Well, I
figured a blog update was overdue, having been nearly a month since my last
one, and after being at work the past seven days straight, I finally have some
free time to write one out. Overall, my job at Starbucks isn’t a bad one at
all, but this past week there were definitely some stressful and tiring times.
For those times, I just kept telling myself that this will be worth it when the
middle of May rolls around and I head off to South Africa. I’ve worked at this
job for nearly six months to earn the money for the projects themselves,
transportation costs, and some extra money that I’d like to have available for
the nine weeks that I’m in South Africa.
This is a
topic that I touched on in a previous blog post, but I feel the need to
reiterate it since it still comes up regularly. When I tell people that I’m
going off to South Africa and what I’ll be doing there, one of the most common
responses that I get is that I’m brave or even a bit crazy, or if I’m scared to
be doing it. This is especially common when I mention that I’m going by myself,
without any friends of family by my side. Yes, I know there are plenty of
stories of people, especially women, traveling alone that end tragically. To
throw in a little statistic, research found that, as of 2014, 72 percent of
American women had traveled on their own at some point. Whether she’s a
grieving woman hiking over 1,000 miles to help her heal, such as Cheryl Strayed
in Wild, a newly divorced woman
searching for love and religion, such as Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat, Pray, Love, or a different traveler
on another type of adventure, it’s clear that in today’s world, the lone female
traveler is no longer considered an anomaly or a damsel in distress.
Now, I’m
going to put aside the fact that I lack a y chromosome, and look at my trip
specifically. When I tell people that aren’t huge animal nerds like I am that
I’ll spend the first month researching great white sharks on the South African
coastline, their responses are very cliché and make one thing about the person
pretty clear: they think they know everything about great white sharks because
they’ve seen Jaws or Deep Blue Sea. The responses like,
“well, we’ll never see you again”, “hope you know the danger you’re getting
involved in”, or “good luck not getting a limb bitten off” are frustrating, to
say the least. However, they remind me why I chose to get involved with this
amazing and horribly misunderstood creature in the first place, and in that
sense those comments are motivational. I can’t help but be a little bit amused
when I see the looks on people’s faces when I tell them that dining room chairs
kill more people every year than sharks, or that people have eaten more people
than sharks have. In short, I can completely honestly say that out of all the risks
involved in this trip, working with the great white sharks is the absolute
least of my worries.
If there’s
one aspect of this adventure that I have the most apprehension about, it’s the
times that I won’t be with my projects, such as the short time I’ll be in
Johannesburg before, between, and after them. Being the largest city in South
Africa, it shouldn’t be a surprise that Johannesburg has the largest crime rate
as well. The time that I’ll be there is very short (not more than a few hours
for my entire trip, since I’ll only be there to change planes), so even that
doesn’t worry me very much. I’m the type of person that doesn’t mind being
alone, even in an unfamiliar place. Quite the contrary, I like being my own
boss (who doesn’t?), and the “flying solo” aspect of this trip will make it
feel more like the adventure that it truly will be.
Once I join
the people I’ll be working with, both at the great white shark project and at
CARE baboon sanctuary, I’m sure that the small amount of apprehension will
completely dissipate. True, I still won’t know anyone I’m around, but that has
never bothered me. I am a lot of things, but shy is certainly not one of them.
I’ve never been nervous about being around people I don’t know, and I never
remember having trouble making friends. Maybe it’s due to the fact that I’m the
baby of my family and, as such, like attention. Maybe it’s because I’ve been in
jobs and positions that require me to talk to people since I was fourteen.
Maybe it’s just who I am individually, or probably some combination of those
things, but for whatever reason, I like meeting and talking to new people, and
making friends. Last summer up in Wyoming, I knew absolutely no one when I
arrived, and within a week the people around me nearly felt like family. I
don’t doubt that the same thing will happen in South Africa this summer.
I’m glad I
had time to post an update today. I absolutely love to write and think about
this upcoming adventure. But, after writing this much, I guess I should wrap
up. See you in 42 days, Africa.
This post’s
food for thought: “I didn’t say no because between safety and adventure I
choose adventure.”- Craig Ferguson
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