From Africa with love

KERIN - I have never been the most patriotic person. But I will never forget my first trip back home to South Africa from London. We were somewhere over Africa when the Captain announced that we were flying over the Okavango Delta. I was overcome, flooded with emotion and reduced to tears. This is when I realised what it means to come from Africa. Africa is in your heart and pulses through your veins. It is in your spirit and sits deeply in the seat of your soul. It has nothing to do with which country you're from, or the colour of your skin. I am from Africa and Africa will always be in me. Even as I write this I am getting emotional. 

There is no going back from the decision to emigrate to Holland (my husband, Olgierd's, place of birth). I don't feel sadness or regret about leaving. This blog is an account of our overland trip up through Africa, a planned year-long journey to our final destination, the Netherlands.

So while we are leaving family and friends behind in S.A, we are getting closer, every day, to family, friends and loved ones in Europe and the U.K. Distance has made them absent friends, so we have a lot of catching up to do. Technology has, thankfully, made the world a smaller place.

When I travelled the world at a young age (I left home at 20), my family were all still in S.A. These were the days before the internet & email (I sense some snorting & laughter). Short letters with news were sent home via fax. I also used to indulge in snail-mail (A.K.A the lost art of letter-writing) from time-to-time. This was an occasion for me. I would sit down, usually with a glass of wine, and write for hours to my family that I missed dearly. Those letters replaced conversations, for me. My point is this: I am old-school at heart. And while I embrace technology and the ease of communication that it brings, I find the act of writing cathartic and theraputic, and my words will be captured in a Journal and transcribed here.

I hope you enjoy reading.