Listen to thisModern kids miss out on so much
Our children and youth’s divorce from nature must be among the greatest tragedies of our time, writes Murray Williams.
It’s Sunday, and I’m missing my son. He’s 15, on a 27-day trek in the Cape countryside. I miss him so much I find him where I can: in my books. And I’m off – I jump straight into the pages of Weekend Trails in the Western Cape, by the legendary Mike Lundy, the trails of the Boland – “the High Land” – which my son must be treading.
At this moment, he’ll be surrounded by the Kogelberg Biosphere Reserve, as described by conservationists Amida and Mark Johns – this audaciously-rich floral kingdom which we call home.
I remember being shown, as a child, on the banks of the Palmiet, how tiny ants help pollinate the exquisite “Mimetes”, and waking at 2am to wait for the spotted genet to sneak up to our campfire, looking for leftovers.
I wonder the names of where my son wanders, so dip into Beard Shaver’s Bush – Place Names in the Cape, by Ed Coombe and Peter Slingsby.
If my son passes anywhere near “Baardskeerdersbos” – I have no idea if he does – he’ll know it’s named after the 10-legged arthropod and its horizontal-slicing mandibles.
Right now, in the rain, it’ll be tough.
I see books on my shelf describing courageous adventurers – Riaan Manser, Sir Ranulph Fiennes. I think of his safety.
But I remember, before he left, he told me: “At least I won’t have to worry about crime for the next month…”
How sad is that – for a child to feel safer in a tiny tent in “the sticks”, than behind the walls of his home.
Out in the veld, my son is on a sacred “pilgrimage”.
Blessed.
In my bookcase, I see The Alchemist, a boy’s journey through the North African desert, by Paulo Coelho.
I see Walden, by Henry David Thoreau, who wrote: “I went to the woods to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover I had not lived.”
I see Wild Resilience – Working with high-risk adolescents using wilderness, ritual and mentorship, edited by Cape Town criminologist Professor Don Pinnock. I see Oh the places you’ll go!, by Dr Seuss, and his elegant observation about the countryside: “It’s opener out there… in the wide open air…”
It sure is. I was reminded recently “no-one holds a monopoly on the truth”.
My truth, today, is this inescapable conclusion: our children and youth’s divorce from nature, in this crowded modern world of sprawling urban disfunction and decay, must be among the greatest tragedies of our time.
It’s out there, waiting.
Murray Williams
Cape Argus weekly.
http://www.iol.co.za/capeargus/modern-kids-miss-out-on-so-much-1.1945989#.Vkrt0-TouUk
