The Story of Carla...

There’s someone I want you to meet, someone within the first five minutes of our gathering their story fascinated me, their endurance for life motivated me and dedication for motherhood filled my heart.

I want you to meet Carla, in my head (and on my phone) I call her Carla crossfit but she’s not defined by what she does, because she has done so much in her life , and definitely will be doing a lot more now that she’s a mother as well, so read along won’t you?

She’s a former competitive kayaker in South Africa and the Netherlands, 3 time winner of The Lowland’s Throwdown which is  a huge Crossfit competition that takes place in The Netherlands since 2010. She won from 2010 to 2012. In 2013 she came in 3rd post injury at The CrossFit Games. It is a massive competition that has recently been recognized by Crossfit.com as an official competition. She went to regionals and won once, and twice in Europe and finished Top10 in 2012, then went on to winning the Africa Regionals in 2013.
That's not all, she also happens to have an LLM in International Criminal and Human Rights Law (yes she had time to do all of that!).

But she first and foremost describes herself as Otchali’s mother. Otchali her two year old daughter, or as I and i guess many would like to call her Assistant Coach Otchali!

Carla looks back in time and her friends tell her they don’t understand how she became an athlete because the younger version of herself used to criticize women with muscles. She was raised in a house with a father who would go run everyday, but she would have never thought it would impact her but apparently it did.

She left Angola  to the Netherlands when she was 5 years old. And as a child growing up there they were exposed to physical activity like swimming in school and cycling outdoors.

Later on they moved back to Angola, and then she tells me she was with a boyfriend who told her that she was getting fat, which made her self conscious although she thought she was skinny. Although she describes that boyfriend as being an A**, she says that she is grateful for the growth life has given her to understand that she needs to feel comfortable in her body and not someone else. She is glad that version of her is long left behind but grateful that she took up her father’s example and learned to love exercise. 

The irritating words of the boyfriend pushed her to do aerobics,  workout videos, and she started seeing some changes. She was 19 then and studying law in South Africa. Yes Carla’s always on the move .

At 20, she moved in with a friend who used to practice the sport of Kayaking. She tagged a long with her and started kayaking twice a week and would spend her weekends across rivers in Cape Town. That’s where she discovered the true strength of her body and the athletic passion she had in her. She enrolled in a gym not to become fit and strong just to be faster in Kayaking which made her achieve her goals and compete in world championships.

She then moved back to the Netherlands, where she did a Masters in International Criminal Law and human rights. In parallel , she also joined the Danish kayaking team and competed with them in European Championships. Her passion and her drive were everything .

She did an internship with the Yougoslovia tribunal and was there when  Slobodan Milosovic died. She worked in the defense team of Kanu an accused of war crimes at the Special Court of Sierra Leone in the Netherlands. But she tells me that that was the last time she would work as a defense lawyer because she couldn’t round it up in her head to defend criminals of war.

She also worked at the International Criminal Court on the Darfur Case of Sudan and the Case of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda , she recalls them as "rough, depressing times".
At her time in the international criminal court she faced a lot of sexism and racism in the courts.

She had a " lovely " experience with a British Barrister who wanted to use her to go to his house and wait for the phone company , "when I refused he turned belligerent, met me at the corner of a flight of stairs and threatened me with never working in another court again. "

She had her work taken over and her name taken away from work she wrote and given to a male Australian intern as his, "shocking stuff that made me question my sanity as I walked into those places with high expectations of human behaviour and international justice. "

This made her realize and acknowledge that this is not how she pictured living her life. Where did she go you might ask?

Crossfit came into her life in 2009.

Many years on a boat, many years in the gym lead to her where she is. Slowly but surely Crossfit was growing, specially through social media. She came back to Africa where she was recruited by a gym in Cape Town and worked there for a year.

She tells me she is in pain almost every single day from old injuries because she did not take the normal steps it takes to be a crossfit athlete and suffered many injuries, that’s why now she is very careful with “her people” (I just love how she calls her students, ,her people) and makes sure she gives them the right fundamentals.

She was also a coach on screen in big brother Angola, that was filmed in South Africa.

Then life took her to Miami where she worked there for another year as well. And she lived out of a suitcase. Her best experience and memories in Miami were in making “really really” good friends.

And then life presented her with a gift when she least expected , and Carla the athlete became Carla the mother. She had her child in the Netherlands and stayed there. As a single mother,  she started working again when her baby was only 6 weeks old because she had bills to pay.

Then she had the opportunity to come back to Angola and she took it right away because she thought this was the possibility to do something that was hers and that can translate her ideas, and that happened with Crossfit Talatona. And for those who don’t know Angola, you need a lot of patience and perseverance to be able to create and develop something from nothing. Not only does she train crossfit athletes but she also works with mothers post-partum to find the balance again in their bodies from inside out. Her message to mothers? “Don’t be too hard on yourselves , you just had a baby!”

Her goal within CrossFit Talatona is to create a culture of movement standards, awareness in movement, teach people to advocate for themselves, a culture of a good base before the so called sexy movements, teach people to think for themselves so that they may make informed decisions wherever they go regarding their own training.

So there you have it , these are just bit and pieces of Carla’s story that I loved to share with you, I just wished I could have transferred her energy as well. You can follow her page on Instagram @meninadeangola to discover more of what she’s trying to do  for her community, how she’s balancing her mom/work duties  and her rants about everyday things in Angola that makes you go nuts!