3 December 2012
"You can't know the world until you explore your backyard first," my father responded to my envy of his travels, so as a little girl I did just that. I dug up worms, I scraped my knees, I held my breath to see how deep I could swim. I climbed as high as the trees would let me to absorb the rays of the sun on my face, my nicks and bruises a testament of my adventures and my limits. Back then it was my feet that took me.
Our yard grew small and couldn't contain us any longer so we exchanged our sandpit for a place to park our caravan. "You can't know the world until you explore your own country first," said my father. As a family we journeyed all over South Africa, from the plains of the 'highveld' to the coastal inlets that meet the sea. We went on wild animal safaris, visited Zulu villages, rode ostriches and ate Mopane worms. We climbed mountains, built sandcastles and drove for days through the Karoo desert. We collected guinea fowl feathers and porcupine quills to make jewelry and stick on our drawings. We threw a message in a bottle off the tip of Africa, drank traditional Xhosa beer and ignored the segregation of Apartheid. Our travels drove us deep into the bosom of Mamma Africa, that was nurturing all the races, creeds and cultures around us into what is called the Rainbow Nation today.
My brother and I outgrew the caravan and the protective wings of our parents. School excursions and trips with friends took us further afield to neighboring African countries. We raced cardboard boxes down the dunes of the Namibian Desert and stood gaping at the immensity of Victoria Falls.
It was when we hit our mid teens that our father said to us, "It is time to explore the world".
It was on that first family trip abroad that I fell in love with Australia, and it was standing at Ayers Rock at sunset when I breathed the words of Ulysses as a promise to myself, 'I will not rest from travel'.
I became an exchange student in Spain for a year, and later moved to Belgium for love. I taught English in Korea, spent months backpacking South East Asia, and re-explored my beloved home country. I travelled the length of Mexico, took the railway through Europe, and nearly 10 years since my first solo trip, found myself back in Spain. Bicycles, scooters, mopeds, rickshaws, horses, elephants, trains, cars, planes and my own two feet have taken me over five continents. Still intent on 'knowing the world' however, I took to the seas and have spent four years circumnavigating from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean, and back again.
I still consider myself young and inexperienced, but I have learned that each journey is a self discovery, and in as much as you can't know the world until you know your backyard first, you cannot truly know yourself until you know the world.
- competition entry, Tell Us Why You Travel.
The World Knows Me • Opuss № I