It took us over three months to cross the country by bus, reaching San Francisco just in time to make my flight back to the East coast. I slept in my old twin bed, ate my mom’s cooking, took a deep breath, then flew 24 hours to South Africa.

Maya had been studying abroad in Johannesburg for the previous five months, and I needed to go there myself to understand her experience. I crossed the Atlantic overnight, stopped over in Paris, changed planes and grabbed a croissant, then stared out the window for the next ten hours watching the farmland of France, the Mediterranean Sea, the dry Sahara, and the green Congo pass below.

On my first day in South Africa Maya brought me into Kliptown, an informal settlement in Soweto where 40,000 people share 40 running water taps. I met her friends at the SKY youth center, as well as the subject of Maya’s documentary—Clap-and-Tap pastor (an afro-centric branch of Christianity), Gift, who now considers Maya his daughter.

Children ran to us and playfully jumped into our arms as we walked the dirt alleys of Kliptown. I shared laughter and hugs with these new beings, so quick to joy, but as night began to fall and the cloud of smog settled in the air from the thousands of coal burning makeshift furnaces (which heat the homes fortunate enough to afford them) we said goodbye and “shop, shop” (cool, cool) to our friends. We got into our car and returned to our warm hostel while our brothers and sisters in Kliptown returned to their shacks, with no running water and too little food. Maya experienced this day after day for five months.

We left Joberg heading East, past the mine dumps and dry savannah and out to Kruger National Park—a vast sanctuary protecting the land and other animals from the humans.

For three weeks we explored South Africa, sharing the roads with rhinos, elephants, and baboons (though in Kruger lions and leopards kept us inside our automobile). In the Kingdom of Swaziland we immersed ourselves in the savannah climbing “Executioner’s Rock” and sharing game paths with warthogs, zebras and hippos. We wandered the streets of Durban and bought spices in the Indian market, and trekked through the seaside pastures of the Wild Coast.

On the shore of the Indian Ocean we stayed at one particularly magical hostel called Bulungula. The dirt road into the remote village of Nqileni was accessible only by Land Rover driven expertly by the one Mr. Rufus—an old Xhosa man with eyes soft and blue from cataracts. The hostel sat between the rolling pastures and old black mangroves trees that stood atop the dunes between the pastures and the sea. Solar panels and a small wind turbine generated all of the electricity the compound needed. The toilets were all composting—wasting none of the precious freshwater. The grey-water from the urinals and sinks fed a grove of papaya and banana trees. The delicious Xhosa bread and stews were all baked in a solar oven. Every wall was a piece of art, and inside every toilet stall there was a different mural.

When we asked for the key to our rondavel hut (made of cow dung and pasture grass), we were told that there are no locks here because no one steals–a stark difference from Johannesburg which has one of the highest murder rates in the world. At an orange farm outside of Kruger, while Maya and I slept soundly in our dorm room, a French family was robbed at gunpoint in their private Chalet on the same land. In another remote hostel just a few hours down the coast, security guards roamed the grounds at night, women tried desperately to sell beads by falling at our feet and tying them around our ankles, and children offered to sing for tourists then begged for change.

But the village of Bulungula owns 40 percent of the hostel, and receives 100 percent of the profits from activities like the herbalist tour, guided fishing, and the village tour. The people were materially poor, but they were not dependant on handouts from whites. In other hostels the villagers were kept outside the gate, but at Bulungula the children filled the communal room of the hostel to dance to the stereo, while the men and women gathered together conversing under candle light.

We spent our days exploring the Wild Coast’s hills and cliffs, trekking along with the cows, goats and sheep that grazed freely in unfenced pastures. At night, as the full moon rose over the Indian Ocean, we would return to the hostel to sit by the fire, drum, dance, or play Jenga with the children. We were sad to leave but other adventures in the Drakensburg zMountains called us.

We arrived back in Boston, and before any jet lag could settle on us we were off to New York City to see Daft Punk on Coney Island. The robot/astronaut DJs took the stage and drowned our egos in sound and light. Thousands of beautiful freaky people became one, dancing and celebrating together.

After the concert Maya and I stood on the sidewalk and watched unique human beings stream by us like a galaxy of stars. After South Africa, where so much keeps people divided, it was a wonderful reminder of that all that space between us is truly just an illusion.

We drove North visiting Maya’s family in Maine and continuing over the border to meet my family in Canada. My mother grew up in northern Nova Scotia, the oldest of eight children. Soon after we arrived my aunts and uncles and all their little children gathered at our house. We kept my little cousins busy gathering raspberries, adventuring into the forest, and performing in talent shows (the djembe drum I brought back from South Africa was a big hit) while Nana, my mother and her sisters prepared dinner. We ate mackerel and snow crab (brought to us by my “granduncle” Jackie), potatoes, green beans, and vegetables from Papa’s garden, bread and rolls from Nana’s kitchen, and for desert her delicious blueberry pie, the berries freshly picked from Papa’s fields.

My great grandfather built and operated a water-powered sawmill with his son, my grandfather does the same with his son Chris. By taking only what they need and replanting where they cut, the forests and fields (they harvest blueberries) have sustained the family for generations.

Since the passing of NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) in 1994, business has been more difficult. Their small mill, operated by three men who only cut what they can re-plant and replenish, must now compete with the large unsustainable U.S. logging corporations. My uncles now leave their families for several months a year to work on the tar sands oil operations in the wild west of Alberta just to maintain their standard of living. I asked my grandfather about the situation, and he just shakes his head when trying to imagine how people can cut down forests and not re-plant.

I left Nova Scotia with a full belly and a full heart, already longing for the day when I’ll return. But I had a plane to catch and 23 strangers to drive from San Francisco into the Black Rock desert for Burning Man.

Share This