Life in South Africa

Well, what can I say? My finger's didn't go numb and I definitely didn't tell of all my tales, but hopefully today will be a better story telling day. For the record, I still had my big ass cup of coffee... actually...it was a few drinks...with a good friend...so completely justified right? :o).

Let's dive into it shall we? It has thus far been a 6 month journey of ups and downs and highs and lows. Nothing unexpected I suppose when you move away from home for such a long time, and I must say the highs definitely outweigh the lows. I've met a lot of amazing people here in SA - locals and foreigners. You wouldn't believe the expat community that is here within my company alone. No matter who I have met though, regardless of where they are from, one thing remains the same, everyone I have crossed paths with has had open arms and have been more than welcoming. It truly has been an amazing adventure of human spirit. People I didn't know 6 months ago I now call some of my best friends.

I suppose I should start from the beginning. I won't bore you with too many details on my life here and will dive into all the adventures, but a lot of you back home have been asking so...

It was an emotional and stressful time organizing the move and then actually making a plan once I got here as to what I was going to do and how I was going to do it. I arrived at the airport and the company taxi took me to the hotel and I won't lie - I felt very lost. New surroundings, new cultures, new chaos, and an overwhelming sense of loneliness. However, I managed to quickly find my footing over the first week or so at work and things started to look up.

I figured, may as well dive into life here ASAP and I found myself playing action cricket with a team from work. Keep in mind, I am a Canadian where the term cricket refers to a noise-making bug. I left with only two bruises and a lot of laughs. I have pictures, but luckily, this being my blog, I can save myself the embarrassment of having to show you guys!!

I met a lot of people in the first few weeks here, found a fantastic place to live, and got use to my surroundings. Even managed a luxurious day at the spa with some newly found friends. I have to say it, you can't live anywhere in the world like you can live in SA. This picture gives you a bit of an idea of the backdrop to the spa.

The hardest part of my time here was definitely over the Christmas holidays. Tentative plans I had fell through and everyone I had met was either on some trip or home for the holidays. I've never missed home like that in my life and although it was tough, as everyone always does, I made it through. What's that saying..."the only unbearable thing in life is that nothing in life is unbearable". Before I know it, the holidays were ending, friends were coming back, I was more than well rested and things were looking up. I did, however, end up jumping off a bridge on my 30th birthday just after the holidays, but I'll get to that in the next tale.

Enough about me and my life here in SA though. A lot of people have been asking about the "situation" here and if it's safe and and and...I have had a lot of emails from home expressing concerns for the situation here and I just want to say thanks to all of you!! I'm not sure what you're hearing and seeing overseas, but regardless, the situation here is quite bad.

The latest to hit the international news was about the Xenophobic attacks that were happening in the nearby townships. I imagine what was heard overseas was that foreigners were being targeted and attacked. Although this was the case, from what I have heard, the attacks stemmed more so from the locals that were upset with those fleeing in to the townships from surrounding countries such as Zimbabwe blaming them for the crime and for taking their homes and jobs. The result, well, I'll let the pictures do the talking in this case...

South Africa is an interesting country that I think everyone should explore at some point in life. It is a place where no rules really exist, a place of crime and chaos, a place of frustrations requiring unreal amounts of patience, but having said all that, it is one of such beauty that I can't even describe it in words. I don't even think my pictures will do it any justice, but hopefully they will give you some idea of what I am talking about. The pictures above are a reality in this country, but so are the ones in my tales to follow.

Well Just Sit Right Back and You’ll Hear a Tale…

Felt that was appropriate as any a title since it’s been MONTHS since I last blogged and it has definitely been a tale of a faithful trip. I’m hoping to type until one of two things happen (1) I have finished telling of my adventures to date or (2) my fingers go numb from typing. I have had quite a few adventures since arriving in South Africa, one of which started off as a three hour tour. The weather didn’t really get rough, but we did get lost and had to spend the night in the mountains and I did feel like Gilligan for a while (apologies to those not familiar with the Gilligan’s Island reference). Wasn’t sure if we were going to make it out, but that story is for a bit later. Let’s just say that I didn’t think dying of hypothermia in South Africa was a possible way to leave this planet.

I will try my best to upate as detailed as possible, but with so much that's happened, and so much more on the way, I might just give the condensed versions of a few tales, but we'll see how it progresses.

It’s tough to know where to start. So much has happened since coming to SA, but I guess the beginning is as good as any. It’s funny, I keep thinking that I need to see this and I need to see that and that I have perhaps been working too many hours and am missing out on all my traveling time…until I sat down to write about it and realized that even though I have a lot yet to see, I have done more and seen more and met more amazing people then I can even recall in the six months I've been here. It's also hard to beleive that my six month anniversary in SA just past last week. I suppose time really does fly when you're having fun.

I am going to try and split each trip/event into a separate posting so you can easily navigate if you don’t feel like reading it all at once - or at all for that matter – hahahahaha. I'll hopefully get up some nice pictures though if you’re up for skimming. Whatever you decide I’ll pause now for all to go and get a big cup of coffee…myself included.

Climbing Walls to Stay Sane, His Holiness - The 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet, and Red Leaves

A good friend of mine told me that the key to a successful blog was to update it regularly so reader's don't get upset. I can see now where she's coming from and you may be able to guess by the title of my posting this week that I should post more often, but...better late than never :o).

So, things on this end have been moving along amazingly, but insanely busy with trying to sort through everything that needs to get done before I leave for two years to South Africa. It feels as though if I do 5 things a day on my list of things to do before I leave, I should be done sometime in July of 2008. I have succumbed to the fact that what will get done, will and what won't, won't. However, to keep myself sane in all of it I have gone back to the one place that seems to make me forget everything that is going on and just focus on me for a while - the good ol' climbing gym - and it's been amazing. The best part is that it's also part and parcel of training for when I get to South Africa to do some rock climbing there. I really do believe that climbing these walls on a regular basis is keeping me from insanity!! I think everyone should try it at some point in time. It gives you an amazing sense of body awareness and the mental and physical aspects are amazing.

It's a bit odd for me to talk about rock climbing first when the most amazing thing happened on Wednesday, but I'm trying to go in chronological order (I need some sort of order in my life - hahahaha). I was on my way into work when I heard on the radio that the Dalai Lama was going to be speaking at the Roger's Center in Toronto!! I had no idea and raced into work to see if I could find tickets and as luck would have it, in an audience of about 16,000, I managed to get my hands on two so my afternoon off work, which was meant to run errands for my move, ended up being a day out with a good friend to hear the Dalai Lama talk about the "Art of Happiness".

I'm not sure what to tell you about the talk as I don't think I can do what he talked about justice in repeating it and messing up his eloquent words, but let me just say that at some point in everyone's life, they should hear this man speak. It was really amazing. Not what I expected, but amazing. See, I naturally defaulted to the selfish attitude of him telling us how to find happiness from within and although he talked about it a bit, his focus was more on happiness as a population - 6 billion living in harmony and how one should treat and look to others around the world. To summarize...the solution to peace and harmony in the world comes down to : WARM-HEARTEDNESS. Truly amazing. He is like a 72 year old man with the innocence of a child.

So, let's see, that covers my insanity and one of the most beautiful people I have ever met, which leaves the red leaves...

This part is simply for my friends Boris and Alana. They are in Burkina Faso, Africa with Engineers Without Borders and Boris is just getting over being sick the last little while. In Boris' blog posting (which I think you should all check out at http://boboinbobo.blogspot.com/ along with Alana's at http://alannapeters.blogspot.com/) he mentioned that he missed the red leaves back here at home so I went out to the Bruce Trail and found some for him!! I know what it's like to be far away from home and miss the simple things you may or may not have taken for granted when they were readily at your disposal and I also know what it's like to feel ill far away from home so Boris and Alana, these are for you (I also managed to find some other friends along the way)...

I hope the colors of fall in Canada come across as you remember them and that they fill you with a little bit of home...

What's in Your Back Yard?

It's amazing what you can find close to home if you take the time to just get away and explore.

I was fortunate to grow up with the Canadian rockies in my back yard. However, when I moved east to Ontario I wasn't sure what would be waiting for me. There were the big ticket items that everyone knows about like Niagara Falls, but outside of that I really had no idea. Luckily when I got here I was able to find so many treasures, my favorite being the Bruce Trail. I had been hearing about it for the last couple of years, but didn't get out to hike some of it until recently.

The Bruce Trail is the oldest and longest continuous footpath in Canada. It runs along the Niagara Escarpment from Niagara to Tobermory, spanning more than 850 km of main trail and 250 km of side trails (It runs through everything from city streets to people's back yards). Every year, 400,000 visits are made to the Trail as people walk, cross country-ski, snowshoe, watch wildlife, take photographs and admire the glorious scenery of the Escarpment. By providing an opportunity to explore the Escarpment, the Trail has helped increase awareness of the uniqueness and rich diversity of this landform. The Bruce Trail was instrumental in the Escarpment being named a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve by the United Nations in 1990 - one of only twelve such reserves in all of Canada. Today 47% of the Bruce Trail is secure and safe from development. However, 53% of the Bruce Trail corridor is vulnerable. The Bruce Trail Association is committed to securing the Trail in its entirety.

Here are some websites to check out if you would like to learn more and see where the trail leads you:

• Homepage: http://www.brucetrail.org/index.asp?id={E66FB2D0-2550-4D3D-8EF0-287002BFAA5F}# (this is where I got my information above from!!)
• Map: http://www.brucetrail.org/explorethetrail.asp?id=%7B459E67E1-7954-433E-B457-71C6BBDD2A5D%7D

A few weekends ago I managed to get out onto the trail and it was unreal!! I did a 25km hike with two friends, Melanie and Victor. We took our time and enjoyed a lot of the scenery and it took us just over 6 hours. I've included some pictures below to give you an idea.

Just under half way through we got to talking about all the hikes we'd like to do and things we'd like to see in our lives. Things like hiking the entire Bruce Trail from start to finish in one go, the West Coast Trail in Western Canada and even the Trans Canada Trail by bike when completed and those were just the ones here at home. The global list was endless. At the end of our discussion Victor said something to me that stuck. He said "I hope when we meet 10 years down the road we'll be talking about all our adventures instead of talking about how we still hoped to do the things on that list".

It's amazing what you can find close to home. I firmly believe that every place on this planet has it's treasures so tell me, what's in your back yard?

Melanie and Victor

Why Outside the Box?

I've had some friends come up to me in the last little while dissatisfied with the way their lives were going. Some sick of cubicle life day in, day out, some sick of being alone without someone to share life with, others a combination of both and so much more. It was easy to see that this was translating into their everyday lives at work, at home, not eating, losing sleep...the list goes on.

It made me think two things immediately:
(1) There must be millions of people out there that feel the same way and
(2) How fortunate I am to have the life I do

It made me question, why I was one of the fortunate ones and not them and I slowly began to realize that it had a lot to do with the choices I make on how I am going to live my life.

I too work in a cubicle day in and day out, the difference being I love the work I do. It wasn't always that way...I had a dead-end job, with a boss that, well, let's not go there, but I hated what I was doing at work and I too was stuck in the rut of the classical Dilbert style life inside the box, HOWEVER, it didn't seem to bother me too much because regardless of how crap work got, I made sure it did not translate to the rest of my life and decided at a very young age that life was too short to live and think and be consumed inside the box.

I hope this blog, through my life adventures and those of so many others, will inspire people to try something new to get out of whatever sort of rut they may be in and to get outside the box - mentally, physically, and emotionally. I hope it will also inspire those living it up to try something new that they never thought they would before. It will be a place where people can help motivate people through their own stories and life experiences.


A friend sent me this the other day and I thought it was quite fitting: Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, wine in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WOOHOO what a ride"!!

I look forward to telling everyone of my life adventures and hearing from all of you out there about your experiences and life journeys. Let's all inspire each other.