Rouvanne and Rhynie have not only endured travel quarantine to be together, but their love story is also 27 years in the making and in just 7 days they will finally be reunited.
Cape Town, South Africa (24 July 2020) – Rouvanne van den Berg is a man with deep love. He loves his children with all his heart, he loves doing good and helping others as a volunteer firefighter and he loves his girlfriend Rhynie.
Rouvanne and Rhynie met over 27 years ago when she was a waitress at the V&A Waterfront and he was an entertainer. They would often hang out and Rouvanne would wait for her to finish her late shifts and then drive her home. He admits he had a crush on her back then but as they both had partners respectively, nothing ever came of the affection.
When Rhynie got the opportunity to work and live overseas, she jumped at the opportunity. She said goodbye to her friend and promised to write as often as possible. Over the years the letters kept them in touch and updated on life. Both Rhynie and Rouvanne got married, started families and lived their lives but they always kept each other up to date.
Their friendship saw them through to the start of Facebook where they then connected and stayed friends for the next decade. In 2010, Rhynie returned home to visit her mom and the friends met up. Rouvanne says he knew there was something between them but it never became anything because they lived such different lives.
“Life carried on. We lived life, we married, had kids, and lived our own stories. Then Facebook came along and we connected again. There was always something between us, a zing, and energy that we didn’t think would go anywhere living on opposite sides of the world. She came out here in 2010 from Aussie to visit her mother, and again, we almost kissed, but didn’t. She went back to her life, and I carried on with mine.”
Some time went past before they reconnected again. Rhynie came back to South Africa in 2019 for a short visit. Rouvanne could not stop thinking about her after she left. Both their relationships ended and there was nothing preventing them from connecting. Besides living in Australia and South Africa, they had nothing holding them back.
They started a long-distance relationship and Rhynie planned to come back to South Africa in May of 2020. But then COVID-19 happened.
“We didn’t expect a pandemic, but when we realised that she wasn’t going to be arriving then we were patient and peaceful. We’ve waited a long time for this, a couple of extra days, or weeks, and eventually, months wouldn’t affect us any more. We know what we want.”
Rhynie did everything in her power to finally get back to South Africa and to Rouvanne. When flights permitted, she books a trip around the world to get here.
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“My girlfriend Rhynie left Sydney Australia on Tuesday 14 July and flew 16 hours to Dubai and then a further 7 hours to Amsterdam. Booking flights to South Africa during this pandemic has been a nightmare so her aim was to try and get a flight to Cape Town for her quarantine instead of Johannesburg. She’d previously only got her DIRCO permission to travel 12-hours after the last SAA repatriation flight had departed Sydney, and since then the choices have been slim. So this way she also got to stop for 47-hours in the Netherlands and meet my father who lives there. She flew out of Amsterdam on Friday the 17th and landed at At Cape Town International Airport 23:55.”
Rhynie then entered the designated 14-day travel quarantine at the Park Inn Hotel at the Cape Town Foreshore. Desperate to see her, unable to wait another second, Rouvanne went to the hotel where he was able to see her from the pavement below. He painted a big sign that says “I Love You” which he sits beside twice a day when he visits her.
“Since then I visit her twice a day. We are very lucky that she has a street-facing room at the Park Inn on the Foreshore, so I camp out on the island opposite and we chat. I can see her. I can cook homemade meals and snacks for her. I put up my sign every time, and have a chair because we have lots to talk about. The vagrants want to give me free heart stickers for the cause; people walk by and wave at her and me; people hoot; Some pose at my sign, and some of the aunties that wait for the bus opposite me tell me its ‘blerry romantic man’.
I think it brings people smiles during this really shitty time, and that’s great. But I’m just there for my love. I cannot wait for her to get out, and it may be a bit sooner than the 7 Days, 1 Hour, 20 Minutes and 32 Seconds that my timer tells me…”
“Good things come to those who wait, so we’re patient. I feel like the luckiest guy that this wonderful woman has spent almost 3 weeks travelling around the world to get to me during a pandemic so the very least I can do is visit her every day and make sure she knows it was worth it. That our romance brings smiles to others, well that’s a bonus – I’m only sitting on that pavement till I finally can get her home.”
Sources: Rouvanne van den Berg
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