Friday 22nd of July could not come fast enough for me. Sure i was aware of all the manual labour under the hot African sun with nothing but organic fruit and veg to nourish my polluted body.
Excitement mounting along with Alvira’s superwoman syndrome insisting on driving into the unknown after dark. Me with stiff muscles from a double soccer game the day before and Sha heavily loaded with her erb of choice. Assuming I would dry up on the long drive there, I imbibed in my usual Friday work Savannas’ with extra gusto.
We hit the road, over excited and over intoxicated on our various poison’s of choice. Things can never be boring with this particular cocktail of friends, making the drive there seem rather short.... or was it the endless supply of “liquid beverage” that kept appearing. Alas it was inevitable that we would get lost.... inevitable also was that we would find ourselves on the inside of a bar on a Friday night....
This time our main objective was pretending to ask for directions. So fully loaded with the same directions printed from the internet, now translated to broken English by the Afrikaans accent behind the bar, we set of for the last leg of what should have been a 2 hour journey.
The actual weekend was beautiful fun, restful and loaded with healthy laughs on the mountain where one always feels closer to God.
My initial state of panic at realizing my best friend and confident during moments of loneliness had no reception. So through the 14 hours of silence a night would have to be totally non communicative. I could do this. Well alone I could but they made the mistake of bunking us together. So as we drunkenly giggled and fought for bed space we were harshly reprimanded within the first 2 hours of being there. This highlighted how far from goodness and purity we were.
Day one began to a silent breakfast under the trees and we set off to work almost immediately.
Before I go on let me try to briefly explain this bazaar act of uprooting trees in the mountain. I mean, aren’t mountains supposed to have trees?
Lantana was the name of the enemy invader, these alien parasites spread like wild fire killing off our indigenous plantation in its path sucking up our resources and cause a thorny tangled web around the mountain. These hood rats must go!
After hours of manual labour we were fed with the most heavenly biscuits, lemongrass and mint tea and freshly squeezed lemonade. Then we were released to read in the sun, take mountain strolls or sleep. Lunch was served and who knew vegetables could clean up so well. I’d almost forgotten that I was not eating flesh for 3 days.
Meditation a challenge for self confessed ADD sufferers such as myself, so what should be a calming soothing experience is actually a mental argument with my brain to shut down.
Well after being lured to meditation under the pretence of having a reading session, I found it surprisingly easy to slip into... once I had gotten over the initial feeling of being scammed.
I am even left with the confidence of attempting this spiritual exercise on my own.
Sunday Morning the terrible trio (that’s us) set off before day break to get me to the 15k Walk the talk.... The clean mountain air had prepared my lungs for this task.
Thank you Emoyeni for the experience and Enviroserve for the wonderful experience www.envirosolutionscentre.com
XOXO Cins...
XOXO Cins...
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