I woke up to cold feet, sleepy voices and the sound of tent zippers. It was early in the morning of my first full day in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe... I never thought I'd get this far away from home. As a kid, I heard stories of economic disasters and dictatorship in Zimbabwe, told by South African expats. So far though, the only negative thing Zimbabwe had brought me was a very cold night. I pulled my legs up and buried my face in my pillow. All around me, people from our tour group were getting ready to spend hundreds of US dollars on rafting, ziplining and bungee jumping. Those activities were far outside my price range. I tried to shut the excitement of the other out and fell asleep again.

When I woke up for the second time, I heard the typical sound of helicopters in the distance. The flights over the Victoria Falls had started for the day. Rich white people were spending a fortune on views I'd never see. But to be honest, I was not particularly interested in those views anyway. I'd seen the Victoria Falls on tv once, when I was watching a documentary with my mom. Helicopter shots showed the fast currents of the Zambezi, the camera rapidly approached the falls - then, the biggest cinematographic anticlimax ever. A small gorge, barely visible falls, some sad trees, bland colors. If Vic Falls hadn't been the starting point of this tour through southern Africa, I would've happily lived my life without ever seeing the Victoria Falls. But now I was here. and I was going to make the most out of this day with the limited funds I had.


After a small breakfast, my parents and I left the Shearwater Explorers Village behind to take a look at some of the most famous waterfalls in the world. We walked through Victoria Falls, the town, then followed the road to the falls. It was a short and safe walk. All the while, helicopters circled high above us. At night, we'd been able to hear the roar of the falls, but the helicopters drowned it out during the day. I felt like I was living in a weird bubble where anything was possible with some dollars, where money and status were more important than actually living in the moment. I tried not to think too much about it, but the helicopters were a constant reminder of the extreme inequality in Vic Falls, with rich tourists and poverty-stricken locals kept apart as far as possible.

We soon reached the entrance of Victoria Falls National Park, where we paid $30 per person for a ticket printed on receipt paper. It was still quite early in the morning, and the park was almost deserted. We had the paths almost completely to ourselves, apart from when a monkey decided to come down from the trees every now and then.
My parents and I decided to walk to the far end of the park first, then work our way towards the other end and the Victoria Falls Bridge. The vegetation changed as we came closer to the falls. The trees were greener, the shrubs less brittle. We passed a statue of Livingstone, looked out over the Zambezi, then went to the closest fall, nicknamed "the Devil's Cataract". On our way over, we spotted stairs leading down to a viewpoint. I quickly skipped down the steps, eager to see if the falls were better in real life than they'd been on tv. The roar of the Victoria Falls filled my ears. Spray suddenly fell over me, a fine mist of Zambezi water catapulted back into the air crashing into the gorge separating Zimbabwe from Zambia. My mind failed to catch in words what my eyes saw. Millions upon millions of liters of water fell into the gorge that showed itself to me in all its beauty. Hundreds of meters of waterfalls were at my feet. A sheet of mist rose from the depths of the gorge. I was speechless.


The sound of the crashing water was deafening. I could not stop looking at it. The spray of the Victoria Falls left tiny translucent pearls of water on my hair and camera. The place was nothing like it had been on tv, and I cursed myself for being stupid enough to judge the falls before I'd seen them with my own eyes. I couldn't get enough of them. Suddenly, I felt grateful for being too broke to go rafting. It was a blessing in disguise: Now I had all day to take in the beauty of the Victoria Falls.

My parents and I continued our way along the edge of the gorge. The views never got old. Every time I thought I was about to get bored, I saw something new. A rainbow, a bird, a ray of sunshine bouncing off the falls. We had it all almost entirely to ourselves that morning. The few tourists that were already there were mostly Chinese, and although most of them didn't speak English very well, my dad managed to become friends with a family from Shanghai. I became a legend among their tour group when I saw them taking pictures of my dad, who was helping an older lady get down a slippery bit of the path, and told them: "Pictures one dollar!". They found this hilarious and kept telling each other the story every time they spotted me.

As the sun rose higher and higher in the sky, more people came to the park. I was glad we'd come so early, as we still had big chunks of the park almost to ourselves. I found myself smiling and joking and being passionate about the pictures I was taking. It felt weird; For the past two months, I hadn't felt that happy. I'd been wrapped up in university work, the loss of my grandma and the family issues that followed. My mind had been a dark and dreary place, but the African sun finally brought back the light. When I finally put my camera away after taking dozens of pictures of the waterfalls, the spray and mist enchanted me. They steadily fell on me, like the world's finest shower. I felt like they were washing me clean, clean from all the emotional baggage I'd carried all the way from Rotterdam to Victoria Falls. I let it happen. I needed it to happen.

I stepped forward and spread my arms. The fine droplets of Zambezi water engulfed me. I let it come over me, I let it wash away all the negative memories that I didn't want to take with me into the future. I briefly thought of my grandmother, and all the pain she'd caused me for most of my life. In my mind, I held those memories in my hands and released them, so the spray could take them away. I smiled, raised my head towards the sun as droplet continued to fall on me. Rebirth, renaissance, call it whatever you want. I had been looking for a fresh start for so long, and the Victoria Falls gave me one as I hummed a line from an old song.
"Let the rain wash away, all the pain of yesterday."