Things that I've noticed

For us Baha'is taking a year out of your life, relocating to any place in the world and dedicating that entire year to unpaid service is quite a normal concept. In my life anyway I just always knew I would go on a year of service. So now that I'm here and actually experiencing it I've noticed a few things, things that I hadn't considered before, things that I didn't think were part of the package. When the idea of something is so common to you, like service is for me, you don't really take into consideration a whole lot of things and now I will share with you some of those things I didn't expect and some things that have been a surprise to me.

Money

So you take a year off to do some volunteer work. In my head I was like big deal, I can go a year without making money. I am going to Africa, it's not like they have shops there.

BIGGEST REALITY CHECK!!!

Oh they have shops here, they have lots of wonderful things you can spend your money on and recently I have realised that I am most definitely a shop-a-holic. I don't just mean the type of person that likes to go out and spend money and buy new things I mean I seriously think I have a problem. I have gone shopping mental while I've been here, I have bought so many new clothes and shoes that when I moved from Joburg to PE I couldn't fit them all in my 2 suitcases, I filled 3 more bags full of stuff. THEN I moved here and it just hasn't stopped.

Here's a listen in on the conversation that goes on in my head when I'm in a shopping centre...

"Ok I just need to buy a couple of tops and that's it, I will go to Mr Price because their stuff is cheap and I can find what I need"

on the way to Mr Price

"That shop looks cool, I'll just go inside and have a look. OMG!! This is the cutest cardigan ever, I can't deny owning something like this and I'll wear it all the time.. now what colour? OOhhhh I like this, I'll just try it on and this too I need more colourful things"

take the items to the cash register

"That totals 900rand"

My face = shocked

"Is that more than you expected?"

"To be honest I didn't look at the price tags"

So I overspent at that shop a little but I got 3 really nice cardigans and one of them was on sale which validates everything.

I come home with all my shopping, Lunathi looks at me "Oh you went shopping, I wanted to go on Friday"

me "I can go shopping again on Friday"

I really don't know what happened, I used to be so disciplined with my money.. wait that's a lie I love spending money. I love talking to the workers in the shops and the extra connection you get with them when you're actually buying things. I love how everything you buy gets hidden in bags so that you get to relive the experience of seeing new things all over again when you get home, I love thinking about all the ways that I'm going to use my new items, I love ripping off the price tags when I try things on again at home and have no regrets in my choices. Even writing about buying things is making me want to buy new things and don't get me wrong it's not just clothes, I like spending money on everything. Food, credit, taxis.. giving away my money and getting something back for it is such a good feeling.

So what's the problem you may ask, what's wrong with exchanging money for goods and services? Here's the catch, I'm technically a poor person. I have x amount of money to last me the next 10months and my x is getting smaller. If I don't slow down with my spending I am going to run out of cash and then I'll have to do the unthinkable, the unimaginable, the unforgivable... I'll have to rely on my parents for money. You heard me, my parents. The two souls who brought me into this world and reared me and loved me and cared for me and from whom I have been 90% financially independent from for the last 4 years. I can't go back, that would be like reversing in maturity. I would be going back to my 16/17 year old state. Next thing you know I'll have to ask my mum to sleep over at my friends houses and beg my dad to write me a note so I can get out of school.

When I was preparing for this trip, when I was putting money away and all the rest of it I really didn't think spending money would be this tempting. But I just have so much time on my hands and that leads me to the next segment...

Serving

So who'd have thought that when you go on service you have to do service. Ok I'm exaggerating, I was fully aware that I would be working, that I was taking on a full time job of service but service in the Baha'i sense is a funny thing. See unlike most youth who go on service I decided to go home front pioneering. Most people go to schools or temples or the Baha'i World Centre. The service is structured and organised, you wake up at a certain time, you have specific jobs to do, there are other kids on service from around the world, you have designated days off...etc I don't get that and I didn't realise how much harder my way would be. Before I came here the idea of serving in a 9-5 sort of way was absolutely the last thing I wanted to do. Before I came here I was 100% certain that going into a community and assisting it with it's teaching work was the best thing that I could do. I wasn't wrong but man oh man I did not realise how hard it would be.

It's hard enough to pack up, leave your friends, family, job, car, cat, guinea pig, comfort and independence but to leave it and come to a place where you are the only one starting from scratch is really difficult. When you go on service to one of the Baha'i institutions it's more than likely that there will be other people in the same boat as you so you all band together and go on the journey supporting each other. When you plant yourself in a small community where most the people have been living here for decades and you are the only one in your position it's kinda hard. I make friends really easily but sometimes you can't always make yourself fit in already made circles. It's hard when everyone you know is a friend of someone else. It's hard when everyone has jobs, classes, sports teams and social commitments and you don't. Now I'm not saying that the people that I've encountered haven't been wonderful and open to me, it's just that everyone here has their own lives and I have to try and make myself fit within them.

I'm seriously considering leaving South Africa at the end of this 6 months and going to one of the Baha'i schools or something where I can serve for the last few months. Serving in a community requires so much self initiative and it can be very frustrating. The most frustrating of all things is that I can't initiate anything if I don't have a way of making it sustainable. It would really be easy to go into communities, round up a bunch of kids and do children's classes and junior youth groups everyday. I could honestly spend the next 6 months dedicating everyday to running classes, but what's the point if there's no capacity built within the community to sustain those groups? I have the will power and the energy to build up those resources but the problem is that I can't control other people. I can't force people to volunteer to become animators or children's class teachers. That's where you get stuck. I feel like my service is dependant upon other people because I can't do anything without resources to follow through and so far those potential resources have not shown the commitment that is required. I have a school principal who is willing to give me 250 kids for junior youth groups and if I could I would run the whole thing myself but I can't, I need other people and at the moment there is no one to call on.

Because of my limited time here I feel like I can't do all the things that I would like to do and that is not an easy thing to accept. But I have faith in the people of Port Elizabeth and even though it's hard and draining I am sure that things will work out.

Other people

Youth year of service is something so natural to us Baha'is so when it comes to telling other people what it is that I'm doing in South Africa I've been pleasantly surprised at their responses. Because it's such a common thing for us to do I never thought about the idea of dedicating a year of your life to something from the eyes of someone foreign to this concept. The admiration and intrigue on the faces of so many of those who I've met has been so nice. I had a guy last night compare me to Che Guevara in the sense that what he did was sacrifice his own gain and want for the good of all. He said that here in South Africa the problem is that even after the white people gave political equality to the blacks (and I say political equality because it is really mostly equality on paper) it's now the blacks that are suppressing the blacks because of their greed and want. He said that if we all sacrificed and gave back to our communities what we've been given then everyone would be better off. He said that the fact that I came to a place that I had no personal ties to and owed nothing to for the sake of helping it was similar to Mr Guevara.

That actually blew me away!

I have had so many reactions similar to that, I've been called courageous and brave. When I was leaving I never thought of myself as either one of those two things. I just thought going on service was a normal thing to do.

There's one characteristic of service which has come as no surprise to me and that's the part where you get tested. Every hardship and uphill battle and wall to climb is part of my process of growth. In the most recent letter from the UHJ it talks about how knowledge must be tested and it is tested in the fields of service. This is most definitely something that I am experiencing here. Everything I thought I knew about the Baha'i Faith has been tested here in South Africa and it's giving me a more diverse and deep understanding of what this is all about.

I will come back to Sydney more knowledgeable than ever before and you will all praise me and be my servants!!!! haha nah just kidding

Well I hope I didn't rant on too much. Please ask me for clarification on anything that I've said in these posts if you think you need it. What I write is the thoughts in my head and I may not always express them with clarity, I wouldn't want anyone to get the wrong meaning out of something I've said.

For now that is all, next post will be more about Port Elizabeth and everything that's going on here :)