It’s 6pm on a Thursday, Paul is on his way to my house. he came to South Africa to grow, to learn, to catch some of the heart that we have and to impart some of what he has.
I realized that the main thing I have to offer him is a heart for adventure, so tonight we will load on the back of my bakkie* a 3m long red and yellow canoe that I’ve borrowed from a friend and go on, well, an adventure.
It’s 6:45pm and Paul and I just pulled out of my gate, the clouds are steadily building and the sun is probably setting, but it’s covered by cloud.
It’s 7pm and the canoe has just been pushed off from the safety of the shore.
It’s 7:02pm and the canoe is back on dry land (I forgot to lock the bakkie)
It’s 7:03pm and we’re in the water again…
It’s 7:04pm I forgot my torch…
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It’s 7:10pm we’re on our way up to the inlet of the dam called LONGMERE. The light from the sun is all but gone by now. In the distance we can see the dam turning into a gentle river and as we carry on paddling and the sides start closing in on us, their is an aery feeling. Being so close to the water and your only visibility is the spotlight on my head. It feels like we’re in a thriller based somewhere deep in the Amazon, the reeds next to the water are getting thicker and all of a sudden theirs a flock of Egyptian geese swarming as we frighten them from the safety of their huddle on the banks. It’s such an amazing sound so I turn the torch off and all you can hear is the sound of air being smashed by the frantic flapping of wings in the warm darkness.
The banks are closing in more, and now theirs fireflies dancing in the reeds. We’ve paddled about 1km now and theirs such calmness.
It’s 8pm and the calmness is broken by us scraping over a log sending a cold shiver down my spine and a single horrifying word into my mind -hippo- that’s a ridiculous thought because their hasn’t been a hippo in LONGMERE since the floods in the late 90's but what has happened is we have beached in a thin channel. The only thing to do is dig my hands deep into the Luke warm water and try pull us through the mud. We start making progress when suddenly a kurper** flops into our boat. Now 5 months ago when Paul arrived in South Africa I’m almost certain at this point he would have stepped out of our little red and yellow canoe and pray to be swallowed up by the ground, but no, this time he took it all in his stride and we both sat there with a laugh welling up from within our bellies and altogether reveled in the moment we found ourselves in.
How could this be? 3 hours earlier I was in a factory***and now I’m sitting in the African bush with a Scotsman laughing at the randomness that’s unfolding around us.
I know the answer to this question! It’s because we made a decision to live intentionally in community. We chose to live a life that seeks the adventure in the ordinary. To not settle for the mundane.
We chose to be, explorer men…
*you may call it a pickup if you’re from the states, or a truck if you’re from the uk, or an ute if your from Australia… But basically it is a vehicle with an open back for loading, well just about anything on. In this specific case it’s a white double cab Toyota hilux, with 380000 km on the clock.
**an almost disc shaped fresh water fish with spikes on its back that when rubbe the wrong way can leave a nasty cut in your hand, it’s best to catch them on a small hook with an earthworm on the hook and a float to indicate when they are biting. One time myself and a friend tried to make sushi from kurper we caught in a canal that feeds our town with drinking water, but that’s a story for another day.
*** I work for a company that packages nut products for a supermarket chain in South Africa. We pump out roughly 3500 cases a day packed with nuts from all over the world. My uniform includes long pants, boots, a long sleeve overcoat and cap that keeps the hair on my head out of the product on our tables.
