Back to the wall

I remember the farewell dinner we had after completing the Run of the Great wall of China. A group of individuals plucked from every walk of life, but now a cohesive team was there, we had been together for 5 months and we had been through a journey of a lifetime. Each person was given a chance to stand up and relate what the journey had meant to them. As each person stood up ,silence fell on the room ,we knew that this was going to be a massive revelation in each person’s life to date. There were such personal recollections of the journey, what it had meant to that individual left us all fighting back the tears. Every story was life changing and heart wrenching. William Lindsaey ( who had travelled most of the wall some 23 years prior) was responsible in putting the Chinese logistics side of the run together for us, stood up and shared his feelings on his journey along the wall and how it had changed his life, ending with a statement as he looked over to me and smiled.

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The Otter trail run

Those of you that are familiar with this iconic hike know most people trundle the forests of the Garden route for about 4 to five days along this 45km trail of untouched beautiful pristine coastline. Its no easy hike, each day is a big one and you need to be fit, but the rewards are there.

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Brave Hearts

Every time I attend a surgical mission, there is a person whose journey just steals my heart. There have been over 350 children that have arrived for screening to see who will be accepted for surgery. Out of them 180 were finally scheduled for surgery. This is always the saddest part, those who have to wait another year, its eats a whole in everyone’s heart to know that not everyone can be helped.

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A Teddy

There is a little teddy journey that unfolded on this mystical island of Madagascar during the past week. Jade my daughter of 6 left South Africa bearing gifts of little Cuddly “Bush Babies” that were given to her by Woolworths to hand out to each of the children receiving corrective cleft surgery through Operation Smile, close to 200 of them. I will never forget a few weeks ago when she arrived back from school, I said to her, “Jade go and see what is in your room”, she dropped her bags an ran off, this was followed by silence for about 5 minutes as she struggled to open the 2 large brown boxes. Then – yes chaos broke out.

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The Freedom Charter

I was driving into Cape Town a few days ago and this graffiti artists work caught my eye, not only did it do that, it made me think so much about what we stand for and what we are going through as a young democracy in relation to the freedom of information bill that is causing such public outbursts.

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