Hello wonderful people! Being brand new to this incredible platform, I thought a good place to start would be, simply, where I come from. However - in my case - it isn't quite that simple 😆
When people ask me where I'm from, I tend to answer: "Born in South Africa, grew up in Botswana, but I'm sort of from ALL OVER the place."
The beautiful photo up above is of the Cape Winelands (took this one around 2018); this is where I was born all of 38 years ago (Paarl, to be exact). All those famous South African wines? Yep, this is where they come from. If you've ever had the pleasure of visiting this region, you'll understand for yourself how breathtakingly beautiful it is there.
I lived in and around this area, until my family moved to a new country: Namibia.
Image Source here. Forgive me for not having more personally-taken photos of all the places I'll be telling you about - I was young, and cameras weren't as ubiquitous back then.
I must admit I recall very little about Namibia, except the Namib desert (shown above), the gemsbok that would roam around our little town, and riding my bike around like a wild thing (ahhh the 80's).
Shortly after, we moved to another teeny-tiny town, back to South Africa this time, just below the Namibian border on the west coast: Kleinzee.
Image source here.
My most vivid memories of Kleinzee include making friends, fishing with my dad, being a free spirit. Also, this town was in a region called Namaqualand, famous for its colourful wildflowers:
Image source here.
Just for some added context, we moved around as often as we did due to my father's job - he worked for De Beers, the well-known diamond company, and so we lived in those little "mining towns". An interesting tidbit about Kleinzee (above) is that around 2008 the diamonds "dried up", as they say, and it now exists as a type of ghost town. Strange thing, knowing that a place at which I created so many memories in essence doesn't exist anymore. But so it goes.
Next up, another new country, and the one I consider myself to be most from: Botswana:
Image source here.
The town itself, called Orapa, is located pretty much smack in the middle of the country. I googled my heart out, searching for some aerial shots to display here, to no avail. Instead, as above, this is the general terrain that we were surrounded by: miles upon miles of savannah, dotted with wild animals like impala, kudu, zebra, giraffes, duikers and more; we even had our own town game park that held leopards and lions.
All in all, Orapa was the most physically barren of all the places I've ever lived, but in what it provided us - magical childhoods - it was by far the richest. More on that some other day.
After 9 years, we headed on back to South Africa, to the city of Cape Town:
Image source here.
Cape Town of course stands in stark contrast to Orapa in almost every way; for me, the most profound contrast exists in what it brought to my life: Orapa brought me happiness and magic, Cape Town brought me pain and trauma. Even now, sitting here in my beautiful home with a wonderful family years later, I look at this photo of Cape Town and feel...pain.
I have lots to tell you guys. I'll get into it all eventually, I swear 😉.
To continue: At the soonest opportunity, I escaped, and fled to Durban, another coastal South African city:
Image source here.
Durban was my place of unwinding and breathing, and the beginning of the journey to try and figure out who I actually was. The gorgeous weather, warm oceans, friendly and laid back people all made it so much easier..! I wasn't there for very long - only a year - but it still holds such a special place in my heart.
Folks, I shall continue my origins story in a follow-up post shortly, as I have to tootle off and do a bunch of mom things right at this moment.
My next post will start with: A new continent!
Much love and blessings to you all xxx
-Liz