Walking the talk - being the change by living the example, step by step

A few months after moving to Cape Town for a better paying position at a luxury car dealership and breaking off a long overdue relationship I craved change and excitement above all else. So I posted a add in the local paper for a new flatmate, preferably a girl. I was surprised at how many girls showed up eager to move in with a single guy in his late twenties, but excited by the prospects this would bring.

I'll never forget the day that a confident, fair haired and intelligent girl from Germany came to look at my flat. She ended up declining to move in due to the flat not having a shower, but invited me to meet up a few days later. After about 6 months I resigned and followed her to Germany. Fear previously prevented me from taking this step. I needed to fall head over heals for a girl in order to conquer my fear and leave my country and secure job.

After spending time with people sleeping in caves in Spain who lived there by choice, speaking numerous langues and willing to share their last meal with me in exchange with what I can share with them... I started changing my views on many things. I questioned how I can justify spending money on a meal in a restaurant I could have prepared myself at a fraction of the cost by buying the ingredients at a super market.. Or denying a hungry beggar some money to buy a meal after I already have a full stomach and then go into a shop and buy myself an ice cream. While in the meantime people are dying of hunger on the streets.

I visited some concentration camps alone while it was snowing trying to gain some insight into the past and trying to understand how people think.

After months of walking in the streets at night feeling safe in foreign countries I return home only to find the people in my country live in total fear. I decide to walk to a shop in day light and I'm warned that it's not safe. I laugh at this notion, stating how I have walked alone in many countries for the last few months at night and I will walk in my own country without fear... Truth be told I was approached upon my return from the shop and an attempted mugging turning into a 15 minute conversation. I start seeing how 20 years after apartheid 'ended' not much have changed in the minds of our people. The rich hold onto what they had, and my fellow white neighbors build higher walls and install more security cameras to protect themselves. A culture of helping and sharing must still be developed... This is my dream and goal.....