One Small Step For Me...One Giant Step for Me

Hello all,

So this is me. Sittin here in my dorm room. Listenin' to Miles Davis and John Coltrane as I look out the window. Wondering where exactly I am in my life right now and how I got here, how I am so lucky, so blessed. Sounds like a typical day in the life of Adam Tutor.

Except I sit in my dorm room with a fresh African tan and a necklace on made in Zimbabwe. I listen to Miles Davis and John Coltrane with the understanding that the music they called jazz, that I call jazz is dedicated to a tradition of music born and raised, trained in adolescence in Africa, then released to be a man in America. The wonderment in me right now is hardly worthy of the name if its the same thing I have been doing all my life. The thoughts, the curiosities that run through my mind right now are beyond anything I ever imagined even a philospher like myself thinking. I cannot begin to express the joy that I am filled with everytime I look around me. Let me describe it to you.

Stellenbosch is nestled along southwestern cape of Africa about 25 kilometers from the Atlantic Ocean. Cape Town is sprawling about 30 km to the west, home to a series of mountains that allow one a true vantage point to the sea. There is a beach tucked away between the Cape of Good Hope (the southwestern most point in Africa) and the Cape Peninsula that you must hike several kilometers to get to, and then on a 45 degree incline 200 meters down, where you meet your oasis. Sand that defies the name, more delicately crushed shells, so fine that they become the sand, so soft so full of character, so innocent. Never have I seen anything more pure.

Universiteit Stellnbosch is located in the heart of Stellenbosch, a college town with a student population of over 20,000. From the center of the campus you can feel the cool sea-breeze and you can see the wonderful mountains from a distance, which I find even more beautiful, as if they are daring me to come get them.

The people here are beautiful and wonderful. Too much for their own good for a romantic like me. They are so curious about me, about me being from America, about me being from Texas.

I have travelled to lovely places, seen things that I have only imagined must be the reason painters, artists live. This is the beginning of something new, something incredible, I can only imagine.