A skateboarder’s dream to ride across Africa is in its final leg, with just 200 km standing between him and Cape Town.
Jason Vanporppal (26) set out from Kampala, Uganda, on Sunday 8 February — pushing his way through four sub-Saharan countries to raise funds for a permanent skatepark in Uganda.
It wasn’t his first such venture. The American had already kicked and pushed from Venice Beach, California, to Times Square, New York, in 76 days, and from Hokkaido to Okinawa in Japan in 50 days.
But last year, something started burning inside him.
“I started messing around with the idea of skating across Africa. Like, when am I going to stop, bro?” he can be heard saying in a video recording.
The idea never left him. He teamed up with two local Ugandan skaters — Isaac Jojinah and Ephraim Ssekiziyivu — who co-founded the Kampala Skateboard Initiative (KSI) in 2022, a community-driven organisation empowering young people through skateboarding. The two had found each other through the sport after Jojinah’s father gifted him a toy skateboard.
Together, the trio set off across Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Botswana — grinding their wheels to the bone on rough dirt roads, replacing bearings and decks along the way, nearly being attacked by an angry cow, dodging semi-trucks and passing dead animals on open roads.
They survived on the kindness of strangers and barely enough money for two burritos, yet still found time to visit schools and take part in a run for spinal cord research.
The hardest stretch came in Botswana. A recurring stomach virus drove Vanporppal to his lowest point — and just as he was struggling to recover, Ssekiziyivu and Jojinah were forced to return to Uganda due to visa issues, leaving him to push on alone.
Alone now, with just the rhythm of push and roll for company, he crossed into South Africa. In Mzanzi, he received a hero’s welcome in towns along the route, gripping the imagination of the nation.
Vanporppal arrived in Touwsrivier late Friday afternoon. In a video documented on his Facebook reel, Vanporppal described the welcome he received, which resulted in security having to escort him into town due to the large response from the community. “I was genuinely worried (but in a good way),” he wrote.
He will travel to Worcester on Saturday and is expected to arrive between 17:00 and 19:00, according to a Facebook post by the Breede Valley Municipality. He will be staying at the Karoo Poort Guest House in High Street, Worcester.
Vanporppal is expected to be in Paarl on Sunday, 24 May, where he will have a meet and greet at De Leeuwenhof Estate from 18:00 to 20:00 before tackling the last stretch of his journey to Cape Town on Monday, 25 May.
He will visit the City Bowl Skatepark at Cape Town High School, where a public celebration will mark the close of his journey – a fitting end for a man who has never stopped pushing.
To follow Vanporppal’s journey, find him on Facebook, Instagram or TikTok.
To donate to his cause, visit: https://www.gofundme.com/f/donate-to-build-a-skatepark-in-uganda
You must be logged in to post a comment.