project is giving space for positive interaction which seems to be mutually beneficial. You bond over the things you share and the experience of stepping into a world which is so different from the eating Pasta at Java, having a Robertson wine at Bohemia or catching a movie in Eikstadmall is purifying as it puts things into perspective. It really is the children who teach you in return for the time and energy you invest.
Not only did I learn from the Klapmuts children. Sometimes you meet people just on the way and there is something that you will remember about them or you get to know new people and learn new things about them and yourself along the way. There is always something you take away!
...
Hang on for only one moment longer!
What now will I do with all these of new learnings? I really want to multiply them.
The intention and scope of this blog post is to give you only an extract of what keeps me thinking here in South Africa. When all exams are taken and the semester ends, I will be travelling through the South of Africa and I am excited to learn more more more ... Before I left Germany and alike millions of other people, I read the book Eat, Pray, Love. As much as this is a cliché (oh boy, it really is), I have to admit, it had a lasting effect on me. I think this quote shows what I want to be the guideline of my further travels and time in South Africa.
So inspired by Eat, Pray, Love:
"If you are brave enough to leave behind everything familiar and comforting (which can be anything from your house to your bitter old resentments) and set out on a truth-seeking journey (either externally or internally), and if you are truly willing to regard everything that happens to you on that journey as a clue, and if you accept everyone you meet along the way as a teacher, and if you are prepared - most of all - to face (and forgive) some very difficult realities about yourself....then truth will not be withheld from you."
"If you are brave enough to leave behind everything familiar and comforting (which can be anything from your house to your bitter old resentments) and set out on a truth-seeking journey (either externally or internally), and if you are truly willing to regard everything that happens to you on that journey as a clue, and if you accept everyone you meet along the way as a teacher, and if you are prepared - most of all - to face (and forgive) some very difficult realities about yourself....then truth will not be withheld from you."
Keep it real!
I will be back soon,
Jule
