Cape Town. Yes, there are very well developed cities in Africa! It's not all savannas with elephants and lions roaming around, like so many people think
This blog
post will be on a topic that I’ve been noticing and thinking about for a while
now, and I think today’s a great day to officially publish it. First, I’ll go
over a quick recap of today’s events. I’m actually writing this a little before
noon, so the day’s not even half over, but there was only one trip out to sea
today, so my work day was done by about 10:30 this morning. As usual, I was in
the garage a little before 5:45 this morning to get everything ready. Again,
even though I’m getting up earlier than I do when I’m back home, it’s so much
easier to get out of bed knowing I’m going to go see sharks than if I’m doing
anything else back home. I hadn’t heard last night how many spots were
available for volunteers, but I figured I’d still get up, help out setting up,
and hopefully get a spot on the boat. As we were packing up the boat, I heard
from Tom that there were three spaces available for us, and since Dax had said
yesterday that he’d sit this one out, those three spots ended up going to Mike,
Mayke, and me. I know, a bit confusing that that’s what their names are- almost
as confusing as if we had one volunteer named Lizzy, one named Beth, and one
named Elizabeth! Wait a minute…
We took off
from the harbor at about seven, and we had a shark around the boat before we
even dropped anchor. We ended up seeing about four or five sharks around the
boat during that trip, a couple of which were very feisty- the bait ended up
getting stolen not once, but twice, and having it happen even once is unusual.
There’s one shark that’s well known in this area that we all call “Free Willy”
that we saw on this trip. He’s a pretty good size male; probably about 3.5
meters, and really girthy for a male. Usually the females have more girth,
which makes sense if you consider that, to be of breedable size, they have to
be able to carry 2-10 baby sharks inside them, which can grow to a meter or
more! He’s very easy to recognize because his dorsal fin is bent over near the
end of it, which is from a tag that was screwed into the dorsal fin. When the
tag eventually fell off, the top of the dorsal fin collapsed. He’s a pretty
feisty shark that usually hangs around for a while, chasing the bait and coming
very close to the cage, which the guests love. He might be my favorite shark in
the area.
We pulled up
the anchor and returned to the harbor a little before ten, and with the
volunteers and crew working together to clean up the boat and wash the
wetsuits, we were done by about 10:30. Not much other news to report, so here’s
for the main topic of the blog!
A couple of
months ago, I made a blog post called Travel Myths, where I tried to clear up
some myths or misconceptions about traveling, and specifically the type of
traveling that I do. This post is going to be similar to that, but instead of
it being about traveling in general, I want to focus on South Africa. Back home
in Texas as I was preparing to go on this trip, whenever I told people I was
going to Africa, I was always met with a bunch of stereotypes and misconceptions
about it. I’ll get four things out of the way really quickly:
1. No,
I’m not the only white person here
2. No,
I don’t feel the need to carry some kind of protection everywhere I go
3. No,
I’ve never been attacked here
4. No,
I’m not fearless
I say those
four things first because those were some of the biggest misconceptions that I
was met with back home. So many Americans, and maybe just people that haven’t
traveled in general, have these very skewed ideas of what Africa is like, and
what people from Africa are like. To be honest, I might’ve been a bit guilty of
this as well before my first trip to Africa. That’s one of the reasons I love
travel- it really opens your eyes and your mind. Ever since then, I’ve really
noticed these stereotypes that people have in their minds about where I am, and
it’s very annoying. On that first point, understand something about where I am:
South Africa was a Dutch colony before it became independent. Meaning a lot of
people here are descendants of the Dutch people that colonized this country.
Meaning, if it isn’t painfully obvious… they’re white. Not everyone in Africa
is really dark black like so many people think. And I’m not talking about
tourists; I’m talking about people that were born and raised here in Africa. So
throw that image of the typical “African” out of your mind, okay?
As far as
points two and three go, a lot of people think that everywhere in Africa is a
super dangerous place to live and travel, especially for twenty-something year
old white girls like me. Let me blow your mind again: right now I’m sitting in
the living room of the vol house where I live. Both the front and back doors of
the house are not only unlocked, but actually standing open. And that’s not
unusual. When I’m awake at the house, more often than not I have at least one
door standing open, and often the windows as well. The house doesn’t have air
conditioning, and can get pretty stuffy when everything is closed, so I prefer
to leave the doors open. That was the case last time I was here too. And in all
the time I’ve done that, the most dangerous thing to come into the house was a
bee. I walk around this neighborhood pretty much any time of day as well. I’ve
been out walking alone (without carrying any protection, remember) at 5 am and
at midnight, and pretty much every time in between. And I can honestly say that
I can’t recall a single time when I felt unsafe. There are parts of San Antonio
where I’d feel less safe than here in Gansbaai. Sure, not everywhere in Africa
is like this, but what I’m saying is people clump the entire continent into one
category, when it really shouldn’t be. Africa is huge, and different parts of
it are wildly different- trust me.
I guess that
fourth point really ties into the previous two as well. By no means am I
fearless- you don’t have to be to do what I do. Yes, I go cliff diving, bungee
jumping, skydiving, and swimming with great white sharks. Yes, I travel solo in
foreign continents, sometimes in places with a native language that I don’t
speak. Yes, I’m a 23-year-old Texas girl traveling solo in South Africa. Am I
fearless? Hell no. But as I mentioned in my travel myths blog, going out and
doing something that scares you is one of the most satisfying things you can
do.
I could go
on, but this post is definitely long enough, so I’ll leave it at that. The next
couple of days are no sea days, but Tom has some other activities planned for
the vols, so it’ll still be a fun, busy weekend. This post’s food for thought:
“To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about foreign countries.”-
Aldous Huxley
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