Time to write a summary of 2008 into 2009.....

In 2008 I stopped flying for 8 months.  I did not make it to the XC Open in Australia, but the pull of the XC Open in Spain was irresistible and got me flying again. I stayed on for the German Open and met Ulrich Prinz and interaction with this Jonathan Livingstone Seagull made me realise how incredibly low my self esteem had fallen.

My banning from the All Africa and Pre-PWC in 2008 was the final blow.  I felt utterly betrayed by the elite in South African competition flying.

But all this did have a wonderful effect in the long term.  I closed my business, packed my Sup-Air Altirando harness with paragliding equipment and a handful of clothes and went travelling.  I had wanted to follow the XC Open World Series as Official Media Reporter, but lack of finances did not get me passed my first stop, the XC Open in Australia.  Europe would have to wait. Instead, I travelled on a shoestring budget around Australia - and I had one of the best years of my life.

I learned to trust people again, to enjoy their company like I have never done in my previous years on this earth - I opened up.  In hitch hiking around Australia and staying in strangers homes I learned a lesson in Faith.  Faith that there is a connectedness in all things, something I barely understand but feel, that this subliminal communication system listens to what I and others want to experience and provides opportunities for those experiences and meetings. 

In September 2009 www.flygirl.co.za was hacked and a virus program implemented.  Not sure if they were independent or by the same person or persons. It was an interesting experience.  I have always been too identified with the website for my own good.  The daily blogging may make for interesting reading, but it took a huge investment in time from me and money of which I had little to spare towards repairing it and its upkeep. I came close to pulling the plug on www.flygirl.co.za permanently.

But as you can see it is up again.  I have stopped the daily blogging, but write articles from time to time. I have a commitment to my sponsors who are my advertisers - the people who help me to stay travelling and flying and to experience life the way I choose to.

There is value in advertising on FLYGIRL.  It has a high hit rate.

To sum it up - 2009 was a magical year.

And so is 2010

In January 2008 I pretty much stopped flying. In 3.5 months I have flown three days, far below my usual practice of flying through the week as well as on the weekends, much to my friends exasperation :-).  What is worse is that I have no desire to fly.  More about the reasons:  Politics and the Casualty Ward .

Some have asked how could I let a bunch of mean spirited 'arrogant swines' dictate the course of my life and lead me to give up something I was so much a part of and that meant so much to me.

But mostly I get the impression that they feel deserted, betrayed.  There is a sense of loss.  I was not meant to give up.  Through FLYGIRL, I shared how I dealt with fear, depression and all the emotions so few people verbalise for fear of being seen as weak and being made to feel ashamed of being human by those who have the need to feel superior and who deny their own weaknesses.  I wrote about not giving up, of overcoming fear and for two years I gave hope and promise to paraglider pilots and regular people struggling with similar issues, that it was possible to turn it all around.

And now, just when I seemed to be on the pinnacle of success, I gave up..... It would seem that I failed those people, those people who are, were like me in some way. And this saddens me.  I know what it is like to feel betrayed.

So what do I do?

Do I fly for them? 

I have always advocated that flying is a personal thing, that you fly for yourself and only yourself.  That flying to make others happy, was a mistake.  That my greatest happiness came from learning to be selfish, something so few South African women get to experience without guilt and in giving myself permission to be selfish, I blossomed into someone who was fully herself and in love with life.

The onset of unreasonable fear years later changed all that and I had re-evaluate my reasons for flying.  In 2007 I gave myself goals in the form of competitions and this worked really well for awhile.  The XC-Open was a Godsend and Manilla 2007 was a fantastic experience and I was really getting into the the whole competition thing.  Except, by my third competition, in Piedrahita, I was flying to be acknowledged by other people, to beat pilots from my own country and nolonger flying only for myself.  Low self esteem drove me to try and succeed, to prove to myself and to others that I was 'worthy'.  In so doing, I discovered something inside of me and in others that I did not like.  There were those amongst us, and I include myself right up there in front, who were competing against one another, hoping that the other would make a mistake that would see them land before ourselves.  If you were safely behind, you may receive encouragment, but if you were ahead or seen as a threat, there were pilots hoping you would make a mistake and fail.

People ask me why I never entered the All Africa in December 2007 - 'you should have entered the comp and proved how well you can do'.  Well, there were two reasons why I never entered the All Africa.  I had the horrible feeling that there were people there who wanted me to take part and who wanted me to fail, to be brought down to size after my XC-Open wins.  The fact that I was still very afraid of mountain flying, particularly of Dasklip in mid summer, I knew the chances were exceptionally high that they would get their wish and I would be humiliated by those very people.  I expressed my concern to a fellow pilot at the All Africa, thinking that I was being paranoid, but it turns out I was not.  The pilot  explained the traditional competition mindset above and the honesty of it shook me.  This is what competition is  partly about, I guess, but it feels wrong, it feels cannabilistic.

This is not why I fly and it is not what the XC-Open is all about.  The XC-Open is about flying with friends and going as far as you can on any route you want to take.  It is about freedom and delight in a great flight - for yourself and for others.  The internationals at Piedrahita in Spain showed me the bigger picture, delighting in my achievements even if I beat them on the rare occasion.  The true spirit of the XC-Open was all about the flight and the joy it brought each pilot - the results at the end of it were mostly part of the fun.  That is the spirit I wanted to be a part of, that was the spirit I flew Manilla with  - but I went off course before the year was out and the nail in the coffin was the politics and personal nonsense at the All Africa 2007 where I was banned after the competition I did not enter was finished.

So now I am going back to my own advice that worked so well for my first years in paragliding - doing it for myself - doing what makes me happy.  Unfortunately it nolonger includes paragliding.

So, my apologies for those who feel betrayed by my 'giving up', but I would like you to think on this:

Paragliding was the single most happiest experience of my life and it lasted for years.  It cleared my depression for a time and it opened my heart.  It prepared an environment that allowed me to accept my family into my life after 13 years of estrangement.  It is over now and yes you could be angry and hurt and feel that I have betrayed you, or you could accept that nothing is forever, not Life, not this Earth and certainly not paragliding.

One of the things that paraglider pilots fear most is the loss of their ability to take to the air again, for reasons of fear, physical damage, family commitments etc and how it effects them emotionally.  The feeling of loss they sometimes feel, the withdrawals that can sink them into agonising depression which seems never ending, is sometimes almost too much to bear.  They fear that there is no life after flying... I once did.... Well to you I offer this hope...

There is life after flying.  I am living it.  It may seem mundane to you to want to build a home and to spend time with children, to go hiking in mountains and test my strength and Will on walls, but it is my choice and it is where I want to be now. And quite frankly, nothing in my life has been mundane - I make it what it is, every day. 

FLYGIRL is now about building an energy efficient home and about adventures other than paragliding.  I am also toying with the idea of expanding upon a section of my work in the South African Film Industry.  Most of the websites on this topic are business-like without the personal angle.  It might be fun to create something different :-)

As far as flying goes: I expect I will take to the air from time to time, I might even enter a competition or two if I feel the urge, but writing about them is not the same for me anymore.  The passion for flying and writing about flying has simply drained away.  So...

Always Remember - Fly for Yourself and no-one else - in Life and in Paragliding.

Love FLYGIRL

The Flygirl website came into being in 2006 when I realised there was a need for a paragliding portal in South Africa.  I also wanted an outlet for writing and communication within our paragliding fraternity that was not restricted to Forum junkies alone.

For paragliding to grow in South Africa, we need to interact with the public on a positive and informative level.  I don't talk only about the good stuff. I also comment on things like fear and how I deal with it.  Paragliding is an extreme sport.  Anyone who tells you different is in denial.  So being informed and trained well is really important in paragliding. If I had to say what the one thing was about our sport that makes the difference between a pilot who is 'an accident waiting to happen' and good pilot, then it is Pilot Attitude.  Luck is also involved and we have an incredible amount of credit in this department.  More than you can imagine.  But as the famous Gary Player quote goes, "Well, the harder I practice, the luckier I get."

What kind of pilot do you want to be?

Travel If you offer fun activities, services and accommodation that would blend or aid us in our sport, I will happily add them to the appropriate sections in Travel.  But they must be something Flygirl will think is really cool and want to do herself.  Same goes for the accommodation.  It must be good value or an exceptional experience if highly priced.

Examples of COOL Flygirl type activities: 4x4, scuba diving, sea kayaking, river rafting, sky diving, sailing, action cricket, windsurfing, kite surfing, Spa Bath Pampering, hang gliding, bike riding, ballooning, quad biking...well you get the picture.  Spa Bath Pampering you ask?  As anyone who has visited the Four Seasons Spa and Hotel in Chang Mai, Thailand knows.....THAT Adventure is pure pleasuring of the senses..........

The Lifestyle- Miscellaneios Adventures section is about Flygirls adventures when she is not flying.  There is lots of content coming. Images have been added to the 'Cruising the Med' story with more to upload.  I have much to tell about my sailing adventures including sailing a dugout up the west coast of Madagascar accompanied by local tribal sailors and sleeping on desolate beaches and in villages over a period of two months. The places I sailed to were often isolated and some children had never seen a white woman before.  Apparently it can be a frightening experience :-)  The sea has been a big part of my life thanks to my parents who took us out of school at a very early age and showed us the world from a yacht over a number of years.  A better childhood experience I could not have asked for.  But yes, no wonder I cannot settle down to a traditional life...I have never known or understood the concept.

A note of caution on the Refugee Aidworker content: 
Not everything here is recommended reading for everyone.  At present I am working on a 'novel' about my time in the Rwandan refugee camps of Goma, Zaire during the genocide in 1994.  It will take a few months to upload the entire story, but a skeleton of it is going up chapter by chapter.  Photos will be added to the Chapters as I scan them in and these I also recommend viewing with caution.  I am not a professional writer so don't expect a professional work.  It is simply a story about a volunteer who got involved in the mopping-up operations of one of Africa's biggest genocides in the shortest period of time. The Rwandans did it to themselves with machetes face to face.  So much for progress and the power of nukes. I am just being ironic about our ability to develop weapons of mass destruction when all it takes is a really big knife to almost wipe out a nation. Very Paul Hogan.  This 'novel' has nothing to do with flying, fun or sport and is NOT recommended reading for those who do not want to know about the darker side of life.....or for that matter, Flygirl. 

I love traveling and writing and taking photos and my job as a Boat Coordinator in the South African Film Industry these past 9 years allows me to do this.  I do not work for about 5 months of the year and even in season I get to fly an unseemly amount :-)  As my fellow pilots declare - when I do work, they consider my work to be an adventure in itself and have ceased to equate it with 'real work' at all.

But that is surely what Life is about - work or play?  An Adventure we simply must embrace before it slips away.