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The Best Time to Plant a Tree
by Gerry Cooney
Format: Hardback
Publication date: 5th July 2010
ISBN: 978-1-907179-77-8
Price: €15.00
About the Book
In August 2007 I visited Namibia in South West Africa with my wife Marian and our three boys Anthony, Christopher and Garth. We had planned a family holiday to Africa as we wanted this year to be special and unlike previous family holidays to the sun. We also had relations in Namibia which made it an easier choice. I had been there once before many years ago when I had ventured off for three weeks in 1982 to visit family and explore some of the country that until then had been a bit of a mystery to me. Namibia made quite an impression and I promised to return but didn’t expect that it would take me more than 25 years. We planned an interesting itinerary with something for everyone and headed off with high hopes.
During the course of our trip we stayed in a small lodge for two nights called Guest Farm Ghaub located in the North of the country roughly ninety minute from the Etosha Wildlife Park. I cannot honestly say if it was instant but definitely soon after we arrived I realised that we were in a special place and was blown away by the sheer beauty of the farm and the peaceful atmosphere that existed there. I fell in love with the place and somehow felt at home. I really believed that this magical place found us as much as we found it and when we discovered that the lodge and farm was for sale it seemed that this was an opportunity that could not be passed up. Over the following two months we struggled with the idea of making a major life change and a significant financial investment to secure the property and possibly our future. It came together through some hard work, support from family and friends and several strokes of luck. We signed for the lodge and farm on December 1st and my life was about to change drastically as I took leave of absence from my job as an Addiction counsellor at the Rutland Treatment Centre in Dublin.
I spent the best part of fifteen months alone without my family setting up the business and working in an incredible country with incredible people. This book is an account of my experiences there which were marked with unbelievable highs but also with some dark moments. I hope the story might be of interest to others for a number of reasons. Firstly it’s an ordinary story about an ordinary person in an extraordinary place. It’s about living in Africa which is special and Namibia particularly which is certainly one of the gems of the African continent. It’s about having a gap year at fifty years of age and taking the plunge to do something very different. It’s also about the demands of taking on a new challenge and carrying the responsibility of developing a business without any experience and precious little time to learn. It’s also about coping away from home without the support and company of your family in a country with very different cultural beliefs. It’s definitely about self exploration and introspective soul searching when it’s very uncomfortable to be left alone with your own thoughts for long stretches of time.
I hope it might inspire someone to take a chance and follow their dream. The experience has been life changing for me and it’s largely to do with the people I have met during my time in Namibia. I have learned so much from the staff at the lodge about humility, patience and forbearance. The guests and patrons have been both a pleasure and a challenge as the service industry brings you in contact with some fantastic appreciative people and also some others that you could never please. The children and the Sisters at the local school who I befriended have restored my belief in something spiritual which I had lost in recent years. They are the real heroes of the story and that is why I would like to donate all proceeds accrued from the sale of this publication towards the continued education and welfare of the children of Maria Bronn School in Grootfontein, Namibia.
Gerry Cooney
Introduction by Chris Glennon
As a mid life change of career, it would be hard to imagine the gulf that Gerry Cooney spanned: addiction counsellor to owner/ manager of a safari type lodge 10,000 miles from home. Not alone did he do that but he has produced an entertaining and stimulating journal on the highs and lows of that journey. Gaelic football enthusiast and keen golfer, Gerry had a career in the social services in Ireland before moving on to working as an addiction counsellor at The Rutland Centre. In the background however he had an unrequited desire to do something very different.
His chance came through a family connection with Namibia, South West Africa, when on a visit there in 2007 he “found” Guestfarm Ghaub, a onetime missionary school. He put in motion an adventure that would fulfil a dream. Land ownership in Namibia requires a majority local stakeholder. His Cousin, Andre Compion, a six foot plus Namibian farmer and former pilot, joined himself and a group of his Irish family and friends to buy almost 30,000 acres of safari lodge and commercial farm.
In a fascinating narrative, Gerry makes no bones about there being some dark days and challenging times as he fought to turn around a lodge that needed significant work to bring it up to standard and make it attractive to the modern traveller. Difficult times were comfortably outnumbered by wonderful memories; the joyful music-filled all embracing Catholic service at the nearby Maria Bronn school like nothing ever seen in Ireland. The excitement of the lodge staff when he brought them on their first ever trip to the seaside. The ever changing aura of a country the size of France and the UK combined but with just a population of 2.2 million people.
For anyone looking for a holiday like none other or interested in a career change this definitely is a must read.
