Alex Braczkowski

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I was born in a little town in Greece, in Athens, called Attica.

Yeah, my parents were refugees from Poland and they fled to Greece.

And, yeah, I was born along the small little seaside town, yeah.

Mainly animal and beach memories, actually.

So dolphins and, yeah, small cocker spaniels.

That's really the only thing I remember, yeah.

Yes.

So they were basically trying to find a way to to kind of rebuild their lives after the fall of communism.

And in 1993, it was basically a toss up between either Canada, Australia and South Africa.

And they managed to get a little window to to become doctors in South Africa.

And that's where they went.

Yeah.

Johannesburg, first in a little place called Rosettenville and then later Parkhurst before moving down to the town of Durban in KwaZulu-Natal.

Yeah, so those memories from Greece was actually, yeah, it was actually a dolphin that had washed up on the beach.

So I don't know if that kind of spoke to me as a little, you know, probably two or three year old.

But then later it was snakes that sort of drew me, you know, working at the Johannesburg Zoo as a volunteer.

Yeah, there was always something, either keeping a snake or...

There was always some kind of animal link throughout my childhood.

It wasn't a particularly joyful story.