Meeting Marion - when Facebook comes to life

In the years BK (Before Kids), one of my joys was my monthly book club - an informal get-together of ten friends who'd each get a month to splurge R500 on books of her choice, which we then swopped through out the year.  Then, AK, it was a bit more difficult.  Suddenly there was a baby who had to be factored in with book club, work, evening training  and work, and sadly book club had to go.  

Imagine my joy when I eventually stumbled upon my current book club, on Facebook of all places!  This group was just about the joys of reading in general, and Afrikaans specific.  We pride ourselves on being a friendly group, encouraging discussion, but being intolerant of...intolerance and nastiness :-)

What I love, is that this group grew beyond virtual boundaries, much the same as my crochet group on FB.  Members become virtual friends, become real friends, meet up in real life.  And great fun is had when the founder of our group visits South Africa:

The headgirl and headboy of Lekkerlees Boekrak having an annual coffee

Marion is our "headboy".  Due to the sorry state of our education system, and the accompanying sad salaries, he is an expat, having worked as a teacher advisor in various countries in the Far and Middle East, and travelling the world in between.  

When still at school, he said his dream was to walk on the Great Wall of China.  

His teacher laughed and said he would never get anywhere. 

He did it in 2007.  

He also started a brand (Pie-Say) and published a book (Afro-Dizzy Act) in Taiwan, climbed a glacier, swam with jellyfish and piranhas, bathed an elephant, walked the Inca Trails, scanned himself through a baggage scanner (!), jumped with the Masaai, ice-fished in Finland, made his mom's dream come true (walk on a Greek island in a floaty white dress) - and arranged a photoshoot to capture the moment, wrote the first Afrikaans chick-lit book by a male, stood where Moses stood on Mt Nebo, been a finalist with another Afrikaans novel in a Young Writer competition, ate snake in Vietnam, entered the Arctic Circle while searching for Santa in Lapland, camp in the White Desert, bought his mom a house and started a great Facebook group, where friends become family and we all share our passion of reading.

His full, ticked bucket list makes me dizzy.

So if you see a tall, crazy South African bathing in the hot springs in Iceland, eating oliebollen in Amsterdam, or practicing his Czech, it's him, going for countries 60 and up.

We love our Marries :-)