Into the Quiet: A Journey Back to Kruger
The morning begins with laughter across continents. Frank, seated in a co-sharing space in France, apologizes for his sad-looking baguette as the hum of French voices swells around him. On the other side of the world, Janita smiles into the camera, the sunlight of South Africa spilling into her home. “It’s warm and sunny,” she says — and you can almost feel it.
Today’s conversation isn’t about projects or deadlines. It’s about something more essential: the act of stepping away. As Janita prepares to close her laptop for a week-long family trip to Kruger National Park, Frank gently teases, “So, there’ll be no spud meeting next week. What am I going to do?”
She laughs. “You’ll have two extra hours to go through all the photos I send you.”
And so begins a conversation that travels far beyond a holiday — into memory, meaning, and the quiet rhythm of being alive.
There’s a hum of domestic life behind Janita’s words: shirts washed by hand, laundry fluttering, her husband doing the ironing — a domestic treaty established long ago. “On our first date,” she grins, “I told him, I don’t iron.” It’s a declaration of boundaries and love all in one line — the small truths that make a marriage work.
As they talk, Frank listens like a seasoned traveller curious about the hidden choreography of preparation. He pictures her home in motion — the car being washed under her son’s watchful “supervisor” eye, bags being packed for an early-morning departure.
“Four a.m.?” he asks.
“Yes,” she laughs. “We’ll leave at four. The roads are empty, just a family of three and the open dark.”
You can almost hear the tyres crunching over gravel, the soft snore of a sleeping child in the backseat, the scent of dawn pressing through the window.
“Is it really worth going to sleep?” Frank wonders aloud.
Maybe not. Maybe some journeys start before the world wakes up.
For Janita, Kruger isn’t a destination — it’s a living part of her life story. “I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been there,” she says. “It’s normal for us.” Yet her eyes light up when she talks about it — the way familiarity doesn’t dull wonder, but deepens it.
Frank, like many of us north of the equator, sees Kruger through mythic lenses — half safari, half dreamscape. “For us,” he says, “it’s one of those bucket-list places — a name whispered with reverence.”
Janita smiles. “You can always spot the tourists,” she laughs. “They wear khaki. Beige. Safari hats. Socks and sandals.”
It’s the quiet irony of seeing the extraordinary as ordinary — and perhaps a reminder that home often hides in the very places others travel the world to see.
Her planning sounds almost military — menus pre-written, ingredients listed, coolers packed. “I like to plan,” she admits. “My husband and son just wing it.” But beneath her logistical precision lies something tender: the need to make space for peace.
Because peace doesn’t just happen. It’s packed, prepared for, and sometimes protected.
Moments of Stillness
When Frank asks what “holiday” really means to her, Janita pauses. “It’s breaking the routine,” she says softly. “Waking up early, watching the sunrise, listening to the birds. Even the rain. Just being.”
In that pause, something universal hums — that deep, collective craving for stillness.
She recalls sitting on a balcony as night fell, the hum of crickets giving way to silence — the kind of silence that makes the heart beat louder. “When everything goes quiet, I get nervous,” she confesses. “It means there’s something out there. Maybe a leopard. Maybe a lion.”
And yet, she stays. Watching. Listening. Feeling both fear and awe.
Frank imagines her silhouetted in the darkness, mug of coffee in hand, the wilderness breathing just beyond the fence. “It must be so pure,” he says. “Almost romantic.”
“Yes,” she replies. “And every time I leave, I leave a piece of myself behind.”
The Map of Memory
As the conversation unfolds, the geography of Kruger becomes a map of memory. Janita recalls the northern camps — “too hot,” she laughs — and the rivers that are often dry until the rains return. She speaks of elephants, sables, hornbills, and the occasional traffic jam caused not by cars, but by lions.
“In Kruger,” she says, “we don’t call it traffic. We call it a commotion.”
Even her young son knows the word. “If he hears ‘commotion,’ he knows there’s something to see.”
It’s more than a description — it’s a metaphor for life itself. The commotions we rush toward, the quiet we forget to notice.
Desire Deepens
When Frank asks about the park’s meaning for South Africans, Janita’s voice turns thoughtful. “It’s part of our history. My grandparents went there. My parents. Now me, with my son. We’ve been chased by elephants. We’ve seen lions hunt. Every trip is different.”
She speaks of “Jock of the Bushveld,” a story preserved in the landscape, and of Paul Kruger’s statue standing guard at the southern gate — reminders that history and wilderness coexist here, woven together by time.
Frank listens, visibly moved. “It’s like you’re traveling through memory and legacy at once,” he says.
“Yes,” she nods. “Every time we leave, we’re already planning to come back.”
Reflection: What Can I Take for Myself?
Maybe holidays aren’t escapes at all. Maybe they’re returns — to who we are when the noise fades.
Janita’s story reminds us that peace isn’t found; it’s created. It’s the smell of rain on red soil, the early-morning silence before sunrise, the laughter in a car before dawn.
When was the last time you felt empty — in the best possible way?
As their conversation winds down, Frank promises to give her the space to ease back into the “Brida world” after her return. “We’ll make the next meeting just about your week,” he says. “That’s the only agenda.”
They both laugh. But beneath it, there’s a tenderness — an unspoken understanding that the best work we do often starts after rest.
Janita nods. “The hardest part is unpacking,” she admits. “Not because of the clothes, but because you leave that peace behind. You start wondering — when will I feel this again?”
Frank smiles. “Then keep a ticket ready. Always have a next trip waiting.”
For both of them, and for us listening in, it’s a quiet invitation:
Find your Kruger.
Go there — in body, or in spirit — and let yourself be still enough to listen.
Final Reflection
We often think of adventure as movement, as going somewhere new. But perhaps, like Janita, we need to remember that it’s also a return — to silence, to simplicity, to the small rituals that remind us we are alive.
The question isn’t where we go next.
It’s how deeply we arrive.
