My Dear Africa
It's been a little over three months since I left you, dear Africa. Where oh where to begin. Opened up my blog from South Africa today for the first time since I've returned home. It's never easy reading my favorite memories of life thus far realizing how far from them I am. Time and space and the movement of life means everyday I am more and more "away" from South Africa. I keep a list on my phone of things that I remember randomly. Things I don't think of everyday but when I do it is such a sweet memory.
All my South Africa memories are sweet, not because they are all fun, but because they were/are transformative. I see the difference Africa has made in me everyday. The National Anthem brings tears to my eyes because what an amazing thing to live freely having seen the oppression that was and still taints South Africa. I often think with the mindset of "my group" or "my tribe" whatever you want to call it. South Africans look out for each other in a way I have never seen in America. A church is a tribe, celebrating together, grieving together. A community is a tribe, helping meet each others needs, caring for the sick together, serving the poor together, teaching the children together. South Africa taught me what selfless love looks like. While I don't always get it right, it's changed the way I see people. Strangers can quickly become friends. Friends become family. Time doesn't define relationships but experiences together and a wiling heart to be vulnerable creates deep, meaningful, joyful relationships.
These are some of the memories dancing across my mind: the first day I visited my service site and knew it would be mine; having a braii (BBQ) with friends, laughing, eating, playing silly games, building the foundation for friendships spanning thousands of miles; catching trains to go surfing in Muizenburg, watching through the train windows as the beautiful ocean came rolling in and out; mall runs, deodorant shopping (a much more complex process in Africa), ice cream with crunchy caramel sauce; the monkeys; the thunder and lightning storms; driving on the wrong side of the road, I'm still confused sometimes; tea time, always tea time.
I am left with all these memories from South Africa I find so often being brought up in my mind as I go through day to day life. So what do I do with all these memories, all these stories, all these experiences and adventure? These memory floods become even more heart wrenching when I realize it has been awhile since I though of them. I don't want to forget. I know I'm blessed beyond belief to have these memories and be reuniting with my tribe soon. It's so easy to talk to them about Africa feelings because I don't have to explain a lot. I don't have to give background information, or elaborate too much because they were there through it all.
They are my people, South Africa is a home, and now I'm back establishing a new group, in another home. Life is always changing it seems. New tribes and new homes. Nothing is very solid, life is pulsing through these minutes of existence with such speed it's hard to keep up. In South Africa it was slower, simpler, we lived Ubuntu. "Ubuntu" is the South African philosophy generally communicating, "My humanity is inextricably bound up in yours" (Desmond Tutu). In Africa our lives were bound together, we did everything together, we lived through everything together, out joys and sorrows were shared and learned from together. To be removed from it all rather quickly, as quickly as an eleven hour plane flight, the ubuntu philosophy lives on in me while I can't live it out like I had been before.
Maybe I'll come back and write about Africa again, maybe with a new discovery about myself and my time in Africa. I don't write out of selfish ambition, or hope it will brag about my travels. I write to remember, I write to reflect, I write because these aren't just my stories, these are God's stories in me.
