Mandla, one of my favorite people in the world!
What an
awesome day! This morning I woke up at about 7:30 to familiar voices in the
front room of the house. I immediately popped out of bed and walked out to see
Lizzy and Beth sitting at the table, talking with Cake and Jerome. I gave them
each a long-awaited hug, followed by a lot of catching up over a few cups of
tea. We heard from Jerome that Grant (one of the skippers of the boat) would be
driving us to the store at about noon to get food for the next few days. Tom
also mentioned to us that we were going to have a braai (South African
barbecue) tonight with all the volunteers and the crew, so he was coming along
to the store to get supplies for that. A braai sounded like a great way to
celebrate us all being back in South Africa together again; Tom’s getting
everything ready in the back yard right now. Before heading to the store, we
all sat around, drank tea, and caught up, mainly talking about our crazy
experiences on the road. Since we’d last seen each other, Lizzy and Beth had
been on a crazy seven-month long trip all around Southeast Asia and Australia,
Cake had been on his adventure volunteering in the amazon, and I had been on my
own crazy adventure in South America. Cake and I talked about drinking tea made
from coca leaves (the plant used to make cocaine), while Lizzy and Beth talked
about volunteering with elephants in Thailand. We talked about all the other
places we still wanted to go, and when and where we should all meet up next. We
all have pretty insane lives, and of course we love it.
After Grant
took us all shopping, he told us that we should be in the garage at about two
to get everything ready and get the boat all packed up for the trip out. It
would be pretty easy to pack this one up, since we only had four clients and
weren’t expecting to see any sharks; like I mentioned yesterday, no boats have
seen any since the orcas came by a few weeks ago. But either way, the boat had
to be ready.
We met
Jerome, Bee (another crew member), Tom and Grant in the garage right on time,
and with everyone helping out, the truck was packed up in no time and we headed
down to the harbor to put it all into the boat. Riding in the bed of the truck,
I looked at who was already in the boat as we were driving up. When my eyes met
Mandla’s, we both smiled. Mandla is a crew member that I got to know when I was
here in 2015. My first memory of him was my first day at WSP, when the new
volunteers dropped our bags and went to the garage to get a little tour of the
place we’d be working. Mandla was in the garage, and greeted us by saying,
“welcome home”. I’ve always remembered that, and have loved him ever since.
Mandla
immediately remembered my name, as well as Lizzy, Beth, and Cake’s names, and
greeted us all with big hugs when we climbed up on the boat. With all the
volunteers working together with moving all the equipment from the truck up
onto the boat, we finished pretty quickly. It felt so amazing to be back on the
boat- Beth and I hugged when we got up, we were both just so happy to be back.
Soon enough, the clients joined us on the boat, and we were on the water again!
I was so happy that, because there were only four clients, there was room on
the boat for all the volunteers, as well as Jerome, Mandla, and Tom. I was a
little worried about seasickness, remembering my first time out on the boat
last time, but thankfully it was a fairly calm day, so my stomach felt fine the
whole time.
Like we all
suspected, we didn’t see any sharks out on this trip. Honestly, though, I was
just so happy to be out on the boat again, on the water with the other
volunteers and the crew that I hardly cared. I’ve met a lot of really great
people in my experiences and travels, but out of all of them, Jerome and Mandla
are, hands down, the most genuine. They’re a big part of why this place feels
like home.
After
spending about an hour and a half in our original spot, we pulled up the anchor
and started heading back. Grant decided to go by Geyser Rock on the way back,
the main breeding spot of Cape fur seals, so we could still give the clients
something to see. It was pretty cool to see the thousands of seals, many of
which were still very young. December is the main time of year when the seals
give birth, so there were plenty of baby seals playing around in the water.
Well, right
now I’m sitting out on the back porch of our house, surrounded by the other
volunteers and crew, getting ready to enjoy a delicious braai. I’m loving life
so much right now. This post’s food for thought: “How you
live your life is up to you. You have to go out and grab the world by the
horns. Rope it before it ties you down and decides for you.”- Sarah Reijonen
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