As I hastily packed my bags, trying to keep it light and thorough at the same time, I felt so right, so relaxed and sure about leaving. I hadn’t been completely happy in South Africa. Things hadn’t felt like they were going the right way and I felt completely overwhelmed by my separation from the easy life and how trying this country had been.
I planned the trip to Uganda in approximately 36hours. I booked the flights on Tuesday afternoon and flew out on Thursday morning. In such a short space of time everything just worked. I emailed the Ugandan Baha’i National Office requesting help with a place to stay, 2 hours later they replied with accommodation for me and directions on how to get from the airport to the temple. Everything just worked out.
For some time I had been contemplating leaving SA in December and going upwards to Ethiopia or Tanzania both countries border with Uganda. Arriving in Uganda, driving out into the street, the air warm and thick even at 8pm, the landscape was green and there were people walking the streets, shops still open, life still moving. I came to Uganda to escape for a while and I found home. The streets, the air, the scenery, everything looked like Vanuatu. I couldn’t believe it, I knew I had found my answer, the place I could be happy. No crime to keep people locked in their homes after dark, safe enough for women to wander the streets alone at night, cars and taxis still filling the streets. Life here continued after 7pm.
Arriving at the temple confirmed everything, I felt such an amazing sense of relief, my heart felt lighter. Everything about the country told me that I wanted to stay there, that Uganda would be my sanctuary.
I think what happened in SA was that I became overwhelmed by everything that was going wrong, Home Affairs and all the drama there, holding classes where no one would turn up, social issues in the community..etc. It became hard for me to pull myself out of that hole of things going wrong and rise up over everything. I started to drown and I couldn’t find anything to hold on to to pull me out. I was exhausted, I was drained, I was fed up and I needed a release, an escape, a safety net, anything to help me pull my head up out of the water. I feel like that came in Uganda.
The day that I realised I would have to leave South Africa I was talking to Luvuyo about how right it felt that I was going. I was tired of fighting Home Affairs about my visa and I realised that it was a losing battle. I finally noticed the sign that said it was time for me to leave. We talked about how sometimes you need to step out of the circle so that you can see it in its entirety. I had to remove myself from the picture so that I wouldn’t be blocking my own view.
Uganda pulled me out of my water filled hole, Uganda was my rope, my safety net, my escape. I felt like it had all the answers. I felt like leaving SA would solve everything. If SA was what was making me unhappy then a lack of SA would mean happiness.
The first few days I was there Uganda was utter perfection. The air smelt better, the food was nicer, the people were happier and above all I gained the one thing that I have missed and craved more than anything, freedom and independence. Crime is a prison, we lock ourselves in, we don’t leave the house, we constantly watch our backs in South Africa because of the crime. No crime in Uganda meant freedom from that prison. I could walk the streets at night, shops are open till very late, there is public transport running till 1am. My cage was gone and I was so happy. The temple grounds are vast and beautiful. People come and just sit on the slopes of the hill, relaxing, reading, sleeping. It is such a nice place to just let go of everything and be at ease. As I talked to the Ugandan Baha’is I felt even more right about staying in Uganda. Everyone told me that I should come back to serve. They told me how desperate the temple is for volunteers, how there are 3 Baha’i schools that could use help, I was even offered the opportunity to fulfil one of my dreams. In northern Uganda one of the Baha’i centres collapsed and it needs to be rebuilt. I was told that if I came back I could go and rebuild it, making the bricks from scratch and constructing the whole thing. I was in absolute shock, I’ve always wanted to be a builder, I’m planning on studying construction when I get home and right there for the taking is an opportunity I never thought I would get. Yes, it was confirmed. I would come back to Uganda in January and stay till May. That was the plan, a nice easy plan, then things changed.
Every day I went to the temple to pray and to re-centre my thoughts and figure things out. One subject I spent a lot of time on was South Africa. After about the midway point in my stay in Uganda something strange started to happen, I started to miss South Africa. Absurd I know, how could anyone miss this country with its muggers and rapists and racism and lack of equal opportunity and poverty and inefficiency and corruption...etc. I found myself in the most strange position of looking forward to going home. Did you get that last word, I said home. South Africa, the country I was so excited to see the back of was my home and I missed it.
There is one thing that I need to deal with in my life and that’s how to handle the hard times. When things are going good I’m all there, I’m miss 100% the one you can count on always with a smile on her face and a positive thought but when things go wrong I want to run. I’m a runner, I leave, I walk away, I forget and move on. I don’t know how to deal with things. It occurred to me that I was solving my problems with South Africa by running away, if I up and left to what I thought was a better country then all my problems would disappear. I should have realised by now that it doesn’t work like that. I ran away from Australia and came to SA thinking that I was leaving the bad things behind and realising only when I got here that somehow they had found their way into my suitcase. Now I wanted to do the same, I wanted to leave SA because things got tough and I couldn’t deal with them. The light bulb came on, I was the problem not South Africa.
There’s corruption in Uganda, there’s poverty in Uganda, there’s a lack of equal opportunity in Uganda and a lack of efficiency in Uganda so why was I so positive about staying there and resentful about going back to SA. Only because of what I said before, I thought different location, different people, different environment would solve everything. It doesn’t. When I stopped being angry at South Africa I realised how much I liked it there. I still wouldn’t want to live here and I still don’t think it’s the greatest place on Earth, quite the opposite actually, but I realised that it’s my home now. I have friends here, I have a purpose here and I can help here I just needed to adjust myself in order to see that.
Soon what I thought was confirmation for me to stay in Uganda became confirmation for me to stay in South Africa. As I talked to people about the problems that I had noticed in SA the reactions changed from “You should come here” to “they need all the help they can get, you should stay there”. That was the whole reason I decided to come to SA in the first place, because I realised how much they need the help. Losing that anger and resentment was so relieving. Suddenly I was excited about going home and putting my new energy into action. All it took was me removing myself from the picture and looking at things holistically instead of only from my point of view.
There is a prayer in the Baha’i Writings called the Tablet of Ahmad that really hit me. Although I’ve read it tonnes of times before, I've even memorised it, there was one line that I really took from it on this trip
“And be not of those who doubt.”
I challenged myself fulfil this line. Stop doubting life when things get hard, try more perseverance and determination. So I’m going to stick it out here in South Africa. It’s going to be hard and trying and frustrating but that’s ok. I have removed all my prior expectations and I’m just going to do what I can “Even if the swords of the enemies rain blows upon thee and all the heavens and the earth arise against thee..”
Uganda was exactly what I needed, in the week that I was there I learnt so much about myself and Africa. I learnt that Africa needs a lot of help, corruption is embedded into every facet of society, greed and selfishness have stunted progress in every field, language has become such a barrier amongst that even people from the same country are segregated because of their inability to communicate. Africa has issues and although it would be easier to run I’ve never been one to take the easy way out.
I’m not upset anymore about the things that went wrong because they got me to this point of clarity. Instead I’m grateful for everything that has happened and I only hope that I can continue to pull myself out of all the future problems which I know I will have to face.
There is one other prayer that I have been trying to implement into my life and if I can then I should have no reason to worry or feel frustrated anymore..
O God! Refresh and gladden my spirit. Purify my heart. Illumine my powers. I lay all my affairs in Thy hand. Thou art my Guide and my Refuge. I will no longer be sorrowful and grieved; I will be a happy and joyful being. O God! I will no longer be full of anxiety, nor will I let trouble harass me. I will not dwell on the unpleasant things of life.
O God! Thou art more friend to me than I am to myself. I dedicate myself to Thee, O Lord.
- 'Abdu'l-Bahá
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