BIOGRAPHY

About Me — Anne Bonfert

Adventures, adrenaline and crossing borders

“Tell me about your life. Tell me in detail. Tell me about your triumphs and, even better, about your failures. What you learned…with this caveat. Easy on the platitudes.” — Remington Write

With this article, Remington inspired me to answer all her questions in a new article. Because me too, I am tired of all these “how-to-articles”. I love reading personal stories and I love connecting with other writers through their stories.

This is my story

Authentic and real.

My answers to your questions Remington Write :

Where do you live?

• I live in Germany right now. At the end of a valley in a small village surrounded by nothing but forest and nature. On my bicycle ride to work, I pass wild boars, rabbits, and often a few deer. Sheep are grazing in the fields and the church is telling me every 15 minutes what time it is. I don’t need a watch to live here.
• When I open my door I can feel the sun touching my skin. I can hear the birds singing and I can smell the grass. I take a deep breath because the air is so clean. And fresh.
• But I am home in the world. Within the last six years, I’ve lived on three different continents and in four different countries. I love to explore the world, meet new people, and get to know other cultures and traditions.
• I will probably stay here until the end of the season. Until October or November, then I will move on. I will move to a new place, a new country, and a new challenge.

Who do you live with?

• Right now I do live alone since my partner isn’t allowed to enter the country (due to corona and different passport regulations, but that is a whole different article).
• I rent a flat in the house of a single lady. She’s lovely and we get along quite well. She has a cat and two little rats (any dog that has the size of a rat I’ve seen in Thailand is categorized as a rat by myself). Don’t ask me about their breed. I don’t know pets that well. As a world traveler owning a pet is not an option. Those rats often bark at me when I come home late at night. And during the day the cat comes down to my door to say hello since I always have my door wide open.
• I do live with about a million flies and bees which obviously come into your home if you always have your windows and doors wide open. And if you live right in nature. Sometimes I fight with them. Sometimes I swear at them. But mostly we co-live peacefully next to each other.
• I consume all three meals of the day outside on my terrace overlooking the valley. Because if you have this kind of view why would you sit inside?

What hurts?

• That is a good question. Right now it hurts a lot being separated from my partner and not knowing when we will see each other again. Simply because he is not allowed to enter my country. It hurts a lot because I can’t deal with injustice and inequality.
• On the other hand, my knee hurts at the moment too. My doctor said I should buy myself a new bicycle. If that is how my pain will go away? I’m not sure about it.
• It does hurt as well when people who are close to me are trying to tell me what I should do in life. When they are telling me I have to settle down and “get a real life”. While these people close to me actually should understand my feelings and decisions but instead just think about themselves. They don’t see that I live a happy life. They don’t see that I love my lifestyle. They just see that I don’t live a normal life and that it is time for me “to grow up” and do “grown-up things” like getting married and having children. (And stop being happy.) That does hurt a lot.

Are you in love?

• Yes, I am. We met in the desert between skydiving, sandboarding, and beach parties. He’s from a different continent and lives in a different culture. Our relationship is based on overcoming any challenges you can think of.
• The first challenge is language. We speak to each other in English which is his second and my fourth language. That alone screams for misunderstandings. But we simply talk a lot in order to avoid it. And we use words from all the languages we can speak in order to express ourselves.
• The next challenge is about our cultures. Which couldn’t be more opposite. At least when we met. He’s from a very traditional Afrikaans family where the man is told to provide for the family and protect his wife and kids. And I am a world traveler. Traveled through half of Africa alone. As a woman. Before we met. The representation of a strong and independent woman. You ain’t telling me what to do. Guess what? It’s called compromises. We both have to make a lot of compromises. And somehow it does work!
• The last challenge is overruling our way of life as world travelers. It is the challenge of having one person with the strongest passport in the world with which one can travel anywhere you want to. And the other person having an African passport which might not be the weakest passport in the world but it comes close to it. You have to apply for a visa for every single country you go to. And in order to get that visa, you have to tell the authorities everything about yourself. Including your dad’s birthplace and your sister’s favorite color.
• Guess what. Our love is strong enough to fight all these challenges! I’m telling you. Don’t put yourself in our way. We will destroy you. Together.

What worked out after seeming to go south?

• Difficult one. I am honestly not coming up with an answer. I generally go through life with the mindset that I should change the situation if I am not happy in it. If I can’t change it then leave it and move on. Don’t hang onto something you can’t change and waste your time on it. And if you’re not happy, then do something about it. Don’t just sit there and complain about it. Be active and do what you need to do in order to be happy!

Who first lied to you?

• I honestly don’t know. I don’t know who lied to me. My parents when they told me the Easter bunny was bringing some eggs. That was definitely a solid lie.
• Who I lied to is also a good question. I heard humans lie about seven times a day. And probably everyone denies it. But if you think back you’ll find a few lies. Small ones. I often lie to strangers by not telling them where I’m from unless they ask. Because I am simply not proud of being German. Growing up in Germany and going through the German school system has taught me one thing. There is no reason to be proud of being German. Not one. That’s why I much rather talk English and hope the other person won’t get my accent. Which usually fails.
• And this is me right now lying to you. I just found this picture of me from 2012. Totally not proud of being German or what? Yes, I did love watching soccer. And I always did support the German team. Maybe I went a little overboard.

What jobs have you loved or hated and why? What do you do with your money?

• I’ve done lots of jobs in the past. As a teenager I did a lot of babysitting (which I loved), working as a nanny and I did work in a grocery store filling the shelves (which I didn’t love that much).
• Later in my life, I mainly worked in the tourism industry which I enjoyed a lot. Because it forced me to be active while working. I got to meet a lot of different people. And it allowed me to continue my teaching job. Just on different levels.
• I worked as a sandboarding instructor on the dunes of the Namib desert. For those who see a lot of question marks in front of their face just imagine snowboarding in the desert. That’s what I’ve done for over four years. Not the best paid one but a very fun job!
• I opened and ran a small climbing wall in a town in Namibia and organized rock climbing trips in the country. I love climbing. I loved teaching kids how to climb. And adults too. My favorite ones were obviously the rock climbing trips at Spitzkoppe. Where I basically got paid for traveling. Of course, I had to organize a lot. Guarantee the safety of my clients, transport and feed them, motivate them if needed, and entertain them. But I loved it! A super fun job I did for over a year.
• Then I started to become a skydiver and also did advanced training in order to become an instructor. In Thailand, I worked as a skydiving photographer capturing the freefall expressions of the tourists and started teaching students. As an instructor, I do teach people how to skydive by themselves. This the best-paid job from those I’ve done so far. But also the one with the highest grade of responsibility. I do love the responsibility. I love teaching. I love sports. Especially extreme sports.

What scares you the most?

• Doing all these adrenaline based sports I do get asked if there is anything I wouldn’t do or if there is anything I am scared of. There are actually things I am scared of. Doing a bungee jump for example. I did one. And I will never do it again. You might argue why I skydive but think bungee jumping is scary? Because I know skydiving is safe and I think that bungee jumping is dangerous. But that’s just my opinion.
• Another thing I was afraid of is diving. I am really scared of not being able to breathe underwater. I can only hold my breath for about three seconds. That’s it. When in the water at least. For some reason. Somehow my partner still forced me to try scuba diving. And thanks to a very patient instructor I actually did finish my Open Water Licence. It was a hard piece of work. Overcoming the fear of swallowing water. Well, I did swallow a lot of water during the course. Think the sea level should sink due to the amount I swallowed. But eventually, I got comfortable with it. Not with swallowing water but with breathing in the mask. Well, maybe not comfortable like others. But I enjoyed my last dive.
• I am really scared of spiders. And snakes. Spiders I learned to deal with since they always seem to live with me in the house. But I hate snakes. I once had a traumatic experience as a child with a snake and since then it’s my biggest fear. Being eaten by a snake. Friends threw once a plastic snake onto me and I ran for miles into the desert. Only came back hours later. I’m telling you. I am really scared of snakes.

Who and what have you lost?

• I did lose both of my grandfathers. The first granddad I lost in 2008. I was 16. I was shattered. Broken. I had a very intimate relationship with him. He was very strict and serious with all of his grandchildren. But I got along with him. I loved his jokes. I loved his way of teaching me the world. But he left way too early. For me. I couldn’t deal with it. I was too young to understand that he was gone. And I turned away from religion as a result of his loss. I still think about him a lot. I think about what he would say to me in a certain situation. How he would correct me if I did or said something wrong. I wonder what lessons he would have taught me today.
• Apart from that, I lost small things in life. Materialistic things. Things that can be replaced. And did get replaced. When necessary.
• I lost the feeling of caring about what others think about me. I no longer live my life according to what society wants me to do or what people in my surrounding expect me to do. I don’t care what they think if I walk barefoot all day. And I don’t care about what they think if I travel the world instead of having a “real job”. I lost the dependency on the opinion of others.

Well, I guess this was it. This was me answering your questions. I hope you enjoyed looking through the window of my house. I did share some tears and a lot of smiles while writing this article. I thank you Remington Write for inspiring me to write this article. If you have more questions please let me know and I’ll add them here or start a new article.

“The purpose of our lives is to be happy.” — Dalai Lama

And if you, my readers, have the time to answer the questions please copy them, tag me, and share your stories. I love reading these personal essays! Stories I can connect with and relate to.

Read more personal stories out of my life as a traveler: