Nearly two years ago, I walked down Long Street in the heart
of Downtown Cape Town. I was about
halfway through my Semester at Sea voyage, having already been in three
continents in two months with a slew of countries in Asia left to go. I was only going to be in Cape Town for five
days, and that was one of the longer stays at a single port. Under these circumstances, going so many
places for such a limited amount of time, you never really knew what you were
going to see, and you never quite thought about ever going back because there were so many places ahead of you.
While on SAS, I did a photo project entitled Shoe-mester at
Sea. Before my departure, I purchased a
fresh pair of Toms shoes and wore them every day while at port and proceeded to
photograph my feet as I traveled around the world. There was multi-layered reasoning behind
the project, the main concept being that people are always advised to leave a
footprint on the world, and what better time to do that than a 105-day
circumnavigation around the globe?
However, I was more interested in the impact the world would leave on
me, and I thought that the best way to represent that was to document my shoes
as I tread. That’s how the Shoe-mester
at Sea project was born.
Throughout the semester, I took hundreds of photos of my shoes. As time went on, the literal blank canvas became covered in dirt and grime, and that gave the shoes their personality. From the mud stains on hikes to a pink tint from Holi powder, the shoes got a lot of wear. Every blemish became a story of what I was doing in the shoes when the blemish happened. This was how I chose to remember my trip.
When taking the photos, not only did I want to highlight the
slow deterioration of the shoes, but I wanted people to take notice of the
ground on which I stood. The photos
shared a lot about the places I was fortunate enough to visit. From the vibrant red earth of a dirt road in
Ghana to the gray-and-silver concrete jungle of the streets of Tokyo, and everywhere in between, all of
these places were different. The project
was a way for people to see what it was like to walk in my shoes, quite
literally, and live vicariously the photos. We
often forget to look down because we’re always told to keep our heads up, but
the things we find at our feet can be more telling than anything we see at
eye-level.
One of my favorite photos in the entire series was one taken
at the storefront of the African Music Store on Long Street. In the entryway, there is a colorful mosaic
with the words “Welcome to Africa” encircling an outline of the continent. Something about the photo was so memorable
because it stood out from so many of the other earth-toned photos that are part
of the set, and it really emphasized the importance of looking at the ground
because there are beautiful things that we often miss.
During my trip to Cape Town earlier this month, I was
walking down Long Street and thought back very vividly to that photograph. Of course, I was gravitated towards visiting
the site where it was taken, and upon arriving, I had smiled to see that it was
exactly the same as I had seen it two years ago. Naturally, I took another photo at the spot,
wearing different shoes this time around.
In reflecting about the picture, I get chills.
When thinking about it, what are the chances of this
happening? I took hundreds of photos
during my semester abroad, and I’ve taken millions upon millions of steps in my
lifetime. Yet, on the other side of the
world, I found myself standing in the same exact spot as I did two years
ago. I had no idea that I was ever going
to find my way back to South Africa again, let alone be able to live and work
in the country for a full year. It makes
me realize the privilege I’ve had to travel so extensively and the opportunity
I have to keep doing so. It also makes
me wonder: how many more places that I’ve already gone will I be able to
revisit? At this point, it’s limitless.
If you watch the video intently, you will see that I
blatantly took photos of my shoes pre-departure in my neighborhood in the Bronx
and throughout New York City. I tried my
best to take photos upon my return at many of the same places in order to see
how much change the shoes have undergone during the time I was away. What I neglected to realize was the change
that would be made in the person wearing the shoes that would inevitably happen
over time as a result of traveling the world.
I became a different person from the time I had left to when I returned,
with a lot more experience under my belt and a whole bunch of new wisdom in my
head.
Upon taking the photo at the storefront on Long Street for a
second time, I had the opportunity to have that same kind of
self-reflection. The Paul who stood
there two years ago in his Toms shoes was very different from the Paul standing
there now. It’s incredibly important to
have these kinds of moments, to take a step back in order to step forward; to
realize how far you’ve gone and how much further you will go.
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So now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, I will give a
brief summary of my entire trip down the Garden Route to Cape Town.
Claire and I decided to drive down the Garden Route, a
stretch of beautiful coastline between the Eastern and Western Cape provinces,
because it has been so heavily recommended by friends and colleagues who have
done it in the past. To break up the 8
hour drive, we took several days, stopping along the way in different cities
and towns, staying at hostels (otherwise known as Backpackers here) and getting into
loads of adventures along the way.
The drive over took five days with stops in Plettenberg Bay,
Knysna, Oudtshoorn, and Mossel Bay. Along the way, we met some awesome people, including a Swiss German
hip-hop dancer and a recent high school graduate from Reunion island
volunteering at a village in The Crags, a very large tour guide whose raspy
voice was due to his vocal chords being crushed in a rugby accident, and an Afrikaaner bartender who shared his philosophies on life until the wee hours of
the night. Every day was a new
adventure: riding elephants, getting an impromptu township tour, climbing
through caves, riding ostriches, sandboarding down the longest dune in South
Africa, and petting cheetahs were just some of the things I was able to do
while driving down the Garden Route. And
don’t even get me started on the scenery, mountains kissing the shore the
entire way through, and some pretty awesome food, too.
After an amazing week of fun, frolicking, and frivolity, it was time to head back to Port Elizabeth and back to the real world. After a 12-hour overnight ride on the Intercape Bus, we got straight back to work to prepare for an HCT Tournament that upcoming weekend (which was a success, by the way), and also preparing our farewells to Kelly and Ashley, the two Fulbright English Teaching Assistants who instantly became our friends upon coming to PE and who showed us the ropes.
It’s crazy to think that time is going by so quickly, because before you know it, it’s going to be November, which would mean three months of being in South Africa, or in other words a quarter of the way through the year. No matter, tihngs seem to be shaping up, and I look forward to my next visit to Cape Town during Thanksgiving and all of my other travels during the December break!
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