I want to be a Giraffe!

3 years and counting...

Three years ago my son and I moved to South Africa.

I bought a 30ha property between the Kruger Park and the Blyde River Canyon, and we started a new life. It was a big challenge for us both. For him first, as he didn’t speak a word of English, and for me, as I knew nothing about hospitality business, which was about to be my new job. But without hesitation, we jumped in a plane and into our new adventure.

It took him 2 months to learn English, and I was so proud when I realized he started to dream in English (he has always speak a lot while sleeping). On the other side, I am still learning everyday how to run my business. Hopefully I have always been talkative and open-minded, which really helps when you have to meet strangers on a daily basis.

During those 3 years I often thought about writing a blog but was a bit shy about opening my life to the whole world. Then one day I realized that every single person who contacted me by email, facebook or twitter, and every single guest I received in my lodge wanted to know more about how and why we arrived there. After all, maybe my life is a little bit interesting :)

So here I am, starting a blog, where I want to share my experiences.

I will for sure come back in future posts on what happened the last 3 years, but today I want to explain why my blog title is: “The French girl who wants to be a giraffe”.

Like everybody I learnt that giraffes are the tallest animals on Earth, like everybody I have seen the Lion King, and was prepared to see a big tall beast when I first went to South Africa. I was 24 years old and my son almost 2, but nothing prepared me to what I saw.

My first encounter with a giraffe happened in the famous Kruger National park. My parents who felt in love with South Africa when they first visited the country after the end of apartheid, decided to pay us (my siblings and I) a 15 days trip to the Kruger. We entered the park early in the morning, and my dad (who already visited over 20 times, gave us the "rules": "when you see an animal you shout its name so I can stop the car".

After an hour or so, and many "IMPALAS", few "NYALAS", and some "ZEBRAS", I heard my brother shouting “GIRAFFE”. Believe it or not but I didn’t see it immediately, and had to look for what was just in front of me, maybe 5m away ... I didn’t see it, the tallest animal on Earth! How can you be that tall and still be able to hide behind a tree which is smaller than you?

It was 8 years ago, and I am still amazed to see that most of the time, we see them at the very last minute, whereas they are so big and so tall, and believe me they are bigger and taller than what you think knowing.

I am myself big and tall (let’s face it, I never lost my pregnancy kilos) and I would love to go unnoticed like a giraffe.

So my first giraffe was a male, just in front of me, and he was the ugliest giraffe I have ever seen (at this time the only one I have ever seen)! Very old male with scars and wounds all over his body, full of ticks, and clearly waiting for a predator to end his life…but still, he was magnificent! The moment I saw him, I immediately felt how powerful he was, and it looked like he was sharing with us his great wisdom. Since that time, I have never stopped admiring giraffes.

They look confident and peaceful, and when they look at you (yes they do), from their high eyes, you never ever feel small, contrariwise, I think my soul is growing each time I meet a giraffe.

I believe that we all have a purpose in life, and that we have to share something with the rest of the world, and I’d like to think that my purpose (or maybe one of my purposes) is to be, like giraffes, a strong and wise soul, appearing almost magically when someone needs it.

"Unfortunately" I am only 32 years old, and I will need few (ok a lot) more years to reach my old male giraffe’s wisdom, but I will not give up on that dream, I WILL BE A GIRAFFE.

#giraffe #SouthAfrica #Newlife #learneveryday #french #wisdom