I simply cannot believe it. 8 days before I leave, and I cannot wait. I'm starting to fill up with crazy emotions. I'm nervous, excited, scared, and afraid to leave behind what I know here. I have never stepped out of my comfort zone like what Im about to do. Traveling to a place half way around the world, with people I barely know, and completely unaware of what Im going to encounter. The only thing Im bringing is my knowledge. Knowledge I have gained from my natural human instincts, to knowledge I have gained in the classroom, and most importantly my life experiences. I have been through so much in the 20 years I have been alive, and I cannot wait to leave everything behind for 5 weeks to put myself in someone else's shoes. Im going to learn and be submerged from head to toe in a new culture, language, and spirit. Im so thankful to have the chance to do such an amazing thing with my life. Im going to share a short message Gordon (one of our mentors) shared with us all a few weeks back.
"Dear ASU students,
In four short weeks you will be walking on the soil of South Africa. I look forward to being a part of your learning journey in my home country. Teri told me that you all read through one of my short stories, Skin. I hope the experience was not too traumatising. I tend to come to ideas and life at an angle. Colours, shapes, smells, stories, nuance. These are some of the tools that help me understand my surroundings and the larger push and pull of our world. Perhaps during your time here you will find South Africa comes to you through more than your rational process—you might begin to absorb our story through your nose, ears, skin, eyes, spirit. We make for a pretty darned good classroom if you are able to come to us with many senses open at the same time.
Two weeks ago Teri and I hosted High School students from Khayelitsha for a three day retreat in the mountains a few hours north of Cape Town. The setting was a large working farm where rock art from thousands of years ago has been discovered on dozens of cliff walls and inside a number of caves. These marks were left by the San peoples, some of the original Africans who became extinct from the press of modernity.
The youth and staff stayed in former slave/worker houses. We cooked our food on open fires, hiked along trails to find numerous paintings, waded through a wide river that crashes through the canyon, took in the generous sky and cold nights. Everything about the weekend was poetic.
This farm is called Traveller’s Rest (you will visit it) and in a strange commentary, it now holds the markings of a nomadic people who no longer exist. Their voice has been extinguished. The question of “voice” is not an academic exercise. It really is a matter of life and death. The black South African high school kids, formerly oppressed by the white colonial system of Apartheid, brushed their breath across etchings and ochre paintings just inches from their noses. A way of life forever destroyed by the logic of development, the rational process of taming the savage world. These kids know the story all too well.
I think when one loses reverence for the earth one loses life’s compass. I’m sure of that. The moment we cheapen the miracle of life we begin to descend into a dangerous terrain where that which breathes can be disregarded with a simple wave of the hand: build the bridge there, relocate those natives, empty this valley of elephants and snakes and leopards, erect a shopping mall here.
The youth and staff stayed in former slave/worker houses. We cooked our food on open fires, hiked along trails to find numerous paintings, waded through a wide river that crashes through the canyon, took in the generous sky and cold nights. Everything about the weekend was poetic.
This farm is called Traveller’s Rest (you will visit it) and in a strange commentary, it now holds the markings of a nomadic people who no longer exist. Their voice has been extinguished. The question of “voice” is not an academic exercise. It really is a matter of life and death. The black South African high school kids, formerly oppressed by the white colonial system of Apartheid, brushed their breath across etchings and ochre paintings just inches from their noses. A way of life forever destroyed by the logic of development, the rational process of taming the savage world. These kids know the story all too well.
I think when one loses reverence for the earth one loses life’s compass. I’m sure of that. The moment we cheapen the miracle of life we begin to descend into a dangerous terrain where that which breathes can be disregarded with a simple wave of the hand: build the bridge there, relocate those natives, empty this valley of elephants and snakes and leopards, erect a shopping mall here.
It was instructive for me to personally reflect upon the idea of ‘development’ as I watched those kids on the retreat. For hundreds of years their forbearers were forced to live as slaves to the Dutch, then the British, then finally the white South Africans. Now, free for only 15 years, they have the right, and for some the means, to pursue the life of modern convenience, modern comfort, modern dreams. These teenagers, like any other “normal” kids in the world, dream of fast cars, large houses, fashionable clothes, electronic toys. But at what price? What gets silenced as we tear up yet another part of the earth to mimic the notion of progressive development? Who gets trampled as we climb our way into enlightened living?
I don’t pretend to think these are easy questions. But we do have to struggle with the loss of ancient moorings, the loss of reverence for the song of a sugar bird, the loss of wonder for the smell of a field of fynbos flowers exploding across the plateau where the First People used to sit naked around fires for generation after generation, for thousands of years, living inside the rhythm of nature’s cycles, nature’s provision. In a few short hundred years the human family has lost all of that history and wisdom to the logic of concrete, steel and plastic.
I hope that during your time with us in South Africa you will enjoy being a wide-eyed learner who takes in numerous streams of stimuli—expansive sunsets, debilitating poverty, welcoming families, complex smells, flesh, blood, rain, contrasting beliefs, clashing values, commun al living. Wonder can lead to pause and invite a lovely, creative, life-giving opportunity to grow."
His words are so powerful, and that message really got my blood pumping. Im actually going to do this! It hasnt hit me yet, but I know it will once I get to the airport. Im going to be flooded with all kinds of emotions, and I cant wait to feel that. Well, I just signed up for a Photobucket so ill upload some pictures while in Cape Town to share with everyone, and Ill talk with you all very soon!
Peace and Love
