Homecoming

As I sit on the cold, hard floor of King Shaka Internation Airport, Durban; I begin to reflect on the past couple of weeks.

We have captured an enormous amount of media content during our time here. My reason for sitting on the floor here, is to access the power socket in order to power my laptop long enough to begin the transfer of over 110GB of media onto our newly acquired external hard drive so that one of our team can begin the gruelling task of sifting through everything and editing it all together.

The main thing I have taken away from this experience will be the people I've met and the stories I've heard. From the media attention South Africa garners, you would never expect some of the things I've seen or heard. To be perfectly honest, I didn't do any research whatsoever into what to expect - and that was to avoid any skewed preconceptions. This didn't work. I can avoid searching for information online, I can avoid the media - but I can't avoid people. The reaction I got from telling people I was off to SA was pretty much unanimous - it would be unsafe.

Sure, there were some areas where we were in more danger than others (namely hanging out of the window of a car taking photos of rhinos, mind), but you get that back in England. There are places here that I wouldn't fancy stopping at a red light in. The places we visited and people we met were overwhelmingly hospitable. I've never eaten so much food and felt so at home, without actually being at home.

The biggest thing I've learnt is perhaps the ability to think differently. With such a diverse group of people, spending two weeks with them, seeing how they think, how they tackle problems; you'd struggle not to appreciate it. For me, exploring a problem properly - actually exploring it to the root cause - was something I'd never really done. You see that crime is a problem in your area and you build a wall. Sure, it helps - but it doesn't stop the crime - the criminals just need to up their game. Looking into why the crime is being committed and what you can do to eliminate that need is much more beneficial - but is often impossible at first glance - and that, perhaps, is why so many people choose the easy way out.

I look forward to sharing some of the stories we heard with you - once the hard task of editing is complete, of course!

“It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.”

Ben