I never knew I would could get this lost. Feeling overwhelmed with the frustration of isolation has now lead me to rethink my immediate future. 

Being alone has always come natural to me, I treat being alone like a gift. Being an only child I will always be comfortable with myself, tried through tribulations during my younger days by playing alone and having to cope with the awkward silences. 

The distance from my former ideologies and perhaps I would be better off to characterize this as a different narrative, one that I did not see coming until picking up a lost book. While living alone has not changed for me in the past five years, living alone in the middle of the African bush has been an experience that has taught me to value any and all human interaction. I now consider myself lucky to have insightful conversations, which occur rarely. 

For the conversations that I have with myself and the Natural world, the discussions are more like lectures and I the pupil. Observations that keep my eyes and mind open have helped me to find a place during this silent isolation. Llyod, Vusi, and Sihle like to call me Hemal the Hermit because of the long weekly pilgrimages I make up the mountain in our reserve. 

Being lost is not a bad thing, I have always been lost. Running into the unknown to take wrong turns and climb over steep challenges has lead me to this situation which I find perfect for me. I would consider myself to have never chased after happiness, and that I have the ability to create happiness within. Yet I feel more lost and confused with each passing day. 

The amount of interaction I had before coming to Africa was over the top, meeting new people daily. Instead of people I meet honey badgers, giraffes, blessboks, and a plethora of many more animals. Especially birds. Some I imagine to have more human personalities than myself. I know that being comfortable or getting situated to this new life style will take more than a year, and that I am only on month 9. However I have realized that I may not want to live my life in isolation after this year. To be isolated from people my own age, or people with the same political and societal beliefs has made me yearn to be part of those collectives and friendships that I found refuge in before making this journey abroad.

If you know me well, you know that I have always been lost and that it does not bother me. That although I am lost I know that I have found parts of myself that I keep me alive and push me to become more interested by diving into deeper questions. Knowing that the answers are not at the bottom. But rather in the first breath by breaking through the surface after thinking I would drown. 

From my day knee deep in peat.