Remembering the Fire: South Africa

On January 6th of 2016, I sent out an application for an environmental journalism internship halfway across the world. Six months later, I was boarding a plane that would take me to Johannesburg, South Africa, where I would spend a month travelling and experiencing a country that has marked me like no other had before.

I didn’t really know what I was getting into. All I knew on that cold January morning was that I had some savings, and that I wanted to go as far as those savings could take me. Without even looking anything up, an email popped up on my Coventry University email about summer internships in South Africa and Mozambique for Journalism students.

My time in South Africa was short, but it ended up being by far the most significant trip I have ever taken, and little of it had to do with the trip itself, with the incredible places I got to see, or with the cultural explosion I got to experience. It was the first time I went this far on my own, to a place which was as far removed from everything and everyone familiar as it possibly could be. I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it, that I could one day decide: ‘I want to be somewhere far, far away from everything I know’, and actually do it. And indeed I did.

I found myself.

I found calm, and I’m not talking about standing at the edge of a cliff at the Valley of Desolation and admiring the immense sense of calm that typically comes to us when we reconnect with nature, when we’re far enough into the wild that whichever direction you look, you don’t see any city lights in the distance. I’m talking about an inner feeling, the kind of calm that comes from knowing that you are exactly where you need to be, surrounded by faces you’ll remember for the rest of your life, experiencing things you’ll cherish and miss for years to come. For the first time in a long time, and far away from everything and everyone I knew, I was at complete peace with myself.

There were about twenty of us, and within those twenty I found kindred souls that I knew would stay in my life forever, no matter how far distance and time would tear us apart. None of us knew anything about each other, but after two weeks living under the same roof, we inadvertently became so used to each other that any outsider would have believed we had been living together for years, or that we were in some way related.

We were together on our first day at the beach, as each and every one of us looked ahead at the horizon and realised how far from home we were.

We were together the day we went on our first safari.

We were together the day we trekked through the St Blaize Hiking Trail in Mossel Bay.

We were together the day I decided to join in on a horseback-riding safari, not having really ridden a horse in my life. I still remember their joined, echoing laugh in the distance as my horse decided to go on a safari of its own ahead of the group, leaving me completely isolated and surrounded by zebras and rhinos.

We were together the day we came face to face with a mother cheetah and her cubs, at the top of some cliff, somewhere in complete wilderness, miles away from any city, town, or shred of civilisation.

We were together as we realised how lucky we were to wake up every morning in the middle of a private reserve, peek through the window as we had our morning black coffee, and see an African white rhino mother and her baby gently grazing in the garden around our house.

Most of us were only in South Africa for a month, but we all knew that by the time we went back, this trip would change our lives. We got to experience wildlife in a way most people don’t ever get the chance to, and coming to terms with how important what we were living through was, inevitably connected us to each other in a way none of us would ever be able to level with anyone back home.

If you’ve ever had to leave a place knowing deep inside that you wouldn’t ever come back, or at least not for a very long time, then you know exactly what I felt on my last day as I walked out of the house in Mossel Bay and got into the car that would take me to George Airport, far away from what today still feels like a distant dream. Saying goodbye is something I’ve had to do countless times for as long as I can remember, but never like this. As a kid, everytime we moved somewhere new, I had to say goodbye. At the end of every school year, friends left. I left. It was that kind of school. Each and every one of them. I got used to the mindset by the time I was 14. Whatever friends I may make in this new place, they’re going to leave. I’m going to leave. There’s always someone who leaves. And however used I got to this mindset, it wasn’t the same as when I left South Africa. I moved throughout Europe for most of my childhood and adolescent years, but it was never far enough that I thought I’d never come back. Rome, Paris, the Netherlands, Madrid. These places were all just a short flight away.

But South Africa wasn’t.

This place, this time, with all of them, would soon be gone, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to come back to this.

As we all left the house that morning, I desperately tried to memorize the details on their faces, the sound of their voices, terrified that I would forget them before I could see them again, horrified that I wouldn’t be able to see any of them for a very, very long time. Max’s cheesy laugh, the kind that lights up anyone inside; The dangling red lock of hair down Sofia’s face, and the unmistakable thirst for adventure in her eyes every time she came across anything climbable; Imogene’s creepy yet somehow endearing Gollum impersonation, and the careful humility with which she carried herself; The untainted glow in Suyash’s eyes as he took the first steps of what we all knew would be an amazing career in wildlife filmmaking.

I still recall Suyash pushing me down a street in a shopping cart at 4:00AM of what was our last, and most memorable night in South Africa. It plays in my mind now and then like some kind of re-enactment of the Goonies.

Almost four years later, I still recall almost every detail of that trip. Every moment of awe, every tear, every laugh, every late night, every coffee at the Blue Shed, every 6AM start. Every snapshot. Every frozen moment, the kind that you instantly realise will stay in your memories forever.

I remember as we all lay in the grass in the dead of night, and watched the shooting stars go by as our few last hours in South Africa passed us by.

I remember the fire that burned before us that night, keeping us warm.

I remember the fire inside each of us.