Had someone told me eleven years ago that this place would one day become the home of my heart, I would have laughed.
My love affair with South Africa — and with Sibuya — began in September 2014, when I arrived for what was meant to be a single night.
One night. That was the plan.
I was 26, convinced I had life neatly figured out. I had a successful career in real estate, a comfortable apartment in Cologne, and a passport stamped with enough destinations to make me feel worldly. I also had some fairly strong opinions about safaris. In my mind, South Africa was a place for older men in khaki outfits with too many pockets. When I boarded the plane and saw exactly that, I remember thinking I should have chosen somewhere more exciting.
Then it rained.
Almost constantly. For nearly two weeks.
I had fled the grey German autumn only to land straight back in it. My expectations of sun-drenched magic were quickly replaced by damp disappointment. So far, South Africa was not winning.
And then came the night at Sibuya.
I arrived knowing very little. I loved animals, sure — but animals you couldn’t pet? That felt like a strange arrangement. I had never been on a safari, never thought much about conservation, and had only ever seen wild animals through the safe distance of documentaries.
Entering the reserve by boat along the Kariega River changed something in me. The colours of the water, the thick vegetation, the rugged rock faces sliding past were simply breathtaking. It felt like crossing into another world. Quietly. Without ceremony.
I stayed at River Camp. From the first moment, there was a sense of welcome that felt instinctive rather than rehearsed. I felt right at home. The rooms are tucked deep into the bush — beautifully simple and perfectly placed.
Then it happened on my very first game drive. Almost immediately, my definition of freedom changed. It’s now caught up in the breeze in my hair, the openness of the vehicle and the realisation that you’re no longer an observer but a quiet, respectful part of the landscape.
We rounded a corner and a rhino stood alongside his mate and their calf.
I froze.
I had never seen a rhino in the wild before, and something inside me cracked open. Tears came without warning.
In that moment, the world felt exactly as it should be. Whole. Balanced. Sacred. If paradise ever existed, I was certain it looked something like this.
That moment changed absolutely everything.
I cried for the rest of the drive — not out of sadness, but because something had reached past all my carefully built layers and landed deep in my soul. For the first time, I truly saw nature. Not as scenery, but as something alive and deserving of reverence.
I left Sibuya knowing one thing for certain: I would return.
Three months later, I did.
I took what little annual leave I had left and came back to volunteer for a month. I was a German city girl with absolutely no experience of the African bush, armed mainly with guidebooks that did an excellent job of amplifying my fear of snakes and spiders.
That month remains the most alive I have ever felt.
I helped mostly with hospitality, but every spare moment was spent out in the reserve, learning, listening, absorbing. I felt like an adult version of a child in Jurassic Park — wide-eyed, energised, completely present. For the first time in my life, I felt like I was exactly where I was meant to be.
At the end of that month, I called my family and told them I wasn’t coming back. I quit my job, hoping those final two months would somehow stretch into forever.
They didn’t.
Eventually, reality called me home. Back in Germany, my heart ached in a way I didn’t yet know how to explain. Over the next four years, I returned to Sibuya whenever I could. And in 2018, I finally did what my heart had been urging all along — I moved to South Africa permanently.
After five extraordinary years, life shifted again, and in 2023 I had to leave.
But when I look back now, I know without hesitation that those years, especially the ones shaped by Sibuya, have been the best of my life.
Living between two worlds leaves its mark. Your heart is never quite whole. It beats for two homes, equally and endlessly. As a tribute to the place that claimed mine, I carry the coordinates of Sibuya tattooed along my ribs.
So when I got married, it felt only right to choose not just a partner who understands this love — but Sibuya itself as the setting for our wedding photographs.
And now, after Covid reminded us all that nothing in life is guaranteed, one thing remains certain.
I will return.
Because Sibuya means “please return.”
And after all these years, I still say:
“See you soon, place of my heart.”
With love, Debby
