Dace's Journal | What a Small Portuguese Chapel Taught Me About Courage
Returning to Tanzania after travelling through Europe, I found myself thinking not about Portugal itself, but about a single idea that followed me home.
This journal entry is not about history or architecture. It is about courage, fear, and the unexpected way Tanzania has changed how I see the world.
I've been back home in Tanzania for a while now after travelling through Europe.
The rainy season has ended, and with July a new safari season begins. July and August mark the height of the Great Migration, when millions of wildebeest, together with zebras, cross the famous Grumeti and Mara rivers in Serengeti in search of greener grass.
With the start of the season, there is plenty of work to do. Yet I still can't stop thinking about a small Portuguese chapel overlooking the Atlantic Ocean in the town of Vila do Conde.
During Portugal's Age of Discovery, Vila do Conde was a shipbuilding centre. Today you can visit a replica of a ship from Vasco da Gama's time. It is a reminder that brave sailors once left this small town to cross the oceans and discover the world.
Right beside the ocean stands a tiny chapel. Inside is a painting of sailors sitting in a boat during a storm, praying for protection.
Looking at that painting, I remembered another Portuguese chapel. Even smaller. Even simpler. Yet, in essence, the same. It stands on Africa's east coast, in the town of Malindi beside the Indian Ocean.
And that was the moment I began thinking about courage.
Sailors. Explorers. A tiny chapel. A prayer. What does courage actually mean?
Until then, I had always thought courage meant not being afraid. Then a thought came to me that surprised me. Perhaps courage does not mean being fearless at all. Perhaps courage simply includes fear.
That thought brings back another scene.
Six years ago, I came to Tanzania for the first time as a tourist. Back then, I met Roman. He was my safari guide and driver. Today he is my husband and my partner in our Tanzanian safari company.
At the time, he told me he had never met anyone as brave as I was.
It came as a complete surprise. Not only because those words came from someone who had spent more than thirty years working as a safari guide and driver, but also because nobody had ever described me that way before. I had never thought about people in those terms, and I certainly had never thought of myself as a brave person.
A few years after we started living together, he smiled and said that he had finally figured me out.
"You're afraid just like everyone else. The difference is that fear doesn't stop you. When you decide something has to be done, you do it. You're afraid, but you do it anyway."
I could agree with that because I recognised myself in his words.
Whenever I think about fear, one image has always filled me with deep respect: the soldiers who stepped out onto the beaches of Normandy on D-Day.
I am convinced they knew that only a few of them would survive.
Were they fearless? I doubt it. They believed they had to do what they were there to do.
Years ago, I watched a television interview with a well-known rally driver. A journalist asked him whether he was ever afraid of driving so fast. "Of course," he replied. He explained that fear is a signal. It tells you that going any faster may leave you without enough time to react. Fear deserves respect. That is why you should not drive any faster.
Again, fear had nothing to do with fearlessness. Fear became something rational. Almost a unit of measurement.
After all these thoughts, I found myself translating the word courage into the language of the rational world. The translation was simple.
Risk management.
Is courage the absence of fear? Are courage and fear simply two sides of the same coin? Or does courage mean recognising the risks, choosing to act anyway, while fear simply helps us see those risks?
It's interesting how everything in the world seems to come together. How one small place can suddenly make you realise how deeply connected our world really is.
What surprises me even more is that it was Tanzania that taught me—a Northern European with a strong European identity—to see the world in a completely new way.
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About the Author:
Dace Zandfelde is a Northern European entrepreneur living in Tanzania. Together with her Tanzanian husband, Roman Shirima, she co-founded Tanzania Safari Experts – ROM & DACE SAFARIS. Through Dace's Journal, she reflects on the ideas, people and unexpected connections she discovers while living between Europe and East Africa.