Mossel Bay
February 19, 2007
Rosa Loves connected with this story through our good friend, Russell Brownley, who traveled to South Africa this past summer shooting a documentary film for Walking on Water, a widely renown surf film group and Christian ministry within the surf industry. Here is the story is Russell's own words:
I was tired... just sitting in a parking lot of a local beach in the small South African town of Mossel Bay watching the waves break, wishing that I could grab a quick surf. But I was on a job, traveling to South Africa as the fourth of six countries filming for the new Walking on Water documentary surf film. It was our second week in South Africa and I was tired, after all I had already fought off an angry Baboon, been sick with a sinus infection, and been yelled at by some bitter surf locals. However my self-pity was about to end.
Just behind me a public bus stopped and off jumped a dozen young African children with smiles beaming from ear to ear. You see, me and the director of the film, Nic Mclean, were waiting on these kids because we had heard that they were part of a local Christian Surfers ministry that taught some of the kids from the surrounding townships (predominately black, low income areas) to surf and swim. We wanted to take the kids surfing and film it as part of the film.
This was when my negativity from my prior week changed... These kids blew me away. They were like fish- in the water in no time, surfing on boards from years ago, brown with cracks and dings, wearing wetsuits full of holes in the chilly 50-degree water. But they didn't care, not one bit. They were surfing; and that’s all that mattered.
The irony here is that these kids are a product of South Africa, a country that has such a turbulent past. Many of them come from broken homes, sometimes with no mother or father, from communities that have ravaged by racism, AIDS and drugs. But today, they were surfers and for an instant, all that faded away.
"We surf because it keeps us out of bad stuff," says Chuma, a 12 year old that we interviewed after the session. "When we are surfing, there is no black or white," says Louie, the ringleader of the surf club with a huge smile. God has brought surfing into these kids life as a way to help them, to show them that there is a whole new world out there for them that they had never known about.
These kids need to continue to stay surfing and with the help of Son Surf South Africa, their surf club will continue on with surfboards, wet suits, storage sheds, etc. They will even have the opportunity to go to Son Surf Conferences across South Africa in which they will meet other surfers and get to surf places they only dreamed of before. The sales from the shirts designed for the Surfers of Mossel Bay will help to ensure that they will have funds for these supplies and opportunities. From just buying a t-shirt these surfers can get what it will take to keep them in the water and off the streets.
I was tired... just sitting in a parking lot of a local beach in the small South African town of Mossel Bay watching the waves break, wishing that I could grab a quick surf. But I was on a job, traveling to South Africa as the fourth of six countries filming for the new Walking on Water documentary surf film. It was our second week in South Africa and I was tired, after all I had already fought off an angry Baboon, been sick with a sinus infection, and been yelled at by some bitter surf locals. However my self-pity was about to end.
Just behind me a public bus stopped and off jumped a dozen young African children with smiles beaming from ear to ear. You see, me and the director of the film, Nic Mclean, were waiting on these kids because we had heard that they were part of a local Christian Surfers ministry that taught some of the kids from the surrounding townships (predominately black, low income areas) to surf and swim. We wanted to take the kids surfing and film it as part of the film.
This was when my negativity from my prior week changed... These kids blew me away. They were like fish- in the water in no time, surfing on boards from years ago, brown with cracks and dings, wearing wetsuits full of holes in the chilly 50-degree water. But they didn't care, not one bit. They were surfing; and that’s all that mattered.
The irony here is that these kids are a product of South Africa, a country that has such a turbulent past. Many of them come from broken homes, sometimes with no mother or father, from communities that have ravaged by racism, AIDS and drugs. But today, they were surfers and for an instant, all that faded away.
"We surf because it keeps us out of bad stuff," says Chuma, a 12 year old that we interviewed after the session. "When we are surfing, there is no black or white," says Louie, the ringleader of the surf club with a huge smile. God has brought surfing into these kids life as a way to help them, to show them that there is a whole new world out there for them that they had never known about.
These kids need to continue to stay surfing and with the help of Son Surf South Africa, their surf club will continue on with surfboards, wet suits, storage sheds, etc. They will even have the opportunity to go to Son Surf Conferences across South Africa in which they will meet other surfers and get to surf places they only dreamed of before. The sales from the shirts designed for the Surfers of Mossel Bay will help to ensure that they will have funds for these supplies and opportunities. From just buying a t-shirt these surfers can get what it will take to keep them in the water and off the streets.
