About Office in the Bushveld
Our office in the bush! How come?
Some twenty years ago, while searching for the new horizons, we ended up in Africa. At that time we had no particular expectations. After 25 years of exploring mainly Asia and the Far East we decided to refocus and gain some new experience.
But, with Africa it turned immediately into love at the first sight. For all those years we’ve spent here our love for Africa has never ever been compromised. To be fair, Africa has loved us as well. And we are still praying God for the feelings to remain mutual, for a long… long time. As you might know, Africa could become moody and quite unpredictable…
Our first idea was to live at some place which will enable us to explore African bush without boring, expensive, long planned and time limiting trips from Europe. And, we decided to move to South Africa. Being here for twenty years has provided us with more than what we’ve been hoping for.
No need to mention that the most of our free time here has been dedicated to African bush. We did a number of trips through savannah and deserts…And then, the call for change stroked us again. We have started dreaming about living in the bush, with all other aspects of our everyday lives being built around that.
We’ve always envied our friends Nicola and Tony who spend 6 months of the year trotting through African bush. Why can’t we do it? Simply, because we have to work – to make our daily living.
Any chance to put the two together? Can we be in the bush while doing the same jobs as we’ve been doing so far? It bothered us for years. Technically, practically or in any other way the question remained unanswered for a long period of time.
And then …
One can sit and watch the waters of Lake Kariba for days. It is peaceful, beautiful and remote place. But, how did Trish, the woman who did our Kariba booking straight from the lakeshore, managed to answer my every E-mail so promptly? We knew that reliable connection is just a wish for that part of Zimbabwe.
She has the satellite dish, her answer was. Hmmmm! It was September 2009 when I told my husband that in a year time we will be working from the bush! That was my September resolution. His answer was a blank gaze. After coming back from Lake Kariba things started to roll, bit by bit. I’ve started talking about it. Got the same blank gazes, as from my husband. But, it was him who suggested that we might consider some compromise in our original plans. Otherwise, we would end up equipped as NASA expedition.
So, can we work remotely? Yes, in principle, as our employers turned quite supportive and accepted it. After all, it is technology era, isn’t it? The biggest obstacle was resolved! Now, where should we go to work from? Obvious answer was Kruger National Park. It has all amenities we need (comfortable camps, ablutions, shops and above everything reliable internet connection). Not to be missed, there are additional bush goodies we are addicted to: all the creatures wild and wonderful. We drove to the park to check and full 3G signal was available in Malelane and Skukuza camps.
We set up our goal : January 2011 is the start, we will spend 4 weeks in the park and 4 weeks back in our offices and live in the Caravan in Malelane camp.
Preparations started. We are going to change our lives. There are so many things we had to do before we could start our adventure. I could not believe there are so many errands we had to do.
Our home, sweet home, arrived in front our house on Saturday 15.01. It was cleaned and we started to pack.
And we did it. We did our first trip from 22.01 till 20.02. And it was a success. Everybody was happy. So we are about to start our second trip that we hope to share with you.
We will be driving to the Park on the 22.03 and paln to post our first blog on the 24.03, hopefully.
See you there …
Like
April 15th, 2011 at 2:25 pm
Good luck!!