I know it
is terribly cliché but this weekend on the Garden Route was seriously one of
the best weekends I’ve ever had in my life. Truthfully, as the days were
getting closer I wasn’t really looking forward to it because we’ve previously
spent so many weekends together and I was beginning to miss my alone time. I
also got invited to go out with my coworkers so I was kind of bummed I couldn’t
do that but nevertheless I was up and ready to go by 7:30 am on
Friday morning. The day began with a 6 hour car ride where I sat shot gun and
promised our driver Z that I wouldn’t fall asleep (which I knew I would break
almost immediately) however it was so difficult because the view was
incredible. We drove past thousands of luscious green mountains and learned
about the history of the land while passing through them all.
Once we finally
arrived to our first excursion it was an adventure through ancient caves where
some of the oldest Khoi Khoi members lived for years. It was my first time in a
cave so I was extremely excited and fascinated by the natural beauty
surrounding me so naturally I decided to do the rest of my cave walk barefoot.
We also had to climb, squeeze, and crawl through some intensely small spaces
where I was able to test my claustrophobic capabilities and appreciate the
beauty of million year old formations.
The
following day began with a walk with 3 amazing elephants who were extremely
friendly, photogenic and much more prickly then I anticipated. Nevertheless it
was so cool to be that close to elephants and actually get to touch the tongue
of one! We then worked out our arms with some causal canoeing and later finally
made it to Bloukrans Bridge. I was semi nervous because I never had an interest
in bungee jumping until I found out it was the highest in the world and I’ve
been thinking about it for weeks so actually seeing it and how high it was made
it so surreal. Nevertheless I found myself on that bridge 700 feet in the air
and when I found out I was the first to jump I was filled with giddy excitement
and adrenaline. I’m not gonna lie when my toes were over the edge I was a bit
reluctant to jump (despite how smiley I was in my video) but I somehow
convinced myself to take the biggest leap and experienced flying for a minute
with the most beautiful scenery surrounding me so believe or not the
overwhelming feeling I had while jumping was peace and pure bliss.
After that
amazing afternoon of facing my fears I was convinced there was no way my day
could get better but surprisingly I was wrong. We arrived at our beautiful
hostel on the beach with drinks and good food waiting for us. After dinner a
bunch of us went to hang out on the beach and actually did a bit of night
swimming, which was also incredible since the Indian Ocean meets the Atlantic
at that beach. Following that, me and a few others met other international and
local people at the hostel where we got to experience what some South Africans
do for fun and just engage with people outside our group which was awesome.
Overall it was a fantastic weekend that I’m so happy I got to experience but
leaving I felt a bit guilty because I knew a lot of people I have met in Cape
Town would have loved to experience what I just did but may never have the
opportunity.
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I wanted to
highlight an event that I went to this week with Africa Unite. We went to a
primary school in Bonteheuwel to facilitate some brief HR training and
exercises where we spilt up the children, aged 5-14, into small groups. In
these small groups we asked them to tell us about the challenges facing their
communities and ways to finds solutions to them and I got acquainted with a 5
year who was telling me about how there are gangsters living in
his house, his cousins do drugs in front of him all the time, and he’s seen
people doing things 5 year olds should never see. It broke my heart to hear
everyone’s stories but especially his because he was so small and comfortable
in telling me these activities that I personally didn’t know about until my
teens. I tried to help him think of ways he can stay away from these activities
and stayed close to him the whole day. When I was leaving he literally hugged
me about 30 times and even ran to me right before we left. After this
experience I really want to find more ways to help these children see more
positivity in their difficult lives and hopefully I get come back to this
school for my activist project. 
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