Adventure Time

1 year in pictures

2011-04-24T17:31:00.000-07:00

I wanted to officially end this blog with a 'year in pictures' type of thing but as I started making it I realised that the greatest thing that I could show from this year in South Africa was the person that I have become. So here it is in a somewhat chronological order, my face over the last year. See if you can notice any growth.

I have started a new blog for the continuation of my adventures which see me currently in Spain

If I Were A Spaniard

The End of The End

2011-04-19T14:23:00.000-07:00

This morning I arrived in Madrid, officially closing my year of adventures in South Africa. I had the opportunity to say goodbye to all the wonderful Joburgian friends I had made on Sunday night and on Monday evening I flew out from O.R Tambo airport.

I wanted so badly to not express my emotions on this matter using any cliché terms but it really was bitter-sweet leaving SA. On one side I was so happy and excited to move on to the next adventure, I was overjoyed at the knowledge that a reunion with my family and friends in Australia was approaching and I was impatiently waiting for the moment where I would get to see my uncle, aunty and cousins in Spain again. On the other side I was saying goodbye to so many wonderful, amazing and inspiring people and that took so much out of me I can't even put it in words.

But here we are at the end of what has been an insanely, emotionally intense year, where I have learned more about myself than I had collectively in all the years before. I arrived in South Africa as Martha and I have left South Africa as Martha 2.0, the better version of myself.

I want to end this series of blog posts by thanking everyone who played a part in this experience and a great thanks to anyone who bothered to read these extracts of my mind.

The next adventure has taken me to Madrid, Spain where I will be staying with my uncle and family until the 26th of May and in that time I will be spending 1 week in Haifa visiting my big sister Melody and the Baha'i Holy Land. By the end of May I'll be back on Aussie soil, trying to regain my Australian accent which has been severely retarded by so much time away and South Africaness, before hopefully starting my masters at the end of July.

I am planning on continuing blogging so I'll put a link up when I make the next one.

Cheerio then.. and there are still some pictures to come :)

South African Survival Kit

2011-04-18T05:45:00.001-07:00

Here are some points that may help anyone who wants to visit South Africa.

Disclaimer: All of these points are based on my personal experiences and may not be a factual or accurate representation of South Africa but consider that I’ve been here almost a year so I’m pretty sure for the most part I know what I’m talking about.

Culture
 There are several different racial groups in South Africa: Black which covers anyone who is a Black South African, this includes Zulu, Xhosa, Vender, ... White which can be broken down into 2 groups one being Boer White who were the Dutch colonists and the other be all other white like the English colonists. Coloured which as a word means anyone who has a mix of Black and White origins but as a culture means a specific group of people who share the same type of lifestyle and who talk with the same accent. Indian is Indian and seems to also include people from Pakistan and the last main group is Asian.
 There are 11 official languages in South Africa, they are: isiXhosa(the one with the clicks and tock sounds) which is predominantly the language of the Eastern Cape, isiZulu which is the most widely spoken language, English(with some minor variations) which is the language used in Universities and in business, Afrikaans(a retarded version of Dutch) which was forced upon the people during Apartheid, isiNdebele, Sesotho, Setswana, siSwati, Tshivenda, Xitsonga and Sign Language
 If you look like me most coloured people will think you can speak Afrikaans.
 In South Africa it’s not racist to call someone black or white that’s actually what they are called here
 Parents in South Africa also tell their children to finish their food as there are starving children in Africa
 If you come from any country of the world outside of Africa to South Africa you are considered a visitor but if you come from an African country you are considered a foreigner
 In South Africa when people say they need to bath they actually mean bath, for some reason showering hasn’t really taken off

Language Tips (forgive me if I miss spell anything)
 Hello in isiXhosa is Molo and for a group Molweni
 How are you? – Injani
 I’m fine thanks – ndi pilile ingosi
 When addressing an older woman say mama and a younger woman say sisi, an older man say tata and a younger man ubuti
 If someone says “I’m gonna learn you” what they mean is I’m going to teach you
 If someone says “I can borrow you” what they mean is I can lend you
 If someone calls you macie it means girl In Afrikaans, hello macie
 To say how are you in Afrikaans is ‘Hoe gaan dit?’ and to say I’m good thanks you say ‘gaan goed danke’

Food
 If you eat at a restaurant you are expected to pay 10% tip but no one will force you to do so.
 The stereotype is true, black people love chicken
 If you want to have a bbq in South Africa you call it a braai
 If you want take out Steers has the best chips, the Spur here tastes just as bad as the Spur in Australia, McDonalds is exactly the same, the KFC chips and gravy are awful, Wimpy is nothing to rave about, Nandos is the same as in Australia and unfortunately there is no Hungry Jacks
 If you are a vegetarian then good luck however Steers has a great tasting veggie burger
 My favourite places to go for food are Cubana, Dulcies and Kuwai
 If someone in South Africa offers you tea first ask what kind of tea it is, if they reply with Five Roses then drink away however if they offer you Rooibos tea politely decline because it tastes horrible

Transport
 Cars drive on the left side of the road
 A traffic light is called a robot
 South Africa is not pedestrian friendly at all, do not walk out in front of a car and expect it to stop even at a pedestrian crossing
 When reversing out of a parking spot you may notice someone directing your car, these are car guards and usually people just give them a couple of coins for their efforts
 The best mode of transport here is to have your own car, the second best is to have a friend who has a car, the third best is to live right next to all the things you need each day and walk, fourth best is to have a friend of a friend with a car, fifth best is to get taxi, sixth best is to get a bus
 Travelling long distance there are several options, hiring a car and driving yourself, getting a bus, flying, getting taxi or hitchhiking
o Hiring a car can be expensive especially with petrol prices at close to r10 a litre
o A bus is one of the worst options but sometimes the only way especially when you have a tight budget. The best bus is Intercape Sleepliner because it is the most roomy and you can push your chair back really far but on average you will spend 16hours in a bus if you travel distances like PE to JHB and twice I’ve been in a bus that broke down
o Flying I think is the best, if you book at the right time you can get really good deals. For domestic flights these are the available airlines: South African Airways which gives you a meal on the flight and from my experience is usually the cheapest, Kulula which actually means take your top off but also means freedom in another sense, 1time which has a habit of being delayed and you have to pay extra for food, Mango who I have never used and British Airways which also gives you a meal.
o Getting taxi is a good option only in specific circumstances and you would probably only consider when your destination is a few hours away. Taxis don’t leave until they are full so this can sometimes mean waiting hours in a taxi before you leave. There are also no guarantees for safety when catching taxi but at least you get dropped off at the door of your destination.
o Hitchhiking is a very common mode of transport, you will often see people sitting on the side of highways with signs for where they need to go and the best part is that it’s free.
 If you are walking through a taxi terminal don’t step in any puddles... enough said?
 If you do catch taxi be wary of sitting in the front seat, if there is no taxi guy to collect money all the money will be passed up to you and you will have to sort it out and give everyone their change
 The best seats in the taxi are window seats on the driver’s side but not in the back row. Usually taxis try to cram in as many people as possible into the taxi and this may mean losing all your bum space. The most comfortable people in these situations are next to the window on the driver’s side. This also means you don’t have to get out of the taxi if someone else needs to get off

Townships
 Townships are the governments solution to the housing problem, people build shacks and eventually the council will build them a house
 When walking in the townships you are expected to greet all the people you pass by, if you do not greet people they will think that you are rude and over educated.
 It’s probably not a good idea to wear your best shoes in the townships, for the most part all the roads are dirt roads and one way people know you’ve been in a township is when your shoes are covered in mud
 If you are a ‘non-African’ it’s probably not the best idea to venture into townships alone, although in my experience I have never had any problems there are people that will take advantage of a situation
 Again I have never had an issue walking around the townships with my Blackberry out or with my camera but it’s probably better to be discreet about your personal belongings

Tourist Stuff
 My favourite game parks were Addo Elephant Sanctuary near Port Elizabeth and Pilansburg Game Park in Rustenburg. I did not like Kruger, it was too big and you could go hours without seeing any animals and I did not like the Lion Park in Johannesburg. If you want to see a bunch of lions trapped in cages then it’s the perfect place. I don’t think they are treating the animals very well there and it felt so unnatural.
 The only animals you’ll see wandering the streets are cows, goats and donkeys. If you want to see elephants and lions go to a game park
 If you are travelling from South Africa to other African countries don’t be surprised if people, give you warnings about travelling in Africa especially people working in health care, many South Africans seem to think they are living on an island of some sort that is not part of the rest of the continent
 If you don’t get a joke that someone has made just watch Trevor Noah
 The must see South African cities are Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban and Port Elizabeth.
o Johannesburg is less of a things to see city, it is great for restaurants, cafes and galleries and museums. In Johannesburg you will want to see Monte Casino, the Apartheid Museum and Gold Reef City. There are loads of places for shopping and hanging out like Melrose Arch, Sandton City, Greenside, Rosebank and so many more. You probably don’t need to dedicate too much time to this city
o Cape Town is by far my favourite city of South Africa. It is beautiful and has such an amazing atmosphere and vibe. It also has a huge restaurant and cafe culture but there is much more to do. It is surrounded by mountains that you can climb and hike, there are amazing galleries and museums, it’s great for shopping and there are lots of markets and festivals. The only downside with Cape Town is that it has beautiful beaches with a look but don’t touch policy. The water is ice cold and your limbs will actually fall off if you go in the water.
o Port Elizabeth is a good city for relaxing. It has beautiful beaches which you are able to swim in and just 40minutes out of PE is Jefferys Bay which is one of the best locations for surfing. You don’t need to dedicate too much time to PE as it is very small.
 If you are into road trips then you have to do the Garden Route. This is the drive from Port Elizabeth to Cape Town and there are so many amazing stops on the way
 The mobile phone network carriers here are Cell C, Vodacom, Mtn and Heita and if you want to buy a sim-card you must have your passport on you and a proof of address from either the hotel you are staying at or whatever accommodation you have

FAQ

What is BEE?

BEE is Black Economic Empowerment which was created to give black people a step up to compensate for the massive injustices of the past. From what I understand this means that if a black person and a white person are going for a job the black person will get it.

How do you identify a taxi?

A taxi is always a van, the way you know the difference between a regular van and a taxi is by how many white people are in it. If there is a white person driving it’s just someone’s car. Also taxis usually have someone with their head out the window yelling out the destination of the taxi. You will notice that a taxi takes no consideration to road rules or other cars.
There are also different types of taxis; those driven by coloured drivers and those driven by black drivers. Coloured taxis can be identified by how much they have been pimped out, usually with lots of stickers on the windows and paint jobs. They also have insane sound systems which are blasting Nikki Minaj, Drake and South African House Music.

Black taxis can be identified by the gospel music they are usually pumping however minus the sub woofa and 5 speakers in the back. Usually these taxis are also playing Celine Dion or Mariah Carey.
Different cities also have different signs for catching taxis, Johannesburg is the most complicated with so many different hand signals to stop certain taxis. PE and Cape Town have very easy taxi systems which I figured out within a few days. Also South Africans are very friendly and will help you out when you need it

Is there a dental problem in South Africa?

You may notice a large number of people who have no front teeth. This is not as a result of some kind of dental issue in South Africa. These people have removed their own teeth. Yes, strange, I know. In the coloured culture it became fashionable to remove your front teeth. I heard that it started out as a gang thing and then it just spread. Now you will see both guys and girls with no front teeth and it can start at any age. They call it a passion gap.

Will I get mugged?

There is a high rate of crime in South Africa but it really depends on the individual. I have had very little experiences with crime. One time in Pretoria I was driving with my windows down and at a red light a guy leant into my car and told me to give him my ring or he would kill me. I was so surprised that he wanted my ring and not my GPS that I just stared at him and when I looked into his hand and saw that he had no weapon I just went to put my window up when he walked off saying he was only joking. Another time at a club I felt a hand go into my side bag, a guy was trying to steal my wallet but I managed to catch him doing it so nothing was taken.
Really it depends on what kind of environment you are in and I guess to some extent the luck of the draw. Mostly be cautious of your sling bags and handbags as these are easy targets, also car windows get smashed if valuables are left inside and always be aware of personal safety.

Sometimes I see girls hitting themselves in the head, why are they doing this?

If you haven’t heard of a weave before be ready to be exposed. A weave is a wig that is sown wonto a woman’s head with a giant needle and wool. First they braid the hair really tightly into rows and then sow the weave into each row. These rows are called tracks and you can see them when it is windy and girl’s weaves go flying up. Because of how tight it is and the fact that you can’t really wash your hair girl’s heads start to itch and also hurt but scratching will result in moving the weave or loosening it from the head so girl’s have resorted to hitting or patting their heads to alleviate the pain. So no, it is not self harm.
Another type of hair extensions is twists where smalls locks of hair are twisted into existing hair to make it longer.

So I hope that gives you all a little bit of insight into South Africa so you can better prepare yourselves when you come to visit.

Saying Goodbye

2011-04-10T09:27:00.000-07:00

Today the Baha’i community of Port Elizabeth had a farewell lunch for me and it is at events like these that reality starts to hit you. I am leaving South Africa. There is a chance that I may not see many of these people again or at least not for a very long time and it actually hurts.

Today a remarkable thing happened, I was giving a small goodbye speech and I almost cried, I know big bad Martha shedding tears? Well no tears were shed but my voice did that wavering high pitched thing and I had to stop for a second but tears or not is besides the point, the point is that I’m leaving and I’m saying goodbye. I’m saying goodbye to people who have been my only family for the last 11 months, who have been my only friends, who have been my whole life. I have a wonderful family and friends at home who have made sure I know that I am missed in Australia and the Port Elizabeth community have been filling the space where they would normally be. It’s not easy to say goodbye to them.

There has been a question which people have been asking me again and again throughout my time here and which I have been giving pretty much the same answer to; Are you enjoying your time in South Africa? Every time I answer with the same thing but with a different intention. Sometimes my answer is because it is truly how I feel and other times my answer is because I don’t want to go on about my time in SA or because I don’t want to tell a South African how much I dislike their country. The answer is always that while I am still in the middle of my time here it’s hard to know what I feel but when I leave and when I’m outside looking back I’ll be able to see and be able to reflect on my experience here.

I have an answer for that question now. I know how I feel about South Africa and it’s not a feeling of hate or resentment or disappointment, although I still see all of these emotions within myself, but now when I think of my time here I think of joy, of growth and learning and I remember all the great people that came into my life.

I was always worried coming into this journey about how difficult it would be when I would have to leave. I know the pain of saying goodbye especially once you’ve fallen in love. I feel in love in 2008 with a place that has impacted my life so much I would not be even half the person that I am if it wasn’t for that place. I fell in love with Vanuatu, I fell in love with its people, with its purity, with its simplicity and with its love. The light in my soul which for so long had been flickering was set to glow in Vanuatu and it will forever be a part of me. I was in Vanuatu for just under a month doing service at the Rawhani Baha’i school. In that time I made friendships that will last for eternity, I found a piece of myself that I thought was gone and when it came time to leave it tore me apart. I was an absolute wreck and it took months to not feel the pain of separation. I knew that if I could hurt that much after only a month how much more could I hurt after a year? This thought has been plaguing me since before I even arrived in South Africa and I think it is as a result of that fear that I have not allowed myself to love as freely and as openly as I did in Vanuatu. I honestly didn’t think I could handle the part where I would have to say goodbye.

Now I am saying goodbye and I am seeing that just like in Vanuatu, although I fought it, South Africa too has taken a piece of me.

My heart and soul are in pieces scattered in the different places that made me whole. In Vanuatu where I found my light, in Sydney where I house my soul, in Haifa where I go for refuge and now in South Africa the place that taught me to grow. I wonder how much more I can tear apart my heart, how many more places will claim a piece?

I feel as though I am not done with South Africa, I feel as though there is more that I have to do here but it is not for now but for another stage of my life. My soul tells me that this is not the end of my African journey. Still soon I will have to say goodbye for the last time, I will have to tear off that piece of my heart as I leave this place. I will try to hold back my throbbing pain as I hold the ones I’m leaving behind and pretend I’m not breaking apart as I turn around and walk away.

Almost Gone

2011-04-05T02:37:00.000-07:00

I started packing. Packing is symbolic of the realisation that soon I will have to say goodbye... again. 2 weeks and this segment of my life journey ends. It’s an interesting and strange place to be in. I feel almost as if I’ve come full circle, the emotions and feelings and modes of thought that are playing in my mind now are a replica of what I experienced before leaving Sydney to come here. Funny how predictable we are.

I’m feeling that same sense of unreality, like it hasn’t sunk in yet that I’m going to get on a plane out of SA and not come back, at least not any time soon. I’m feeling that same sense of excitement about doing something new and starting another adventure, the same feeling of anticipation for the date when I finally leave and at the same time that sinking feeling of regret that I’m going to say goodbye to people I care about. I feel that same sense of time being endless and me not feeling that the end is actually near and at the same time knowing that I have only 14days left and that there isn’t enough time to do all the things I need to do. Still, even though I can sit and write about all these emotions, it still hasn’t really hit me yet that it’s over, these last 6 months have gone especially fast compared to the first months that went tediously slow. I’ve finally got a pattern going, a rhythm, a momentum and now I’m leaving.

It will be interesting to see what it will be like for me once I’ve left South Africa. Will my feelings towards this country be different once I’m outside of it? At the moment, considering that I’ve adopted a rather reflective state of mind in these last few weeks, I feel love for South Africa and gratitude for what’s it’s given me which is a stark contrast to some of the more hateful or angry sentiments that I have previously held. There is a certain comfort in leaving that softens you, makes you notice things that before had absolutely no value to you. The way that all the taxi guys yell out the name of their destinations exactly the same and in the exact same tone “Town, town, town, towen, towen, town” or the way that young kids come up and touch my hair because they think it’s so beautiful and of course all the insanely lame pick up lines I’ve had the pleasure of hearing like “Can I be your fairytale?”

I think knowing that you’re leaving makes you take on the form of a sponge, you just start absorbing everything, filling yourself up and hoping you can keep it all in but eventually, maybe in a few months or even a year or more, most of what you’ve soaked up will drip away or dry up and what you’re left with is not memories of the place or what it looked like or what it smelt like but the people and the impact they had on you and the friendship that continues on and the memories you created with them and the emotions you shared together. That’s what I know I’ll always keep from South Africa but I’ll still soak up as much as I can and hope it stays with me for a while.

1 Month To Go

2011-03-17T01:10:00.000-07:00

The 18^th of April marks my last day in Port Elizabeth and my last day of service. In one month from today I will end what has been a whirlwind of events, a vortex of emotions, a dialectic of crisis and victory, an amazing time of growth, self understanding, wonderful new friendships and above all a time of service.

As this day was approaching I looked back on photos of myself from this time last year and reflected on what I was doing then and what I’m doing now. The funny thing is at both times I was travelling, I guess that side of me will never change. This time last year I had just come home from visiting Vanuatu, the first place I ever went for service in January 2008. I had made some of the most wonderful friendships of my life there and so I went back to visit the friends I had made and to be back in the place that my soul calls home.

Looking back on other photos there were times I could hardly recognise myself, not only because my hair colour has changed or because the clothes I was wearing are still in Sydney but because I remembered the way the world looked to me back then, I remembered what was the most important to me then, I remembered what kind of person I was. None of these things were bad but the growth that I have experienced recently is so great that I feel like that girl that said goodbye to her family in Sydney all those months ago is not going to be coming home.

Normally when I notice that I have developed as a person it’s based on a year by year scale but this time I can look back on myself a few months ago and see that I’ve changed. I looked at photos from Johannesburg when I first arrived here and I was having the same feelings about myself as I did with the photos from when I was still in Sydney. Amazing what service can do. It reminds me of this quote from Shoghi Effendi...

"The more we search for ourselves, the less likely we are to find ourselves; and the more we search for God, and to serve our fellow-men, the more profoundly will we become acquainted with ourselves, and the more inwardly assured. This is one of the great spiritual laws of life."

(Compilations, Lights of Guidance, p. 114)

I didn’t come to South Africa to find myself, when I left Sydney I thought the person I was was pretty great. I didn’t think I needed much self tuning or any major personality repairs but the more I was tested during this service, the more hardships I faced, the more things went wrong or people treated me badly, the more I realised that there were things about myself that I wasn’t happy with and it wasn’t even a process of change requiring tonnes of effort that made me develop from these weak points that I saw but a natural reaction of me realigning myself to counter the things that were going wrong around me. I can’t pinpoint a specific time or place that this change began or be able to note when the greatest change occurred, it just happened and one day I looked at myself and saw that I was different.

It really is true that you see the best and the worst of yourself when you are serving. I’ve seen things within myself that I am just shocked at, how easily I lost control of myself and fell into black pits of despair and I’ve also been so amazingly proud of myself for how I’ve managed to survive through everything and continue to go on with almost no support from anyone. I’ve seen myself reach my heaviest weight while in South Africa, tipping the scales for the first time in my life over 50kgs when this time last year I was in the best shape of my life. I won’t detail everything that I’ve noticed because it is personal reflection but I will say that for those who I will see again in Sydney you’re going to notice that this Martha is not the same as the one you said goodbye to. I am the upgraded version of myself, fully installed with new life handling powers and an ability to kinda cook (mum will be happy about that one).

So now maybe just an outline of what will happen after this month is over. From South Africa I am flying to Madrid, Spain to visit my uncle and his family who I haven’t seen in a couple years. I’ll be spending a month in Spain and potentially going to Haifa, Israel in that time also for a few days to visit my big sister Melody and spend time in the Shrines. The arrival home will be towards the end of May and I have already started my application to do my Masters in Building and Sustainable Design for second semester of this year at the University of Sydney. That gives me 2 solid months to work and pay off all the debt that I have accumulated over this year, which means I also need to find a job and I’m open for suggestions on what I should do.

Honestly, I know it’s cliché, but I cannot believe that it has almost been a year already and at the same time I can’t believe that it’s only been almost a year, it really feels like forever.

Truth be told I can’t wait to get to Spain and see something new, although I’m sure it’s going to be difficult to leave. As much as I’ve stated my dislike for South Africa I actually think I’ll miss it.

Hey White Gal

2011-03-13T06:38:00.000-07:00

As previously mentioned I live in the township. For the most part this has been fairly normal, there hasn't been anything in terms of how I live that is different to living anywhere else but there have been some very noticeable elements about township living that have stuck out for me. As well as living in Motherwell I also spend at least 3 days a week in Kuyga township and what I am about to explain applies in both places.

Looking at me and most certainly while living in Australia I am not a white girl but in South Africa what colour you are branded as isn’t so much about the actual colour of your skin but more what class you fall into or group you belong to. Being ‘coloured’ is more of a culture than the fact that you are mixed race. For example your father could be an Anglo-Saxon Australian and your mother a Xhosa South African but that doesn’t automatically deem you as coloured, people in this circumstance usually refer to themselves as mixed race. It’s hard to explain because every case is different but pretty much what I’m trying to say is that just because my skin isn’t white doesn’t mean I’m not classed as white, especially in the township.

So I’ve been living in Motherwell for over a month now and as I had originally stated there aren’t that many non-black people here, or any at all for that matter. So yes I do get a lot of attention, people stare when I walk down the street or look at me funny and this naturally I expected. I expected people to be curious as to what I’m doing here which is normal as it is completely uncommon for ‘white’ people to be in the township let alone live there. What has been happening in both Kuyga and Motherwell, however, has been completely foreign to what I expected, it has been strange to say the least.

It actually started in Kuyga, the attention I had been getting in Motherwell was very similar to what I’ve been getting in Kuyga since the first time I stepped foot in that area, boys calling out to me and kids getting excited when they see me “Hey, come see the white girl”. In Motherwell I have boys often calling out “white gal, white gal! Come here!”, “Hello white gal, what’s your name?” which I got a lot of in Kuyga also but then recently something changed about the attention I was getting. It became personalised.

So one day I was in Kuyga going to a devotional gathering that was being held by some of the Ruhi book 1 participants and as I was walking to their house some kids walked past me “hello”, “hi”, “hello Martha”. First reaction is this must be one of our Jy kids but I’m looking at this child’s face and I have never seen any of these boys before. Then it happens again, after devotional I’m walking back to the taxi stop and “Hello Martha” who are these people? Now it keeps happening, I’ll be walking in Kuyga either on my own or with Bayan and people are calling my name, most of the time I have never seen these people before. I have been visiting this area for 6-7 months now so it is more than likely that people have been talking and asking ‘who is this girl who always comes here?’ and then they here from this person that I do something at the school and my name is Martha and so it spreads. Township life is very closed especially in Kuyga which is so isolated from other suburbs. People know everyone that lives around them, they know each other’s business, they observe everything that is happening and they talk, talk, talk. I just hope that in their whisperings about me they are passing on the right message.

What has been happening in Motherwell has been slightly different. I guess because I don’t see myself as any different to anyone else I don’t notice how much I stand out. It all started when I was in Korsten which is an area about 20min from Motherwell and I was getting a taxi to Lorraine which is another 10min from there. A girl got into the same taxi as me and said “Do you live in Motherwell?” I said yes, “I know you”. I was like ohh ok cool, I thought that was an exciting story so I made it my Facebook status. Then it kept happening, again and again and again.

I would get into taxi in Motherwell, someone would ask me “Where’s your friend?” meaning Bayan. I would be in taxi going back to Motherwell, people call out the name of my stop for me, they know where I get off. I got into taxi leaving Motherwell, “so you living in Motherwell? I always see you everyday”. I can’t walk to the local shops without having someone follow me home or take a taxi ride without someone asking me who I am living with or why, I have men young and old calling out to me or asking me my name. I can’t be discreet, I don’t blend, everything I do is being noticed by someone because to them I’m different. I became a little concerned about this especially because a lot of people were asking me if I was living with my boyfriend. I guess this is the most rational explanation for them as to why I live in the township, so I have to keep verifying to people that I am living with a wonderful family as I am doing service for the Baha’i Faith and I hope people spread that around.

I love the look of shock on people’s faces when I speak Xhosa, it makes me want to learn more, I love when people ask me where I live and then they get excited because they live near me and they say they’ll see me around. What I think is the most wonderful thing about me living and spending so much time in the townships is that it’s hopefully bridging a gap. There is a stigma about the township from ‘white people’ and there is a stigma within the townships about ‘white people’. I hope the impact that I am having is positive, that is shows that there are people in this world who don’t notice the colour of your skin first and the person you are second, there are people who defy stereotypes and who don’t see everyone else in terms of their stereotype either.

Again recently in Korsten Bayan and I were walking to get the taxi to Kuyga and a guy said “There are the Baha’i ladies”, we had never seen this guy before. I had a girl get off the Motherwell taxi at the same stop as me in town and she asked me to say hi to Bayan for her. There are honestly so many examples that I could list of random people knowing who I am in both Kuyga and Motherwell. The last little remark I’ll share with you was when a guy we were walking past said “Hello Jessica” to me. I think he was just trying to guess what my name was.

Sometimes I find it annoying especially when I’m in a taxi going to Motherwell and people ask me where I live and I say in Motherwell and then they tell me I’m lying, like really? What else would I go to Motherwell for? Sightseeing? But I guess it is quite different. Strange thing is as shocked as everyone else is I don’t find it strange or shocking at all that I live in the township because like I said before I don’t see myself as different to anyone else. I actually like being in the townships.

I had a remarkable moment in the taxi the other day as I was driving out of Kuyga, as we drove through and I looked out the window, taking in this place that has become one of the areas I am most comfortable in, I started to think that I would actually really miss Kuyga when I’m gone and then I put this question to myself.. What would I stay in South Africa for? I smiled as the taxi pulled out of Kuyga township, it’s my favourite place in P.E.

Love for God

2011-03-07T07:39:00.003-08:00

A concept that arises quite frequently in the Baha'i Faith is the love for God. We, mankind, have been called upon to obey the laws of God for the love of Him, to serve humanity for the sake of God's good pleasure, to pray out of our longing to be in the presence of God. As we have matured in our spiritual capacity and our understanding is greater we are no longer expected to do these things out of fear of punishment or out of a desire for reward but purely for the sake of love. This love is born of a conscious knowledge of the religion of God rather than mere acceptance for the sake of acceptance or acceptance out of fear or tradition or habit. We are called on by God to investigate His Revelation through the Divine Teachers or Manifestations that He sends and once we have accepted these Teachers to obey and follow their commandments for our love for Them and for our love for God.

This love for God has been a term that I grew up with and when something is part of your vocabulary from the time your vocabulary was created you can sometimes, and this is what happened in my case, fail to understand or grasp what the meaning and implications of that term actually are. The love for God. Through my reading of the Holy Writings, through my acts of service and through my attempts to deepen my knowledge of our spiritual journey and the implications of this life on our souls I began to notice that I was having a hard time putting into practice this concept of love for God. Suddenly, as if reading it for the first time, my mind was deviling into what this love actually is and was I able to feel it? Did I do things out of love for God? What does love for God look like? How exactly do I show it?

I started to wonder why it was only now that I was struggling to grasp this concept, why now was I so unsure about how to love God? Then it dawned on me.. the more I learned about God the more I realised I knew nothing about Him.

It is easier to feel like you know God when you say that God is like the sun or that God is this great being because you are giving physical attributes to God which our finite minds can comprehend. A God that looks like the sun, I can relate to. I can picture in my mind a God that is a great being or a man or one of the other images that we have created for God so that we can fathom who and what He is but the more I learned about God the more I realised I knew nothing about Him and so it became harder for me to find a way to connect with this force or spirit or essence that our human words have no power to describe and even the 3 letters we attribute as His name are nothing compared to what God is. We limit God because we are limited and I felt lost in trying to find a channel to God.

How do you love God when you don't know what God is? Although it was never that difficult for me to feel His love I was stuck on how to reciprocate that love back to God.

It was hard for me to fear God, when you feel unable to channel that love for God then it hinders you in feeling that fear of God. The fear of disappointing Him and of not being able to receive His love. These are concepts that I can't fully understand because I don't know how to show them or feel them for an essence that I can in no way comprehend or conceive.

As my time in South Africa has progressed I began to notice that I did have a channel to send and receive that love from and it was as a result of being so distant and far from that channel that I was able to realise its existence and that channel was through my mother and my little brother. These are the channels that I feel like I can reach God through because of the love that exists between these 2 people and myself.

I feel the the love of God through my mother as she has given so much for me, as she does everything in my best interests even when it doesn't seem that way. She gave me life and she will always be a source of unconditional love for me. This is how I can feel love of God and for God; through my relationship with my mother. Through this I can feel the fear of God as I fear disappointing my mother. She knows my capacity and my potentials better than anyone, she watched them develop throughout my whole life and for her to ever have to see those capacities and potentials go to waste because of my actions would shatter me.

The greatest expression of love that I have ever known is the love I have for my little brother and with this love comes a responsibility to him that I will be the best that I can be for his sake. I never want to let my brother down and I strive to be a better person because I love him so much and I want him to see me as a positive force in his life.

This is how I feel the love for God and the fear of God. This is how I can make sense of these immense concepts and create a pathway to God. They are my channels. Now I find it easy to pray out of love, to serve out of love, to obey the laws out of love. It is as if my mother and brother are mirrors which reflect my love for God to Him. Whatever love I feel for God I send to them and they reflect it to Him.

I know that I have my own personal relationship with God and I communicate directly with Him all the time, this is different from the expression of love that I feel for God which is where I find the difficulty. Now whenever I am in moments of deep thought or reflection, whenever I take time to meditate on my life and my actions I think of my mum and my baby brother and think of what I would become if I lost their love or if I disappointed them and then I know what I have to do with my life and how I have to improve because I know that I would become like utter nothingness, that my existence would be meaningless and my soul would shrivel up if I lost their love and that's how I know what I have to do for God because I know that losing God's love would feel so much worse and I wouldn't be able to survive.

This is how I know God. This is how I can love Him.

Road Trip Days 5 & 6

2011-03-06T06:02:00.000-08:00

Day 5 - Friday the 11th of February - Heading Back - Total Kms: 550

When I assumed I would be in pain on waking up this morning I was wrong. The pain didn’t wait till morning to hit, I was in pain the whole night. I could barely make the trip off of my bunk and down to the floor as I was so stiff and in so much pain. It hurt to walk, it hurt to turn, it hurt to do anything that required movement from my body and so unjustly and in horrible contrast Bayan was in very little pain whatsoever. So I suffered alone, aching as I went up and down the stairs in the backpackers to take bags to the car, struggling to bend down to the ground to pick the bags up in the first place. At least this morning I decided that nothing would get me out of bed before 9am so there wasn’t another horrible early morning wake up.

We left the backpackers and Cape Town somewhere around 11am and started our trip back to P.E which we would stretch over a day and a half.

There isn’t much to be told of this day, we were on the road pretty much non-stop from Cape Town to Plettenburg Bay. There were tonnes of road works stops which actually were a blessing for my cramped and aching body as we would sit at a stop for maybe 10minutes at a time so I would always get out of the car and stretch. After a solid 5 hours of driving we reached Plettenburg Bay where we decided whilst driving would be where we spent the night. We phoned a couple of backpackers we found in a road trip guide and picked the best sounding one. We got to the place and as we approached the front door we realised the shock horror of the accommodation we had chosen. There standing in front of us was a staircase which we would have to ascend and descend every time we came and went. The pain we were in, my oh my, the pathetically slow pace at which we climbed those stairs. Yes, finally, the pain caught up with Bayan and I couldn’t have been happier. I was even more delighted when our climbing companions called to say that their muscles were also stiff and they couldn’t move. It was wonderful news to me to know that I was not suffering alone. The girl working there was at first confused and then amused by our stair climbing ways. We took each step slowly, holding onto the railing and pulling ourselves up to ease the stress on our legs. Finally, after a noisy and slow climb we reached the top and signed the paper work. Then we had to go back down to get our bags. This was plain hilarious. We were crying from laughter at ourselves for howling in pain as we were going down. We could hear the people upstairs laughing too and then Bayan pushed me so I went down a couple of stairs really fast and that was so painful. We were both humiliated by our sorry state and also extremely entertained by it as well.

Leaving Cape Town..

Bayan and Me and the view of Cape Town behind us

The view from my rear view mirror

cool blue house

The sun was slowly making its way down so Bayan and I decided to go to the beach. A Brazilian girl was also staying in the same dorm as us so we took her with us to the beach. She laughed as Bayan and I attempted running on the sand to help our muscles and the pain we would cry out in with every step. We frolicked on the beach for some time and I drank some dirty pond water to prove to Bayan that it would not result in death before heading back to find food. We got a Steers veggie burger for Bayan and a wood fire pizza for me and sat next to a Marimbaz band on the main street. We enjoyed our food and the free music and watched some kids dance to the music.

Bayan and me on the beach in Plett

Beautiful sunset

Day 6 - Saturday the 12th of February - The Last Leg - Total Kms: 250

We woke up this morning and lazily prepared ourselves for the day. We were tired and still sore and a little grumpy and I think we were both glad that this was the last day.

We started the day at the beach claiming to each other that we would swim but getting there and deciding that it was too cold. We went in about half way. Then we hung out with the lifeguards one of whom was very attractive, can’t remember his name though. We talked a bit and they asked about Australia and our trip. Then we packed ourselves into the car and headed off for our last stop before P.E. We were going to Tsiki tsiki forest. It’s actually called Tsikama forest but I kept forgetting the name and called it tsiki tsiki instead, I think it sounds better.

The guy at the entry gate let us in for free, nice guy, and we drove down to this beautiful coastline. It was so nice, so so beautiful. There were these suspension bridges hung across the water that we could walk over and so Bayan and I did that and of course we put our hands in the air and run across one of the bridges while screaming because that’s how we do. Then we saw the sign that said no jumping on the bridge, in all fairness we had done all our jumping before seeing that sign.

We needed to be back in Port Elizabeth by 4pm and so we didn’t get to spend too much time here. After seeing pretty things and me and Bayan not talking for a good 15minutes because we were angry at each other about something silly, we left.

The next bit was the last stretch of drive before P.E and we drove straight from our road trip to Sonja’s house for Unit Convention which is a Baha’i gathering. We arrived exactly on time and we had a very nice convention.

Next stop was King’s Beach which is in P.E and then finally at around 10pm we drove home, ending our road trip.

Ups and downs are expected with an endeavour like this, 2 people in each other’s company non-stop for 6 days straight can cause a little strain on the sanity levels and being the only driver I was completely exhausted and had no time to rest. There were times while driving that Bayan would fall asleep and I would stare at her with such envy almost wanting to wake her up because I didn’t think it was fair that she should sleep while I couldn’t. Lack of sleep and lack of food make me very grumpy and so there were times that I’m sure I wasn’t the best company but all that aside we had a great road trip.

In the future Bayan and I have decided that we actually want to take a back pack with us should we travel in this fashion again because at every backpackers we went to we were the only ones without backpacks, instead filling the storage space with several different types of carry bags and hand bags and plastic bags.

Also although we couldn’t choose our own soundtrack for this trip our road trip song became Liquid Deep’s “You don’t have to be alone” which played on the radio at least 5 times a day.

And so ended this adventure as chaotically and unorganised as the way it began.

Storms River

Suspension bridge

ready with her hands in the air to run down while screaming

Just the 2 of us

Bridge

A frog

Me :)

Road Trip Day 4

2011-02-27T10:03:00.000-08:00

Day 4 - Thursday the 10th of February - Climbing Mountains - Total Pain: lots

The day of the big climb and yes another 6am wake up.. woe to me.

Bayan, although having accomplished this great task once before and swearing that she would never do it again, wanted to climb Table Mountain and me just going along with things as I do said yes. We had to leave early to drive and pick up some friends of Bayan and soon we became a climbing party of 4; myself and Bayan and brothers Dominique and Angelo. The morning started with me being super tired, driving 40kms away from the mountain to pick people up then driving 40kms back to the mountain (on a side note Table Mountain is a 5min drive from our backpackers) being stuck in peak time traffic and then finally reaching the base of the mountain 2 hours later than we had originally hoped to. As you might imagine I was not in a good mood.

So we decided that since we were behind schedule we would opt for a shorter route up and down the mountain but one that was very very steep. When someone tells you that the route is steep in your head you're like "yeah no worries" but when you start climbing man oh man do you realise how difficult it is.

We started climbing and it was after about 5minutes that I realised this was not going to be fun. It was all stairs, not like pretty stairs with hand rails and even heights, it was rock stairs that went up the mountain like the secret stairs to Mordor in The Lord of the Ring. Having only slept 4-5hours and on an empty stomach because we were running late Bayan and I felt the strain very early on and the boys weren't helping as they are both like 2metres tall and had lots of energy so they were setting a really fast pace.

I won't go into the details of the climb as it took about 1.5hours except to mention a few key words... pain, suffering, despair, sweat, aching, desperation, exhaustion, torture, tribulation, lack of motivation, anguish, loss of hope, overwhelmed.

The number of times while climbing that mountain I wanted to lay on the floor and just die were insane. Like I actually thought that I wanted to die. I really don't believe that any words or pictures can describe how difficult and energy consuming that climb is. Honestly you had to take it one step at a time. I would take one step, I would pause, I would take another step, I would pause, I would take the next step, I would pause. There was no other way for me. Angelo was leading the group ahead of me and Bayan and Dominique were just behind me so as I tackled this climb on my own I started to drift off into thought and I came up with the following analogy. It is very much cliche but what can I say? When you're climbing a mountain, you're climbing a mountain.

The analogy I created of my climbing this mountain was that this climb represented my time serving. How did I come to this bizarre conclusion you may ask? I know it's obvious, but there was just so much in terms of my mental state while climbing that I could specifically relate to moments during my service. The enthusiasm to which I embarked on this trip, the lack of thought I gave to how difficult it would be, The realisation that this was harder than I had anticipated, the fear that I would not be able to complete the climb, the stern determination that I was capable of finishing, the set back of the path never flattening out to ease my climb and give me some relief, the creating of excuses for why it's ok not to finish, questioning why I decided to do this in the first place, the contemplation of quitting and going back down, then seeing that the way back down is longer than the way to the top, finding the strength to keep climbing, support and encouragement from friends keeping me moving, reaching a stage where I can see the finish and suddenly being filled with a new burst of energy, knowing that the finish is coming but feeling like it's still so far away before finally the moment of jubilant joy and accomplishment as I reached the top.

I'm sure without me explaining you see how this 90minute climb so distinctly related to my last 9 months of service. The parallels are obvious and really, really, really I have felt every single one of the above statements during this time even that of reaching the top.

At the top of the mountain the view was nice and we took some photos, then I inquired about the cost of the cable car to take us to the bottom and found out that it was R95 each so of course we climbed back down the mountain. There is no analogy, no wonderful understanding, no moment of clarity or journey to perfection that can be associated with this segment of the climb. Going down Table Mountain after having just climbed up is just plain stupid and the worst thing I have ever done. It kills yours knees, destroys your ankles, hurts your toes. Again thoughts of death pervaded my thoughts and I wanted to just lay myself down and wait until the time of death would come but I was the only driver and everyone was relying on me so I kept going. At one point the step was a little high so I decided to jump down, my knees and legs also realised that I wanted to jump down but felt that they had suffered enough already and so they would help me at all and so when I jumped my legs gave out and I just fell to the floor. All I could do was laugh at myself for how pathetic I was in that instant and try and get up and keep going.

All of the adjectives I listed before can be attributed to this descent and finally the road was reached.

While everyone else got to relax I had to drive us and so with aching and weak legs I drove us to our backpackers. Every time I had to put the clutch in or press the break a shot of pain would race through my leg, it was horrible. Then with no power steering I reverse parked into our tiny awkward spot and breathless from the effort of turning the steering wheel I went to shower.

With the mountain climbing behind us and Bayan again swearing she would never do it again we headed off for our next stop which was the Iziko Museum where there was a photographic exhibition that Bayan and I really wanted to see. Wow it was so worth it. It was an amazing exhibition, it was breath taking, it was spectacular, awe inspiring, transcendentally beautiful, majestic in its content and exquisite in its detail and leaving me in a state of absolute wonderment reinforced with each image. The exhibition was of the top photographs of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition for 2010. If I was allowed to take pictures of the pictures I would have because these are images that deserve to be shared however if you google search the name of the museum and exhibition you can find some pictures in the image search.

Unfortunately my legs were still weak and aching so I was sometimes distracted by these beautiful photos by the throbbing sensation but otherwise it was wonderful.

Next another great and wonderful experience.. FOOD! My first meal of the day and it was now 6pm. I had been craving Masala Dosa like crazy and have not been able to find it anywhere in P.E but thankfully Cape Town is much more diverse in terms of culture and so there are many Indian restaurants that I could take advantage of. At only R20 (about $3) I got some pretty great Masala Dosa. Every time my hand reached my mouth and deposited that amazing food onto my tongue I fell into a sweet state of ecstasy, only disrupted when each bite had been swallowed and my now empty mouth would cry for more.

The day ended with me driving out to drop Dominique home and with perfect timing we arrived just as his family was about to start a devotional gathering with some other friends. We sat together and said prayers, completed a day filled with every emotion possible from annoyance to zeal. I was annoyed in the morning but I ate my food with zeal at the end of the day so there you go A-Z.

My first time driving in the dark on this trip and as I expected I fell asleep a little bit which is the reason I had intended to avoid driving at night in the first place, nothing to worry about though I have become quite skilled at driving with my eyes closed due to so much practice whilst driving in Sydney.

This night I slept very well but my sleep was tainted knowing the pain I would be in in the morning.

The 4 climbers at the base of the mountain

me and Angelo

the Platteklip Gorge was the route we took

Bayan pulling Dominique up

One of the beautiful views that motivated me

View from the top

4 climbers finally at the top

Road Trip Day 3

2011-02-25T02:59:00.000-08:00

Day 3 - Wednesday the 9th of February - Driving, Driving, Driving - Total Kilometres: 450

Bayan and I decided to begin this day in Mossel Bay with exercise once again, however this time it was an act of spiritual exercise rather than that of our bodies. We set our alarms to bring us out of sleep just before sunrise so that we could have dawn prayers on the beach and as my alarm sounded I wondered to myself why we couldn't just pray on the beach at 9am instead of at 5:45am. Still I lazily pulled myself out of bed, dragged myself to the bathroom to brush my teeth and wash my face and finally awoken with prayer book in hand I was ready for some spiritual nourishment while watching the sun rise across the ocean.

As you may remember Bayan and I were spending the night in a train which had been transformed into a hostel and so we went to the head of the carriage to open the door when alas! The door was locked. They had told us that the doors would be locked from 10pm but we assumed that they would be unlocked by now. No worry, I decided I would just open one of the carriage windows and call out to the security guard to open the door as we were advised to do in such a situation. So as silently as possible without wanting to wake the other guests I pulled the window down and stuck my head out and... he was no where in sight. Never fear, Bayan and I would succeed in finding a way around this. We went back to our room and put forward the option that we could see both the beach and the sky from our room so it would still be the same if we just prayed from our beds. A valid option, another great option would have been for me to just go back to sleep as I was on about 4 hours sleep a night and I was the sole driver so sleep was sounding like a stupendous option for me but our resolve to pray was too great and Bayan was set on dawn prayers ON the beach not looking at the beach and so I jumped out of our window.

Jumping out of a window seems like nothing major and in most cases it isn't but in our case we were jumping out of the window of a train which was some 3metres off the ground and there isn't much to hold on to. So I jumped out of the window as silently as possible and I laughed as silently as possible while watching Bayan try to achieve the same feat. As she dangled her legs out and started sliding down it suddenly dawned on me that our cabin door was locked from the inside meaning we wouldn't be able to get back in so Bayan had to pull herself back inside to unlock our door and then try to get out again. Success! We were free and we went and found a spot on the sand to pray.

Bayan trying to get out of the window

Dawn Prayers

Waiting for the sun to rise in Mossel Bay

When we were finished with our spiritual breakfast we went for a walk along the beach and then back to our room to try and sleep some more. As we were wanting to get to Cape Town by this afternoon and we still needed a place to stay when we got there we decided not to dawdle any more and by 10.30am we were on our way out of Mossel Bay and on the road again. This strip of road from Mossel Bay to Cape Town is the most boring, there are almost no nice stops along the way and it is just a big stretch of highway so not all that much happened. At the same time tonnes of stuff happened. It's really strange how in all that nothingness so much was going on. When I look back on this day we barely took any photos, we hardly stopped anywhere, we spent almost the whole day on the road.. drove 450kms and I have almost no stories to tell from this day and yet to me lots of stuff happened. Funny how nothing can be so eventful.

So we drove to Cape Town, the drive was made all the more tedious by the road works going on. This highway (the N2) has only 2 lanes and so when there are road works one lane is closed and cars have to sit and wait while oncoming traffic uses the remaining open lane. This offered me a few opportunities to get out of the car and stretch but it also extended our time on the road by about an hour. As we were driving we would look out for towns or attractions that might interest us to either visit on this day or stop at on the way home. When we reached Swellendam I was desperate for an opportunity to get out of the car so we turned in to see what we could find. We followed a sign to a berry picking farm but when we got there we realised that berry picking season is over so instead we just tried all the jam (blackberry was my favourite) and bought some blueberry ice cream and then asked the girl working there what else Swellendam had to offer. "The Fairy Garden" she says. "The what?" I reply, "the fairy garden" she repeats. Confused, a little weirded out, in my own head trying to decide whether she means the boat type ferry or the mythical creature type fairy and deciding to myself she must mean the boat type because she appears to be in her 20's and couldn't possibly believe or expect us to believe that there are fairies and if there are that I would be interested in seeing them so I ask her again.."you mean like fairies like this?" I say this while flapping my arms like wings. "Yes, fairies" she responds with a bewildering confidence, not even a grin or a slight hint of a smile has come across her face to suggest to us that this woman is pulling our leg. "And what exactly do you do in this garden?".. "you walk around and see fairies everywhere".

So we go, to the fairy garden which turns out to be exactly what she described.. a garden with fairies in it. Hundreds of figurines and statues of fairies. What this girl failed to mention to us was that there were also wizards and dragons and Harry Potter himself in this garden. As it was free we went inside and took the garden walk. This garden is the initiative of a lady who has created a garden in her home and transformed her whole house for the sake of allowing people to come in a be inspired by the positive and uplifting spirit of the garden. Fairies, in her eyes, are little guardians who are always there to guide and protect us and help us see the best in everything. It is a very beautiful idea and I'm sure I would have had a much more profound appreciation for this garden if I was 7 but for the most part I was not impressed with a grown woman advising us to come here.

So we left the fairy garden and Swellendam for that matter with the understanding that there is so little to do in this town that people would send you to a fairy garden when you ask for advice on what Swellendam has to offer.

Me with a dwarf in the fairy garden

and this guy was there too

Bayan and Harry Potter even though Bayan claims this statue was a girl

Next was the last long stretch of highway before finally arriving in CAPE TOWN!!!! It was 6pm when we touched down and after googling 'cape town backpackers' we checked in at Cape Town Backpackers which turned out to be a great backpackers and only R80 a night thanks to their February special.

After getting settled we tried to snooze for a bit and then got ready to go out for dinner. I have been trying to convince Bayan to try Asian food as they have great options for vegetarians and they use tofu which amazingly for a vegetarian of 4months she has never tried, and so we went to eat at a place called 'Simply Asian'. Bayan proved her natural skills at using chopsticks and enjoyed the tofu in her food. Then we walked to Long St (the main strip in Cape Town) and found a place to have desert. This place also offered karaoke so of course we had a turn. Bayan wasn't familiar with many of the songs on their list and Beyonce being her favourite artist of all time she picked DeJuvu. I asked her about the part where it says Beyonce featuring Jay Z and she just said that he only comes in a little at the end. So we're singing away when suddenly there's an entire section of the song with Jay Z rapping, so I did what rappers to best, I just repeated "What what what, whatta whata what" again and again until his part was over accompanying my rap solo with gangster rapper hand movements.

Later when we went downstairs on our way out one of the bar attenders asked if it was us who sang the Beyonce song and then told us we sounded great.. kudos to Bayan and I and our amazing Karaoke skills.

We took our time walking back to our place and on the way a hobo who makes his own flowers out of beads asked if we would buy one so I bought one for Bayan. Then when another begger asked us for money I told him how he should try and actually work for it like the flower making guy.

As most nights go it ended with sleep and so went our arrival in Cape Town.

Arrival in Cape Town!!

Bayan using chopsticks for the first time

nom nom nom nom

Road Trip Day 2

2011-02-22T00:20:00.000-08:00

Day 2 - Tuesday the 8th of February - Being Spontaneous - Total Kilometres: 130

The primary purpose of most road trips is to have fun which usually manifests itself by the participants eating a lot of junk with increased regularity and moving around much less as so much of their time is spent sitting in the car but Bayan and I aren't your regular road trippers and so of course on the second day of our adventure we set our alarms for 6am to go for an early morning run.

One thing which I failed to mention in the list of things that we packed with us for this trip is a little device called The Wheel. It is a wheel with two handles on either side which you use to work out your abs. We brought The Wheel with us on our road trip because we are not normal and yes if you want to know we used it... everyday!

So we had done the wheel the night before and now we were awake bright and early to go for a run. I did say we set our alarms for 6am but we woke up closer to 6.20am as we kept hitting that snooze button, whoever invented that should have gotten a medal, and after we both tried to convince each other that we should go for this run rather than just get back into bed we finally began.

The run was actually amazing, we ran alongside the water but on the road and there was this mist that surrounded us. The weather was cool which suited us perfectly because we started sweating very quickly. The sun wasn't yet able to find a way through the clouds so the sky was light but not bright and everything around us had a grey haze covering it. Our run took us about 40minutes and we snuck back into our rooms feeling great. Our two German roommates were still asleep so we quietly gathered ourselves int he bathroom to finish our exercise routine, of course we mean The Wheel. One thing I need to explain about The Wheel is that as you perform the exercise it feels like your stomach is being cut open, it is a killer ab workout but it works and you only need to do like 10 a day to start to see it working. Bayan, more so than me, makes a lot of noise when she is in pain and so you can imagine how funny it was watching her on the floor in the bathroom doing the repetitions and trying to suppress the owing and ooing she would normally have yelled out.

Once our exercising was done we had our breakfast which we had packed from home and then decided on our plans for the day. Originally we were hoping to be in Cape Town by this evening so we decided to have a final look at what Knysna had to offer then try and squeeze George and Mossel Bay in before heading straight to Cape Town.

I had heard that Knysna Heads were beautiful so we drove off to see them. There was still a mist covering everything but the weather wasn't cold. It was actually perfect. We used our amazing navigational instincts to find where to go and when we found it it was stupendously beautiful. Ahead of us was this beautiful lake of water which we could see far off connected to the ocean, set against a backdrop of hills. The water was shallow and and we walked out as far as we could. It was so awe inspiring standing where we were because we were surrounded by this beautiful, clear water who's stillness was sporadically disrupted by small waves which appeared to emanate from nowhere.

There were small hermit crab type creatures scurrying around on the sand in the water and these little holes scattered across the floor from where streams of water would spit out like a fountain. I tried to capture a photo of one of these holes spitting but it would be over so quickly I never managed to click fast enough. We enjoyed the serenity for some time before noticing that there was a lookout on one of the heads that we could go to and so we went to see it.

Knysna Heads

I asked Bayan to pose with the boat... this is what I got

A trend that Bayan and I noticed in ourselves was our inability, or perhaps it's more of an ability, lets try it both ways, our inability to find the stairs and our ability to jump down or climb down high walls when we haven't found the stairs. We had parked our car at the lookout and the parking was on a ledge, we saw that if we went down onto the sand we could walk to a little cave type thing so Bayan and I not seeing any stairs instead climbed down the wall. We were both very proud of ourselves for being so versatile and finding a way down when there was none until we saw the stairs and then just felt silly. I'm sure we were great entertainment for all the people that were watching us and who at no point thought they should point out this oversight to us. I can't say much for this lookout, it was just a rock face and some water and the ocean which after about 10 minutes wore out it's entertainment value on us and so we went wandering instead. We found some pathways into the bush and saw 2 caves which looked and smelt like squatter homes for someone and we went up another path looking thing where we tried to take poser model photos but instead got eaten by mosquitoes. BayanOMG I see them!! It's not the same when you actually see them!!" so we left the bush and stuck to the pavement instead.

The ground was covered in these mussel shells

trying to do model poses in the bush but the mosquitoes were attacking us

We departed Knysna, the 2 wanderers, to continue exploring. We were on the road again and our next stop was somewhere near a town called Wilderness. We saw this amazing lake where the water was black so we pulled in to look around. Funnily enough the name of the place was Black Water Lake. While here my cousin Elina called me from Sydney which was exciting.

Black Water Lake

Next stop was Sedgefield. We saw a bunch of little shops and I bought a postcard which I still haven't sent home yet. There was also a sign which pointed out the way to Sydney, yes I was very excited. There was also a random beach in Sedgefield which we went to. The sign said it would cost R5 to go to this beach, clearly we didn't pay. We stayed for maybe 5minutes only enough to honor our policy of feeling the water at every beach we went to.

Sydney = that-a-way

random beach in Sedgefield

Next we went to George, I really ave nothing to write about George because we didn't do anything while we were there and after visiting the tourist information centre we actually crossed George off of our list of places to see, so we turned around and went to Mossel Bay instead.

By the time we got to Mossel Bay it was around 4pm and we were hungry. Somehow we managed to find ourselves at the beach front and there was a restaurant which had a train connected to it. Curious we went aboard the train and saw that there were cabins with beds in them. Bayan immediately came to the conclusion that this was a museum where you could see what the old trains looked like and she wondered why there was no difference between first and second class. I, however, jumped to the more reasonable conclusion that this was a hostel.. I was right. We went to the restaurant and asked about the train accommodation and decided that as we had no where to stay in Cape Town as yet and we wouldn't get there until sometime after 8pm we would spend the night here. I ate some amazing ribs, Bayan had vegetarian food and we explored the train and an old broken down bus that was next to us as well. As the sun went down we walked down to the beach and went for an evening run on the sand, we ran, we did some other exercises and then to cap it all off we stripped off our clothes and ran into the water. It was so beautiful, the sun was completely gone and the beach was lit only by the lights surrounding it. The water temperature was perfect especially as we were hot and sweaty and we were so proud of ourselves for starting and ending this day with exercise.

View from our cabin on the train

the kitchen

On the broken down bus

I thought of my mum the whole time we stayed here

Later we went for a walk around the town, we walked down to the harbour and watched the water, the water was pitch black except for some light that shone from a restaurant. Then Bayan saw something in the water. Then I saw it and for a good 30minutes we watched the water trying to figure out what was in there, we guessed fish, eels, then fish again, then I was sure it was an eel, then we just weren't sure, Bayan may have thought it was a snake until finally we got a good enough look at one to realise that they were seals. Content that we had finally figured out what the mystery creature was we walked back to the train and went to bed. So ended our second day on the road.

The harbour where we saw the seals

Road Trip Day 1- thoughts and reflections

2011-02-18T04:52:00.000-08:00

I've decided that I will separate each day of the road trip into 2 sections, one being the events of each day and the other being the more deep and meaningful occurrences. This post is of the second kind.

This road trip was so much more to me than just an adventure or an opportunity to see pretty places, it was actually a symbolic representation of my need to reclaim control over my own life.

Maybe something that effects some people more than others or perhaps it doesn't effect some people at all, but it is something that consumes so much of my own life is the need for control. Losing control makes me nervous, anxious, stressed... There are things that I can be completely spontaneous about like where we go to eat or what movie we watch and things like that. There are even other things that I can be completely relaxed about and leave everything to chance like our road trip where we made no specific plans and just went with the flow but when it comes to my life, where I live, what I can and can't do, who I have to answer to in order to do it... etc then I need control.

I guess that's why I love driving so much, I love being totally in control of something. I turn the steering wheel right and the car goes right, I press the accelerator and the car accelerates, I break and the car stops. The car, its entire being and everything it does is dependant on me and I love that feeling and the power that it offers me.

In a time where I felt that I had wholly lost control of my life; I wasn't living where I wanted to live which meant my life was once again restricted by things that were beyond my control, the last taxi to Motherwell leaves town at 8pm so the latest I can be out is 8pm otherwise I have to find someone to stay with which doesn't always work out, I live with a family which is not what I wanted, it means that I can't do all the things I wanted to do without asking for permission like having gatherings at my house or classes or just inviting people over for dinner and I am relying on my parents sending me money so I don't have as much freedom as I want, I decided to do something that made me feel empowered again. Where I would choose what I wanted and didn't want to do, I would choose the time, I would decide on the place, absolutely everything, I decided to do something that gave me back my control.. I decided to go on a road trip.

You can see how driving a car for 6 days would be symbolic of my sense of regaining control and on that first day everything was exactly as I imagined it. I love driving, I love open highways, the scenery vanishing past on either side as I fly forward, no reason to break as there's nothing but empty road ahead of me, losing myself in my thoughts as the rhythm of the car's movement along the tar road harmonises with the patterns of thoughts that beat through my mind. This was exactly what I wanted and felt that I needed at that time. I wanted a period of time that was all about me and I really felt like I deserved it.

It's interesting the things that appear in our lives when we are going through such stages. The first day of driving had been wonderful, Bayan and I had just arrived in Plettenburg Bay and we were at the fish and chips shop ordering fish and chips for me and a cheese and tomato sandwich for the vegetarian Bayan and we had asked the girl at the counter for directions to the beach. She gave us a local newspaper which has a map of the area in it and as I was looking at this map I noticed something on the back which caught my eye. It was an article which I will share which was just so thought provoking but so simple at the same time. Bayan and I sat on the beach with our picnic and I read it to her and we both sat and watched the ocean as we thought about the implications of it in our own lives, until of coarse the seagull came and ruined our tranquil, pondering mood.

A carrot, an egg and a cup of coffee

A young woman went to her mother and told her about her life and how things were so hard for her. She did not know how she was going to make it and wanted to give up. She was tired of fighting and struggling. It seemed as one problem was solved a new one arose.

Her mother took her to the kitchen. She filled up three pots with water and placed each on a high fire. Soon the pots came to boil. In the first she placed carrots, in the second she placed eggs and in the last she placed ground coffee beans. She let them boil without saying a word.

After some time she turned off the burners, she fished out the carrots and placed them in a bowl, she took out the eggs and placed them in a bowl and then she ladled the coffee out and placed it in a bowl. Turning to her daughter she asked, "Tell me what you see?"

"Carrots, eggs and coffee" she replied.

Her mother brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrots. She did and noted that they were soft. The mother then asked her to take the egg and break it. After pulling off the shell she observed the hard boiled egg. Finally the mother asked the daughter to sip the coffee. The daughter smiled as she tasted its rich aroma. The daughter asked her mother "What does this mean?"

Her mother explained that each of these objects had faced the same adversity: boiling water. Each reacted differently. The carrot went in strong, hard and unrelenting. However, after being subject to the boiling water it softened and became weak. The egg had been fragile, its thin outer shell had protected its liquid interior but after sitting through the boiling water, its insides became hardened. The ground coffee beans were unique, however. After they were in the boiling water, they had changed the water.

"Which are you?" she asked her daughter. "When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?"

Think of this: Which am I? Am I the carrot that seems strong, but with pain and adversity do I wilt and become soft and lose my strength?

Am I the egg that starts with a malleable heart, but changes with heat? Did I have a fluid spirit, but after some trial or hardship have I become hardened and stiff? Does my shell look the same, but on the inside am I bitter and tough with a stiff spirit and a hardened heart?

Or am I like the coffee bean? The bean actually changes the hot water, the very circumstance that brings the pain. When the water gets hot it releases the fragrance and flavour. If you are like the bean, when things are at their worst, you get better and change the situation around you.

The happiest of people don't necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the most of everything that comes along their way.

May we all be coffee!

ROAD TRIP!!

2011-02-16T13:55:00.000-08:00

After having visited Cape Town over New Years I decided that I definitely wanted to go back should the opportunity arise and when I found out that the drive from Port Elizabeth to Cape Town was one of the most beautiful drives with some really amazing stops on the way I decided to create that opportunity and plan a road trip. I was so determined to do this trip that I vowed I would do it on my own if I had to but thankfully it didn't come to that and Bayan became my road trip buddy.

Within the span of about a week I organised the whole trip and by organise I mean I rented a car and picked what date to leave and when to come back. I figured we could just make up the rest as we went. The rough outline of the trip would be 2 days on the road to get to Cape Town, 2 days in Cape Town and then 2 days on the road to get back to PE, no GPS and no maps this was going to be a true adventure basing everything we did on what our gut feeling told us and whatever would sound good at the time. The purpose of the road trip was to have a great time and see the wonderful sites of the Garden Route which is the name of the drive and here I will begin the tale of our adventure.

Day 1 - Monday the 7th of February - The Wanderers - Total Kilometres: 370

Our wonderful friend Sonja graciously offered to drive us to Lorraine so that we could pick our automobile. Our mode of transportation would be a red VW Citi Golf which thankfully had a CD player and just to add to the flavour of our road trip also came with the smell of wet dog, I don't think Bayan and I would have complained about this so much if we knew how much worse the car would smell after our road trip. Once we had our car it was back to Motherwell to pack everything in before beginning our travels. Naturally we packed in 'just incase mode'.. "Pack some blankets just incase, take those shoes just incase, bring more clothes just incase, pack an umbrella just incase, you'll need an extra towel just incase". By the time we finished packing the car the boot was full as was the whole back seat. We took so much stuff, I didn't even have enough bags to hold it all, some stuff I put in plastic bags and some stuff I just threw in the back seat. It was about 11.30am when we were finally ready to hit the road.

The Automobile

all our luggage

Road Trip Buddies- Me and Bayan

Our first stop was only 45minutes outside of PE at the very beautiful Jefferys Bay. We found a way to the beach and walked out onto a long, beautiful and empty strip of sand. Although surrounded by houses and buildings the beach itself was deserted. We frolicked and entertained ourselves enjoying having the beach all to ourselves. It is really a remarkably beautiful place and the backdrop of gorgeous blue sky highlighted by a few pure white clouds added so much to the already stunning beach. This was definitely the perfect first stop and set the tone of the road trip. When we had exhausted the scenery in Jeffery's Bay we gathered ourselves back in our automobile to venture off to our next destination.

As we left Jefferys Bay I noticed two hitchhikers on the side of the road, a young lady and a small boy and so we pulled over to give them a ride. There are a huge number of hitchhikers on the roads here and so it is very easy to ignore them but anytime I see children it usually catches my eye. Our new road trip buddies were on their way to Humansdorp about 20kms away and so decided our next stop. We entertained our new guests with our non stop singing and my awesome dancing. The best thing about a car with no power steering is that you generally don't need to pay too much attention to the steering wheel which offered my arms all the freedom I needed to bust out my moves. While passing through Humansdorp we saw a sign for a place called Oyster Bay and deciding that that was where we wanted to go next we offloaded our guests and head off for the oysters.

The sign had been very deceiving, Oyster Bay turned out to be really far away and required us going down a dirt road which was kind of exciting except the part where I got stuck behind a truck which was spraying a cloud of dirt behind it as it drove blocking all of my vision so that for a good 10minutes I was driving almost blind. Finally however, we reached the bay of oysters which didn't end up living to it's name and just turned out to be another beach. What was cool about this beach was the huge plains of sand. The beach itself was so vast that you could look straight ahead of you and see only sand on either side, needing to turn your head to get a glimpse of the ocean. There were also lots of sand dunes which offered a great venue for Bayan and I to run down from the top with our hands in the air and screaming all the way as we did in Addo. The water temperature was not tempting enough to entice us to swim so after splashing our feet in a little we left Oyster Bay for the next destination.

Now to get out of Oyster Bay required driving on more dirt roads and naturally we took a wrong turn and ended up on someones farm where a nice young guy offered to show us the way back to the highway. We were on this dirt road for a good 30minutes and the whole time we were surrounded on both sides by the beautiful tranquility of rural life, the huge hectars of green paddocks, the patch work of fields covered in crops, the simplicity of the farm houses and the strong smell of cow poo wafting through the car. Yeah... I love the country.

OMG how do these people survive, it was like driving through a 30km manure smelling cloud. It was revolting and with no aircon and the sun beaming into the car it was too hot to put the windows up and ride it out. At one point as we drove we saw a whole herd of cows hanging in the middle of the road. Like seriously just chilling, on the road. So I crept the car up slowly towards them hoping not to scare them into a crazed panic and then Bayan reaches out her hand towards the steering wheel and starts banging on the horn. Luckily they didn't freak out and instead just stood there in the middle of the road. Eventually one of the farm workers came out and forced them to make way for us and we were able to drive through but man if their poo didn't smell enough the cows themselves stink too. It was just too much for me, I don't think I'll settle for country life if there are farm animals involved.

We managed to survive the country and the dirt road and ended up in our next stop Plettenburg Bay. By this stage it was about 4pm and we were hungry. We had managed to suppress our appetites with peanut butter and celery but now it was finally time for real food so we found a super market and a fish and chips shop and stocked up to have a picnic on the beach. We spread out our mat and brought our picnic basket and enjoyed the view of the ocean as we gobbled our food. Suddenly we noticed that we had a visitor, a seagull was sitting about a metre away from us and was watching us with such intent it was uncomfortable. All of a sudden the seagull opened its mouth wide and started barking/howling/yelling in its strange seagull voice. I mean this was a scary sound, not the typical annoying seagull sound that I am used to. It was like a tribal call summoning the rest of its posse to come and stalk us. A few times we tried to scare the seagull off but it just came back again and we decided to ignore it. So we sat, watching the ocean and talking about our trip so far. We had also started watching this group of young boys who were playing a card game and clearly if you lost you had to be punished because two of the boys jumped up ran into the ocean then ran back on the sand, rolled around in it and then ran back into the ocean again. Amused by this we watched and laughed when all of a sudden I felt something next to me, Bayan jumped up and screamed causing me to jump up and scream. The seagull had come on to our mat and stole the foam container which had my fish and chips in it. I was more amazed that the seagull was able to carry such a large box in its mouth than I was shocked that it had stolen from us. In our commotion the seagull dropped the container so I went to take it back but not before it opened its mouth and started making that strange noise again summoning its friends. The seagull clearly seeing that we were distracted by these boys had planned its attack so skillfully. Anticipating another attack we packed everything into our basket and went down to play in the water. As we walked away from our picnic spot the seagull went to our basket and tried to get stuff out so we ended up having to wrap our basket up with our mat to stop the seagull.

Evil food stealing seagull

As I wanted to avoid driving at night as much as possible we decided to leave and get to our next stop which is where we would be spending the night. The place was Knysna and I had found a backpackers online the night before. We arrived in Knysna, put our stuff in our room and freshened up to go out for the night. By this stage the sun had already gone down, it was about 8pm and we decided to walk and see what this town had to offer. We found a nice Italian restaurant and got desert, we walked along the harbour and then through some of the streets. We saw a bar which had some life but neither of us was in the mood for that atmosphere. At one point I looked up in the sky to admire the stars when Bayan decided that she wanted to lay down and look at the stars. So we did, on the sidewalk outside of the pub we lay on our backs, our heads sharing her bag, and watched the stars. With our completely inadequate knowledge of astronomy we started looking for constellations. We got into a discussion on why Orian's belt is called a belt when it only contains 3 stars and then decided that it must just be some of the holes in his belt rather than the whole belt, or Orian is just very skinny. We lay on the ground for some time, drawing the glances of people walking by until we got bored of the stars and went home.

Hanging in Knysna

We shared our dorm with 2 girls from Germany who were travelling in the opposite direction and after chit chatting for a few minutes we crashed into bed.

Pass that Dutch

2011-02-05T11:32:00.000-08:00

Without trying to sound like a campaigner against drugs or preach about how bad drugs are I wanted an opportunity to reflect on something that has been plaguing me since I arrived here in Port Elizabeth. There is a party scene in South Africa and one thing I observed about this scene here is that drugs like Ecstasy and cocaine are not as prevalent as what I've noticed they are in Sydney. The main reasons I think are that for one people here can’t afford drugs like cocaine which are reserved in this society for the wealthier people and secondly the main style of music in this country is RnB and Hip Hop and ecstasy does not partner with that kind of music nor does it go with South African house music. Here in South Africa, completely honouring the stereotype, the whole Rastafarian take it easy man image of Africa, the single most acceptable, the most accessible, the most loved and defended of all the drugs is weed aka hashish, pot, hemp, cannabis, grass, kush, dagga...

Weed in South Africa is not just a drug, it’s a right. People of this country believe in weed, I would go so far as to say they worship it. The number of times I’ve entered a conversation with someone about why I don’t smoke weed and how in the Baha’i Faith its use as a means of getting high is not permitted the other person has stood their ground, listing reasons and arguments for why it is the greatest invention given to man. You seriously can’t win, they love their weed. Usually a conversation of this nature will proceed with the other person packing a bong, smoking a cone and then offering one to you as if they sincerely believed their point had gotten through to you and you were miraculously converted. Amongst the greatest argument of the defenders of weed is that it’s a natural substance, how can it be bad for you if it was God who put it on this Earth? It’s a valid argument, it is a natural substance and it is known to have medicinal qualities, I mean I use hemp body butter and it is amazing, unfortunately humanity lacks self control, lacks discipline, lacks maturity and the misuse of weed is much greater than its intended purpose as a medicinal substance and so it is better to ban its use rather than allow it with exceptions because knowing us humans we will twist everything to justify ourselves. “My savings account is only for emergencies and the need to own these shoes definitely falls under that category.” Counter argument number 2 is that God also put poisonous berries like Yew, Jasmine and Daphne on the planet and other deadly plants like the castor bean and daffodils as well as rattle snakes, redback spiders and wasps... are you going to smoke those too?

So people like weed in South Africa, what’s so special about that, people smoke weed all over the place? Yes, yes, yes this is true but what baffled me was how common and normal it was here. People here are not discrete about lighting a joint and passing it round. People here smoke joints like they’re cigarettes. They pull out their folded bit of paper or little zip-lock bag, crunch up the grass that’s inside, place the weed on a thing of paper, roll it up, lick it shut, find something to press down the insides with, twist the end, spark their lighter, light it up and pull it in... just like that. Anywhere and everywhere people are smoking weed. Sitting in a taxi, you smell weed, sitting on the grass, you smell weed, at a friend’s braai, you smell weed, walking in the street, hanging at the university, in the living room, in the bedroom, it doesn’t matter where you are or what time it is there is always someone smoking weed. The comfort with which people get high in public is really something I marvel at. There is no shame whatsoever in smoking weed, actually it’s quite the opposite. Like I said before people use drugs in Australia as well and weed is definitely amongst them but not to the same extent and not amongst such a large portion of society.

Weed in Australia from what I know, is kinda thought of as a lower class drug. Being a pothead which is a regular smoker is not a good thing. To smoke it occasionally is considered ok but regular use is looked down on. That’s the major difference, the other big thing is girls and weed. A girl smoking a bong everyday is not a nice look. It’s trashy and low and not attractive at all. Here in South Africa girls use it just as much as guys do. I was sitting in the living room at a friend’s house when some people came over. Just sitting with them having a conversation and all of a sudden one of the girls pulls out a bong, packs it, lights it up and smokes it, right there in the living room, right in front of me a person she had just met. She didn’t ask me if it was ok

It’s interesting actually when people ask me about marijuana culture in Australia and I tell them it’s not looked highly upon, they get really confused. Especially when I talk about girls smoking and how it has this junkie reputation that comes with it. From my conversations with people they tell me that weed makes them think better, clears their minds, makes them reach a more spiritual level and just makes them feel good. They love getting high these South African kids.

So I don’t know if you can get a sense of what I mean in terms of the socially acceptable nature of a drug. I guess if South Africans went to Sydney they might find shocking how widely used certain other drugs are compared to here but from what I know of Australia people are not that open about their drug use even if the levels of use are higher which I doubt. Police here don’t really bother with enforcing the laws against marijuana use, if they did half this country would be arrested. One major thing is that no one fights back when they’re high, governments like a society that is passive and weed does that; it creates passivity. People here may not have much money for stuff but there’s always money for weed. Pass that dutch, no stress baby.
I predict many more arguments regarding this plant to arise in the future, it really is a drug that the people of this country adore. They even go so far as to deny the long term side effects when I name them such as memory loss, muscle degeneration, lung damage...etc (my memory of grade 10 Health class is still strong) so it is clearly not an issue that any one is campaigning to resolve. I think I’ll sum up by sharing what the Baha’i Writings say about the use of marijuana and drugs in general and maybe they will inspire someone to see the logic of these things. There are better ways to get high.

'Regarding hashish you had pointed out that some Persians have become habituated to its use. Gracious God! This is the worst of all intoxicants, and its prohibition is explicitly revealed. Its use causeth the disintegration of thought and the complete torpor of the soul. How could anyone seek this fruit of the infernal tree, and by partaking of it, be led to exemplify the qualities of a monster? How could one use this forbidden drug, and thus deprive himself of the blessings of the All-Merciful?...

'Alcohol consumeth the mind and causeth man to commit acts of absurdity, but... this wicked hashish extinguisheth the mind, freezeth the spirit, petrifieth the soul, wasteth the body and leaveth man frustrated and lost.'

‘It should be noted that the above prohibition against taking certain classes of drugs does not forbid their use when prescribed by qualified physicians as part of a medical treatment.’

(Baha'u'llah, The Kitab-i-Aqdas, p. 239)

‘Among these latter is smoking tobacco, which is dirty, smelly, offensive -- an evil habit, and one the harmfulness of which gradually becometh apparent to all. Every qualified physician hath ruled -- and this hath also been proven by tests -- that one of the components of tobacco is a deadly poison, and that the smoker is vulnerable to many and various diseases. This is why smoking hath been plainly set forth as repugnant from the standpoint of hygiene....’

‘My meaning is that in the sight of God, smoking tobacco is deprecated, abhorrent, filthy in the extreme; and, albeit by degrees, highly injurious to health. It is also a waste of money and time, and maketh the user a prey to a noxious addiction. To those who stand firm in the Covenant, this habit is therefore censured both by reason and experience, and renouncing it will bring relief and peace of mind to all men. Furthermore, this will make it possible to have a fresh mouth and unstained fingers, and hair that is free of a foul and repellent smell. On receipt of this missive, the friends will surely, by whatever means and even over a period of time, forsake this pernicious habit. Such is my hope.’

(Abdu'l-Baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha, p. 147)

Township living

2011-02-03T06:26:00.000-08:00

Remember when I once said that I would never live in a township. It's funny how we end up doing things that we once so firmly stated that we wouldn't do.

Based on the description of townships that I have given in previous posts you might automatically assume that I now live in a shack with cows and goats wondering around and a shabeen next door filled with drunk men. This image in not entirely untrue. My new home is Motherwell, the second biggest township in South Africa after the famous Soweto. The Gcume family have so graciously opened their home to me and saved me from my homelessness and so here I am, in the township.

There are parts of Motherwell that look like my above description, there are areas with clusters of tin shack houses and random farm animals wondering around and there are shabeens and taverns and Motherwell has it's share of drunk men but as this township is so big it is also very diverse. For the most part the houses here are concrete, brick houses. Some of these houses are the size of a shack and others are the size of a regular house. Some areas have tar roads and some have dirt roads.

There isn't really much that differs between living here and living in the suburbs except that there are no white people, the people here are generally friendlier, there is a greater sense of community amongst the neighbours in one street or area, everyone visits each other or greets each other when they meet. Some of the girls who live around us come over just to check how I'm doing and see if I'm ok. The biggest and most annoying difference that I've experienced living here is the reaction I get from people when I tell them where I live.
Here is an example of a conversation I had with a guy I met...

Guy: So where do you stay?
Me: Motherwell
Guy: No really?
Me: Really I live in Motherwell
Guy: which part
Me: Nu2
Guy: What street?
Me: _____ street (leaving the name blank for privacy reasons)
Guy: You just named the only street you know there
Me: Why would I lie? I live in Motherwell
Guy: Why would you live in Motherwell, you should live in Summerstrand or Humewood or Southend (all more expensive beach side suburbs)

Even when I'm in a taxi going to Motherwell people don't believe that I live there, they say that I'm just going to visit someone or going for a sleep over or something. At first it was amusing but now it's just annoying. Why is it such a big deal that a 'white person' lives in the township?

The best part about living here is all the extra transport options, because Motherwell is so huge and has so few facilities here to cater for the people everyone has to go to town or Korsten so there are so many taxis from so many locations out of Motherwell and back again. There are 100 times more buses and there are even these other taxis called jiggales which are just normal cars that take people to locations in the township. The last taxi to Motherwell is at around 8pm which is later than the last taxi back to my old suburb.

So far I like living here, Bayan has a junior youth group that she is starting again every Friday afternoon and we just started a children's class for Saturday mornings so there's a lot to keep us busy. I do get a lot of attention living here "Hey white girl, white girl" type of attention and "Oh you are so beautiful" attention but I've grown so accustomed to it that I don't even notice it anymore. My Xhosa is also improving especially since Bayan's 4 year old nephew lives with us and does not speak any English. It's so cute, whenever he tried to tell me something in Xhosa and I don't understand he instead pulls me down and tells it to me in my ear, still in Xhosa though. I think he thinks I just can't hear him. I was also given a new name by one of the taxi guards. Bayan and I were walking towards the taxi from the shopping centre with a trolley load of groceries and I was having issues pushing the trolley so the guard came over and was like Sindiswa, come let me help you, Sindiswa come and sit here. He also renamed Bayan to Babalwa and he thought she was from Italy. Then he told everyone in the taxi that they should only speak English because Sindiswa was with them. The entire taxi ride we were laughing because he was so entertaining. When we were approaching our stop Bayan called out in Xhosa "jiggale bamba" which means stop at the corner. The guard repeated this to the driver in Xhosa and the driver told him he had to say it in English, the guard then yelled out "Ok turn around and break". We laughed so much because he didn't know how to say it in English.

I'm sure I will have many more wonderful stories from the township that I will be able to share later.

Now for some pics of my new home

my bedroom

living room and tv room behind it

Bayan in the kitchen

My new sister Bayan

True Healing Starts from the Soul

2011-01-25T01:15:00.000-08:00

Whilest in Addo Bayan was reading Paris Talks which is a beautfiul compilation of talks given by Abdu'l-Baha while He was in Paris. She came across one of His talks that she felt related to me as I had been sick and feeling down.

"GOD IS THE GREAT COMPASSIONATE PHYSICIAN WHO ALONE GIVES TRUE HEALING

October 19th

All true healing comes from God! There are two causes for sickness, one is material, the other spiritual. If the sickness is of the body, a material remedy is needed, if of the soul, a spiritual remedy.

If the heavenly benediction be upon us while we are being healed then only can we be made whole, for medicine is but the outward and visible means through which we obtain the heavenly healing. Unless the spirit be healed, the cure of the body is worth nothing. All is in the hands of God, and without Him there can be no health in us!

There have been many men who have died at last of the very disease of which they have made a special study. Aristotle, for instance, who made a special study of the digestion, died of a gastronomic malady. Aviseu was a specialist of the heart, but he died of heart disease. God is the great compassionate Physician who alone has the power to give true healing.

All creatures are dependent upon God, however great may seem their knowledge, power and independence.

Behold the mighty kings upon earth, for they have all the power in the world that man can give them, and yet when death calls they must obey, even as the peasants at their gates.

Look also at the animals, how helpless they are in their apparent strength! For the elephant, the largest of all animals, is troubled by the fly, and the lion cannot escape the irritation of the worm. Even man, the highest form of created beings, needs many things for his very life; first of all he needs air, and if he is deprived of it for a few minutes, he dies. He is also dependent on water, food, clothing, warmth, and many other things. On all sides he is surrounded by dangers and difficulties, against which his physical body alone cannot cope. If a man looks at the world around him, he will see how all created things are dependent and are captive to the laws of Nature.

Man alone, by his spiritual power, has been able to free himself, to soar above the world of matter and to make it his servant.

Without the help of God man is even as the beasts that perish, but God has bestowed such wonderful power upon him that he might ever look upward, and receive, among other gifts, healing from His divine Bounty.

But alas! man is not grateful for this supreme good, but sleeps the sleep of negligence, being careless of the great mercy which God has shown towards him, turning his face away from the light and going on his way in darkness.

It is my earnest prayer, that ye be not like unto this, but rather that ye keep your faces steadfastly turned to the light, so that ye may be as lighted torches in the dark places of life."

(Abdu'l-Baha, Paris Talks, p. 19)

I really feel what Abdu'l-Baha is saying in this talk, I feel it so much since the rememdy that I needed to bring me out of my state of depression and back into life was service. On Tuesday whilest in Addo my doctor called me to give me the results of my blood test and he said that everything was fine, there was nothing physically wrong with me that was causing me to be so sick. All of my ailments were as a result of what was going on in my mind and the suffering that this had brought to my soul. To think that our general state of well being can be so powerfully linked to our physical state of health is amazing. Really it took my soul finding its source of happiness for me to recover. In Addo, although it took some time to occur, I got my appetite back, I started laughing and smiling again, I was re energised and motivated again and all because I was doing a few hours of service a day. The doctor had wanted to put me on medication for stress and to help me sleep but as always I prefer natural remedies over medicating myself and at the end of the day I didn't need medication to heal me. If only a few hours of service a day can bring the healing and happiness that I needed imagine what a lifetime of service can do for you. Imagine what applying the words of Baha'u'llah "work done in the spirit of service is the highest form of worship" would do to preventing sickness and illness.

I really do appreciate what Adbu'l-Baha says in the above talk, without our spiritual nature we would be nothing but another animal on this planet. We have been given something so great and so powerful that it elevates us so far beyond the realm of the animal which sits below us and that gift is our souls. When we don't care for our souls then what is there that differentiates us from animals? There is a reason why people say laughter is the best medicine, there is a reason why the will to get better has a greater effect on our health than any medication, there is a reason why prayer and meditation work so wonderfully in bringing us healing and that reason is that all these things are connected to a higher realm which is the realm of our souls and the only way to receive true healing is through that realm.

When Bayan read the talk to me and especially the paragraphs that relate to material and spiritual remedies I knew instantly that my sickness was not a material sickness but a spiritual one and thanks to my being surrounded by beautiful people like Bayan and Asanda and meeting inspiring individuals like the women at the creche and the kids who came to our junior youth group I was able to heal and be happy again.

Addo's shining light

2011-01-24T23:26:00.000-08:00

I have previously written about an inspirational young Baha'i girl named Asanda who's efforts as the only Baha'i in Addo blew me away. In my post Inspiration I mentioned the children's classes that she was running and the amazing influence that she has in that area. Bayan and I took a trip down to Addo to stay with Asanda and help her out with some of the work that she is doing and again I was so inspired by both this inspirational girl and with Addo itself.

Bayan left for Addo on Thursday and I was supposed to go with her but I was waiting to hear from a landlord about whether he would rent his place to me and so I stuck around incase I was lucky enough to get it. By the end of the weekend I had given up on finding somewhere to live and so on Monday morning I took the trip down to Addo to join Bayan. I was physically and spiritually exhausted. It had been days since I had been able to finish a whole meal, the night before I left I had some corn for dinner and even then my body was rejecting food. I was drained, unmotivated, confused, upset and any other adjectives you can think of that describe a general state of depression. I barely had the energy to pack for this little trip and I was anxious as I was awaiting test results from the doctor aswell. To get to Addo without your own car you have to take a taxi from Motherwell so Olinga who had recently rescued me from homelessness, dropped me off at Greenacres before he went to work, then I got a taxi to town, a taxi from town to Motherwell and then got into the Addo taxi there. After sitting in the taxi for 20minutes waiting for it to fill up we finally were off and on our way. I arrived and got out to meet Asanda and Bayan and together we walked to a place that I will never forget.

Langbos is an informal settlement of about 500 people. The houses are all mud houses or shacks, there is no electricity or clean water and the settlement is plagued with the very common issue of excessive alcohol consumption. This community has been overlooked by the council, propper housing has been promised but again and again the commencement of its construction has been delayed, the excuse as always is lack of funds. We can only assume that the money has been drained into the pockets of those overlooking the projects. The families living in this area do seasonal work, picking oranges and working in farms and some of them receive monetary support from the government but many of the families are unable to receive money as they do not have an I.D or birth certificates and to attain these documents they have to travel to Port Elizabeth and many do not have the money to make that trip. The reason I will never forget Langbos is not because of the deteriorated state of the shacks that people call their homes, or because of the knowledge that during a heavy storm 2 people were killed when their mud house collapsed on them, or the sight of kids either almost naked or in torn clothes calling out to us and begging for food. The reason I won't forget Langbos is because of Inkwenkwezi Creche and what this pre-school teaches us about the power of the individual.

When a resident of Addo, Muffy Miller, saw children playing in an illegal rubbish dump in Langbos she decided to work towards establishing a safe haven for these neglected kids. After 5 years of fundraising she was finally able to fullfil that dream when in January 2006 the Intsikelelo Creche/Playschool opened offering supervision, food, clothing and most of all love to approximately 50 children a day. This facility is beautiful, everything from the paintings on the walls to the playground radiates with the love that it was established with. In the middle of this squatter camp where donkeys, goats and dogs wander freely and the community and the animals share the same dirty water stands this sanctuary. The community call it a safe haven for kids because that is exactly what it is. In communities like this unfortunately abuse and neglect are very common and the playschool offers a nuturing environment for these beautiful children.

The reason we were visiting Langbos and the Creche was because our own model for the power of the individual, Asanda, had approached the staff at the Creche who are also local residents and asked if they would be interested in being trained as Baha'i Children's Classes teachers and the staff had accepted so Bayan and I were there to complete their training. The Creche is managed and supported by three local churches and yet the current manager was so grateful that we had come to offer this service to the staff. To me that shows a genuine desire to work for the betterment of the community because she was willing to accept help regardless of where it came from, even another religion. So Bayan and I ran the sessions with two wonderful women Princess and Nomthandazo who will now incorporate the Baha'i lessons into the children's daily routine. Each lesson teaches a different theme and then uses prayers, songs, stories, art and games to emphasize and demonstrate each theme. The theme of the first lesson is unity and Nomthandazo loved the song that comes with this lesson so much she made us sing it at the start of every session we had together. The most wonderful thing about the Baha'i understanding of children's education is that it is the role of the teacher to help each child find their own talents and capacities and to bring those talents out. There is a bond that each teacher should create with each child, that no child ever be labelled as bad or misbehaved, no child should ever feel humiliated or under valued, children are not considered as empty books which we have to fill with our own knowledge. Instead we are asked to

"Regard man as a mine rich in gems of inestimable value. Education can, alone, cause it to reveal its treasures, and enable mankind to benefit therefrom."

(Baha'u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, p. 259)

Doing this course with these two wonderful women was so uplifting for me. Although getting to and from our accomodation at Asanda's house to the Langbos settlement was a mission as there are no taxis in Addo and we did not have a car and as hot as it was I still looked forward to our little trip to the Creche everyday where I could marvel at what a wonderful gift this Creche was to the community. I loved seeing the kids everyday and lighting up with each of their gorgeous smiles. This was definitely the medicine I needed to recover from the awful state I had been in a few days earlier.

To add to how wonderful this trip to Addo was I had the pleasure of facilitating a junior youth group established by Xola (a Baha'i from Johannesburg) when he had been visiting Asanda the week before I arrived. Asanda lives and works at the Elephant park with an entire community of other staff members and their families. There are so many children and junior youth living in this community who are yearning for junior youth groups and children's classes. Asanda would readily jump to offer these classes but as she already has 2 classes of her own and works full time it is too much to ask of her (although she has already offered). The kids that were attending the class were just so wonderful that being with them completely healed me from all my previous anxiety. Together we taught them prayers and shared stories with them which all had a moral that they had to figure out as well as playing games together and organising a service project. There was one young girl, only 7 years old, who astonished me more than any of the others. Her name is Camaron and she has a maturity and understanding that is far greater than her age. If you didn't look at her or hear the tone of her voice and only listened to the words she spoke you would think you were talking to a 14 year old. She just showed so much wisdom for someone who has only been around for 7 years. At one point she spoke about her school and how one of the teachers was still using Apartheid mentality and separated children in her class by race having one table for black kids and one for coloured...etc. She told us how she didn't think this was right and that everyone should be together and that she plays with everyone regardless of their colour. At another point she told us that people shouldn't fight, they should instead talk about their problems with each other. My goodness I just wanted to squish her, and I did. All the kids that attended the junior youth group were lovely and showed so much potential and their parents were so happy with what we were doing that on our last night before heading back to P.E the parents threw us a little goodbye party where we danced and ate chicken. There were these 3 gorgeous boys who had smiles that made your heart light up. Morgan is only 3 but the boy can dance and he does this cute little pouting face when he dances as well and his older brother Kevin had these eyes and smile that reminded me why I want to deticate my life to children's education.

You know that a place has touched your soul when regardless of the fact that you have no clean clothes left, your body is aching from all the walking you've had to do and the fact that there was a scorpain in the house amongst a variety of other insects that don't knock before entering you don't want to leave. I have decided that I will try to spend one or two days a week in Addo helping out with all the wonderful things that Asanda is doing there as well as seeing to the needs of these communities who have so much to offer and so much potential.

I left Addo feeling reinvigorated and with my strength and motivation back. I can also say that being with Bayan added to my regained state of well being. Being with her always makes me happy and I love how she will go along with all of my retarded suggestions like pretending to be blind while walking along the road and then crying from laughter when Bayan walked into a bush and when I would go along with her crazy ideas like running down hills with our hands in the air and screaming all the way. Also every morning we would check the map of the nature reserve to see what animals people had seen and everyone had seen the lions. Being vehicleless we weren't able to do a game drive but we would take walks around where we could and sit and watch one of the water holes. Every day we would pray to see a lion, instead we got one of those dear things, a buffalo, some birds and a few tortoises. We saw the funniest tortoise fall into the water hole and then struggle to get out because it kept falling in again. Eventually it got out and waddled away to everyone's relief. Oh and the scorpian which should have one an Oscar because it played dead so convincingly that I really thought it was dead. Asanda being the bravest of us all got some tissue and picked up the scorpian to take it outside and when she put it on the ground it just got up and started running again, amazing actors they are really.

On Friday morning we packed our bags, had our lsat session in Langbos and then walked along the road towards the location (township) where we would need to get our taxi to P.E. We walked along sticking our hands out and hoping a car would give us a lift and every time they drove past I would make a comment about the car and how we didn't actually want them to stop anyway. At one point I started singing Michael Jackson's "They don't really care about us" and me and Bayan changed the lyrics to suit our situation. We walked for about 20 minutes, I was walking infront of Bayan, when she yelled out to me put my hands up. I assumed she meant in the same way we would put our hands in the air to run down the hills so I put my hands up and waved them around, when she burst out laughing I realised she meant to put my hand out to signal to an oncoming car to stop. Thankfully the car did stop and a nice man gave us a lift to the taxi rank. This nice man turned out to be the councillor of Addo Mr. Vuyo Thambo and immediately I started drilling him about the state of Langbos and asking why they still hadn't received propper housing. I realised however, that he had just stopped to give us a lift and saved us walking for another hour and a half so I backed off a little and I ended my questioning by asking him if he thought he had improved people's lives in the 10 years that he has been serving as councillor and when he proudly and assuredly said yes and explained that the area we were driving through used to all be mud houses until he came along I left it at that. As he drove off in his fancy car through a township where most people's only form of transport is their legs it confirmed to me exactly where alot of the money designated for improving people's lives ends up going. He also managed to avoid being fined by the police when we were stopped for random checking, he wasn't wearing his seatbelt and his side view mirror was mirrorless.

I have decided that part of my plan for the next few months will also include Addo and so I will try to get to Addo maybe once a week to find people who would like to become teachers and junior youth facilitators to run classes and take some of the strain off of Asanda.

The Langbos Creche also has a Facebook Page if you would like more information

Bayan and I (The Wanderers) walking through Langbos

Langbos Squatter Camp

Kids in Langbos who I bribed with food to get a photo
Langbos
Langbos

The safe haven- Intsikelelo Care Centre

some of the kids at the Creche
Bayan sitting outside a classroom- the playground behind her

Me, Nomthandazo, Princess and Bayan in one of our sessions
our junior youth group

more of our junior youth group

Perfection Here I Come

2011-01-21T11:46:00.000-08:00

In a previous post The Anxiety of Happiness I talked about how sometimes it can be difficult to not feel guilty for complaining because I came on service completely out of my own volition and knowing full well that service comes with tests and hard times. I don't plan on revisiting the topic in this post but rather I would like to share this with you. It comes from the writings of Abdu'l-Baha and was sent to me by a friend who had found it when he was facing tests and difficulties while he was on service.

Reading it gave me such happiness and an utter sense of relief (as most the Baha'i Writings do) and so as always when I find something that brings me happiness I like to share it.

"The more difficulties one sees in the world the more perfect one becomes. The more you plough and dig the ground the more fertile it becomes. The more you cut the branches of a tree the higher and stronger it grows. The more you put the gold in the fire, the purer it becomes. The more you sharpen the steel by grinding the better it cuts. Therefore, the more sorrows one sees the more perfect one becomes. That is why, in all times, the Prophets of God have had tribulations and difficulties to withstand. The more often the captain of a ship is in the tempest and difficult sailing the more greater his knowledge becomes. Therefore I am happy that you have had great tribulations and difficulties . . . Strange it is that I love you and still I am happy that you have sorrows."

('Abdu'l-Bahá, Star of the West, vol. XIV, no. 2, p. 41)

What this passage has taught me is that South Africa has brought me so much closer to perfection I can taste it. No but in all seriousness the last 2 weeks have been the most difficult of the trip so far. It was like I fell right back to square one. Again I was questioning whether or not it was right for me to be here because everything just felt so wrong. I was stressed to the point where I became physically sick. I stopped eating for a week, I couldn't sleep, I had a constant headache and my anxiety levels were so high all because I felt lost again, the same feeling of confusion that I felt in the weeks before I went to Uganda. For those who don't remember it took me 8 attempts to get my visa renewed before it finally expired and I had to leave the country. When you try that many times to get your visa sorted out and everytime something goes wrong you start to wonder if maybe it's a sign you shouldn't be there and that is exactly what was going through my head. This time it wasn't about whether I could stay in the country or not but whether or not I would have a place to live in this country. My host family had agreed to have me till December/January and now that it's January I had to look for somewhere to live and once again just like the visa thing nothing worked out. Everyday I was searching for a place to rent and either no one wanted to rent to me for only 4 months or they were asking for ridiculous amounts for a house the size of a shoe box. Finally it reached the point where I actually did not have a place to live and thankfully one of the other Baha'i families in Port Elizabeth agreed to take me in while I continued to look. The stress was unbearable, I really started to question again whether this was a sign that I shouldn't be here. As always, however, things sorted themselves out and I have arranged a home for myself. Also a wonderful week in Addo helped to calm my nerves and get me eating again but that will be another blog post.

The strangest thing that happened during this whole ordeal was actually that I was grateful that things were going wrong. I mean if things went smoothley and I found a place to live just like that and everything was dandy then that means that I'm not getting tested anymore and if I'm not getting tested I don't get to reach perfection. It's kind of a strange place to be in, enjoying hardships and sufferings so you can add them to your list of life struggles that made you a better person. Me and Bayan (who has kindly offered to take me in and give me a home) now always joke about how we are going to make life difficult for ourselves just so that we can claim that we are becoming more perfect.

I guess I hope this maybe assists in offereing you another perspective on the hardships of life. It is strange how we complain about the difficult times when it's those difficult times that make our lives mean something. No one's ever written a book on how they had a perfect life and everything was butterflies and roses and if someone has written a book like that I doubt anyone is reading it. Although the ultimate goal is to create a world where people don't have to suffer for the time being we should take advantage of all the horrible things that come our way in this life because it is exactly those things that will help us attain perfection and just between you and me if you want to fast track your journey to perfection just come to South Africa, there's plenty of opportunity to suffer here. Like the title of the post says perfection here I come.

more of Malawi

2011-01-16T10:36:00.000-08:00

Now for a continuation of my experiences in Malawi and to set the tone for this segment I’ll start off by telling you about the 6month old baby that peed on me. Great experience that was, I flat our refused to hold another baby in the villages again. One vital aspect of village life that I have only barely touched on is food, or the extreme lack thereof. Understandably when you live in a village and you rely on the land and nature to eat food is seen more of a necessity than a luxury. People only eat as much as they need to survive and there is no such thing as waste. Our meals consisted mostly of moosh in all varieties. Green moosh, brown moosh, black moosh. The green moosh was casavar leaves, the brown moosh was casavar samp (pap) and the black moosh was mooshed up flies. Moosh was usually served with fish as these were lakeside villages or if you were special enough with chicken. To serve chicken would be a big sacrifice because the family would kill one of their chickens for you. We were bestowed this honour twice on our trip. So as you can imagine I lost a fair amount of weight in the villages. If there were no mangoes I think I would have starved, not to say that there is anything wrong with the food just that I’m not big on pap or eating leaves.

So we spent the first 2 days in Mdyaka village before it was time to move on. We all packed our bags and loaded ourselves up for the journey to the next villages. We were also going to be stopping to visit people on the way. We lost two of our posse, Vafa and Aunty Phebe had to head back to Lilongwe to attend to their own business and so our slightly reduced crew continued on to new adventures. Our first location was to a lady named Agnes’s house as she was holding a training session for new junior youth animators. It was a long walk, sweat would just drip from you and the sun was beaming down on us the whole way. When we arrived we plonked ourselves down and enjoyed the opportunity to rest but it wasn’t long before we were up, the herd of mules loaded up with baggage. I got clever this time though and draped a sarong over my head to protect me from the sun. Now we had no idea where we were going, we were just told that we would be visiting different villages to meet with other Baha’is and see how they were doing. We’re hiking through the bush, enjoying the scenery when all of a sudden we reach a road. Confused we ask our leader Mr Kachingwe how much further it is as we’ve already been walking for almost an hour... “It should take about 2 hours”.... 2 HOURS!!!! Every step we took our backpacks felt heavier, the sun was throwing down everything it had and we were already tired from the previous days travels and the lack of sleep. It was a very painful journey. As we walked along the road we thought our salvation had come. A ute heading towards us slows down, the driver sticks his head out the window, oh the relief I felt, the comfort of sitting down, of removing this backpack, of air conditioning. “Are you going for a nice stroll, where are you going?” our leader responds and then, to our absolute horror he just drives off. Confused we all just watch the ute drive away and with nothing else to do we keep on walking. After a little while we cut back through the bush and pass through a bunch of villages. Walking along these tracks the trees tease us by giving just patches of shade to remind us of the coolness of being sheltered from the sun. Finally dripping with sweat, with aching limbs and cramped up backs we reach or destination and heap ourselves on to the floor. We meet with a few Baha’is and Mr Kachingwe takes some statistics before it’s back on our feet and on the road again.

We walk out and end up back on the road, there’s a small shop there and finding that they have cold soft drinks we race to buy some much needed relief. If only a Coca Cola camera crew were there because we would have made the best advertisement. All of us a bottle of coke in hand standing around and gulping the sweet sugary goodness down. Wow it was the best coke I’ve ever had in my life. At last relief, we didn’t have to walk anymore or at least for the next leg. We waited for a bus and then headed off to the next village. This village was called Ndawabiya and the chief of the village is a Baha’i and he graciously opened his home to our travelling party. There was a huge crowd of kids who would follow us everywhere and so I took them all and taught them different songs like “head, shoulders, knees and toes” so cute they would say tons instead of toes. I also took the Wiggles to the village and sang as many of their songs as I could remember as well as doing the Hokey Pokey and a range of other songs. My name in this village is Malita so I would hear that being called out from every side, I guess it was better than Azungu. We went for our traditional swim in the lake and ate a bucket load of mangoes. The chief had a chicken killed for us which covered dinner and then came the part of village life I love the most, sleep. No I didn’t get any. 4 girls on the floor, no mattress, no pillow, stuffy heat and snorelax just a few metres away and to make it even better Sandra decided to respond to snorelax’s calls and started snoring too.

The next day consisted of visiting the Baha’is of this village and taking statistics which took most of the day. It was nice to visit people and hear their stories. Then we loaded up again and started the trek to Bandawe which is Mr Kachingwe’s village. We put our bags down and then headed off for the lake. We walked through the bush for about 30minutes and then down the oldest tar road which we made sufficient fun of before getting to Chintheche Inn. This was a resort which meant chips and soft drink and normal toilets. I had 3 mosquito bites under my foot and so where there were lots of small rocks in the lake I would rub my foot against them, OMG it felt so good.

Back at Mr Kachingwe’s village we saw fireflies, anything I want to write about seeing them is going to sound so lame but here goes.. they were magical. The best part of this place was that I had a real bed to sleep on, with a mattress and a mosquito net. Unfortunately my body went into crazy mode and I just had all this energy so at like 11pm when everyone else was asleep I went and sat outside and I’m actually grateful for it. Although there were no lights on anywhere it was so bright outside. The moonlight was so strong that I could sit and write in my journal. This is what I wrote in that solitary moment.

The moonlight is so strong, although there are no other lights you can see all around you. The only sounds around me are the ones you would typically assume of any rural environment; crickets chirping and distant footsteps. Off in the distance I hear the sound of drums and women singing. It’s peaceful, the kind of peace that touches your soul, the kind of peace that lifts you and fulfils you and reminds you to love and teaches you that your own happiness is here.

I like it here, I like the peace. It makes my soul happy. It makes me question all the things that I make important in my life, what do they really mean? What are they really worth? Am I the person my soul wants me to be or am I a construction of false understandings? Have I become what I am not? My true self buried under comfort and want.

While I was sitting outside enjoying the nothingness of that moment a young boy came and sat next to me. We tried to talk but his English was minimal. What we managed to get through to each other were the basics like name, age, what grade he’s in at school and at one point he said the stars were covered by the clouds. The rest was silence. It was one of the best conversations I had there.

And with that evening ended our time in the villages. The next morning we carried all our stuff to the road and waited for a bus to take us back to Lilongwe. The rains came that day and they didn’t stop for days.

Me and Dolika, the Chief's daughter
Lake Malawi, the white stuff is casavar root being dried
Lake Malawi
Some of the herd of mules
Lunathi and my shadows on the oldest tar road
Monirih and I trying to protect ourselves from the sun
The Baha'i Centre at Ndwabiya
village kids

Women doing a traditional dance

Bush Toilet

2011-01-12T12:25:00.000-08:00

My whole life I was proud to say that I had avoided ever having to use a drop toilet or a squatty toilet. Not in India, in Vanuatu, in Uganda have I ever succumb to the need to use a squatty toilet. My first exposure to one of these toilets goes to show the lengths to which I have gone to avoid using one. When we arrived in India in December 2001 my sister and I went to the toilets at the airport. Within 10seconds I came out again. My mum “That was fast, did you go?” my response “No all the toilets are under construction, they were just a hole in the ground” and then the daunting truth, mum “That is the toilet”. My sister and I corrupted our regular excretion patterns by only going to the toilet when we saw a McDonalds or were at our accommodation.

I have gone so far as to have never ‘released my load’ in any other way than using a traditional toilet, one with a seat and a flush. Mind you there have been countless occasions where such toilets have been filthy, the smell abhorrent, no toilet paper, the flush not functioning but regardless of that I have never had to squat... until...

This is the toilet that would change my life forever and as absurd as it seems that I would write about this I am going to share my first experience with you.

It’s day one of our time in the village and Mdyaka village is the chosen spot for where my number one adventure would occur. It’s approximately 6pm and I have already come to the realisation that I will not be able to survive or function for 5 days without using the toilet. It has already been cemented in my mind that my 21 year track record of never having used a drop toilet is going to come to an end and that this place would be the one to rob me of my drop toilet virginity. I decide that there is no going around it, the deed has to be done and I would prefer to do the deed while there is still some light so just as the sun is going down I make the announcement “I need to use the toilet”. So I got my toilet paper and was led to the little shack and there it was, the hole in the ground. The hole is shaped like a key hole where the top circle is bigger than the bottom one. On later analysis I decide that the larger circle is where you should squat over and the smaller circle is just in case you miss. There are even two foot shaped moulds on either side indicating where you should place your feet. My guide has left me with the torch and so it is time to begin. My guide also left the torch on disco mode so as I prepare myself blue, red and white light is flashing off the walls. Hoping not to fall in and concerned about whether I’m doing it right I began with the task and... I DID IT!!!! I used a squatty toilet. It was such a disgusting experience especially the part where you don’t flush or get to wash your hands. The most frightening part was where as I was in ‘the position’ I heard a swarm of flies buzz around me and I feared for where they might go to explore.

After this initial experience I actually became quite a pro at going to the toilet in ‘the bush’ however my body eased up tremendously when we finally were offered the opportunity to use a normal toilet again.

So there you have another glimpse into life in the villages in Malawi.. I hope this insight into a moment of my life acts in bringing us closer haha

Malawi Time!!

2011-01-10T10:29:00.000-08:00

So much time has passed since my last post.. I feel overwhelmed at where to pick up again. The last 2 months have been filled with eye openers, inspiring moments, interesting stories and exciting adventures and I have so much I want to share so I am still deciding on what to make this post about.

I think I will go from the start of the beginning ( a saying which I heard today) and dedicate this post to sharing my experiences from the place that took me offline in the first place, Malawi.

What an unexpected and surprising 3 weeks that turned out to be. So as I explained in my last post Lunathi and I decided to come to Malawi for service. We started off with daily Junior youth groups and Children’s classes which were a test to our communication skills as many of the kids did not speak English. The classes were nice but most definitely the highlight of the entire trip was Chintheche. Chintheche is an area just a 7 hour bus trip north of the capital Lilongwe. Lunathi and I accompanied by a posse of other local Baha’is headed off to the lakeside villages to do some teaching and visit other Baha’is in those areas. The lake that I’ve mentioned is Lake Malawi. Never before have I heard the word ‘lake’ used to describe a body of water that ginormous. 6 hours of our bus trip was alongside the lake and we didn’t even go to the top. This lake borders 3 countries, it looks like an ocean and it’s surrounded by sand. It was like going to the beach but without waves and the water temperature like that of a warm bath. We were also warned that there are crocodiles and hippos in the lake not that that information hindered us at all in diving right in. After having to hike from where the bus dropped us off to the village itself in extreme heat and the sun blaring down on us and each of us carrying our luggage on our backs (and remember Lunathi and I are very much city girls, we don’t pack light) we were desperate for relief and so regardless of all the dangers we were warned of in regards to swimming in the lake we dived right in.

I can sum up our time in Chitheche with the following image, boiling dry heat, sitting under mango trees, relishing in their fruit, teaching locals about the Baha’i Faith and the classes that the Baha’is have to offer. That is what it means to go teaching in the villages. Now what it means to live in the villages looks something more like this.. sweat, aching limbs from hours of walking between villages, “AZUNGU” being heard on every side, echoed by the voices of local children (Azungu means white person), little girls crying whenever I came near them (most traumatising experience ever) mosquitoes, hole in the ground toilets, sleeping on rock hard floors, heat, no electricity, chickens, goats and swimming in the lake. That pretty much covers what life in the village was like for us. Now as I had served in Vanuatu before and lived in a hut with bugs and rats and all the rest of it I wasn’t too fussed by village life, except the squatty toilet which is another blog post on its own, but for my dear companion Lunathi who has never been too far from her phone, comfy bed and all the other typical city girl things it was rough. I don’t think she has fond memories of the village. I’ll share some exciting new experiences with you now. First off I ate flies. I ate them both alive and cooked and to be honest I liked the live ones better. They are these little lake flies that fly in a cloud of black and are collected by waving a basket through the swarm. They eat them live like chips just walking around with their basket and dipping their hands in every now and then. They didn’t really have a flavour more just a fluffy texture. The cooked flies come in a patty and don’t taste nice at all. They don’t have much in terms of seasoning in the village so everything just tastes salty. NEXT I had barbequed rat, the one I had was a little burnt and it may or may not have resulted in me feeling like I was on speed later on in the evening. The next thing I want to share is more of a funny story..

So Mdyaka was the first village that we stayed in and one of the Baha’is there generously donated his 2 bedroom hut to our travelling party of 8. Now please don’t assume that when I say bedroom I mean a bedroom, these families live only for what they need and a bedroom really just means a space for a bed. One of the rooms had 2 beds and the other had 1. Lunathi and I shared the single room, the 4 other girls who were Sandra, Vafa, Moonirih and Aunty Phebe shared the other with 2 in one bed, 1 with her own bed and one on the floor and the 2 males, Justin and Mr Kachingwe were on the floor in the front room. By bed I mean wooden structure with no mattress. In the heat, no pillow, on a hard wood surface, with mosquitoes buzzing around your ears sleep was not a term that can be attributed to that first night. On top of it all Mr Kachingwe was developing a flu or something and my goodness I have never in my life heard sounds like that. To call it snoring would not do justice to the roars that were emitted by this single individual. From that night on we dubbed him snorelax. As you can imagine on our second night there after the exhausting days and the minimal food and the lack of sleep from before I was willing to do anything to ensure that I would be able to sleep so I volunteered to sleep on the floor. As there were already 3 people on the floor most of the straw mats and things had been taken so with only one blanket underneath me and with some of my clothes rolled up to make a pillow I settled in to sleep. I blasted music from my Ipod into my ears to drown out the sounds of the mosquitoes and snorelax, I was so tired that even watching 3 rats scamper into the house on the roof ledge didn’t bother me I was finally able to sleep until.... THUMP!! Something hits me on the head and falls down next to me. It’s pitch dark around me so I reach out my hand to try and feel what it was, I touch it and squeeze it a few times but I don’t recognise this thing so I shine light from my Ipod onto it and low and behold it’s a roll of bread. How on earth did a roll of bread manage to fall onto me? I look up to see if maybe bread isn’t stored above me somewhere when I hear it, “Squeak, squeak squeak...” it makes sense now. The rats were trying to get their dinner, they took something too big for them to carry and dropped it on the way out. Now I see them, arguing with each other, deciding whether or not to go back for their food. “Squeeeeeeeak, squeak, squeak” “Squeakety, squeak, squeak”. I decide that if they do want to come back for it I don’t want the bread anywhere near me so I flick it over towards Justin instead. Another night of sleep destroyed, I watch the sun rise and the chickens make noise as they wake up, the chickens also sleep in the house, and so begins another day.

There is so much that I can talk about in regards to our village adventure but in order to do justice to all the thoughts in my head I will leave this post here and finish off the rest in blog posts to come.

Children's classes in Lilongwe
doing an art activity on Unity

walking to Mdyaka

Justin, myself and Lunathi at dinner time

Fly patty... mmmmmm

the floor that I slept on
MANGO EATING TIME!!

part of our posse.. Moonirih, Sandra, Justin, me and Lunathi

The Tears We Shed

2011-01-10T09:33:00.001-08:00

My eye is red and swollen, I think a reaction to sand or salt water after an afternoon learning to surf. As much as I know that rubbing it will only make it hurt the satisfaction and the relief from that action makes the itchiness almost worth it. Every now and then water swells in my eye and a tear or two drop down my cheek and I wonder why do we cry? Why when we are in pain or hurt does our body create a reaction that causes tears to fall from our eyes? It makes sense that when a finger or other pointed object collides with our eyes that tears would result, or in my case today, when something irritates our eyes but I am actually baffled as to what function this crying has to offer our bodies.

I’m trying now to look back on all the times I’ve cried, what did I cry for and when the tears were shed what was the outcome? When I’ve cried as a result of physical pain did those tears aid in the recovery of that pain? Never. When I’ve been hurt emotionally has crying ever resolved that issue? No. When I’ve felt grief or sadness was shedding tears of any relief to my hurt? Not really. So why then do we have this built in feature?

Maybe it isn’t the tears themselves but the act of release that aids us in these tear shedding times. Seeing someone else cry evokes in us this sense of empathy, this sharing of emotion that we have all experienced some time before. We as humans, as much as we deny our oneness, as much as we claim to be independent of all others, reliant only on ourselves and bereft of the humanity that moves around us, we are drawn to each other. We all want to be near other people, we share the need to be loved, to be wanted, to be touched and needed. Us humans are a remarkable species and we as an international community have more in common than we ever pay attention to. We have a universal language that we do not learn in schools or in books or from one another but we are given as a piece of our own selves. A language that comes so naturally that we speak it from the moment we enter this world and that language is our gestures. These symbolic expressions that are always recognisable, that create in all of us a sense of emotion, a sharing of emotion as we each give away our feelings. They say that a smile is contagious and so is a tear. The rawness of its expression, the vulnerability of the one who shows it, the understanding of the emotion that is shared, this is a testament to the power of its generation.

A tear isn’t just an excretion of liquid from the eyes, it is a statement about ourselves at the time each tear is formed and released and maybe that is its only purpose.

The wall has fallen

2010-12-08T00:40:00.000-08:00

So the writing block has officially come to an end. I have a hundred thoughts in my head that I want to put into writing, now there is just the challenge of separating them all and structuring them into something that will be conceived as logical by those who read it.

To update you all I am writing this from the staff room of the Bambino school in Lilongwe, Malawi. What am I doing in Malawi? Well my stay in South Africa is coordinated by the Pioneering Committee and they are at this moment undecided as to whether I stay in Port Elizabeth until the end of my stay in May 2011 or if I move north to Polokwane and start all over again there until May 2011. So I'm in limbo, unable to start any new activities in PE incase I have to pack up and leave but also unable to start in Polokwane incase I don't have to go and with the school year in SA now at a close all my activities in that area have also come to an end.

On Friday the 26th of November we had a wonderful graduation ceremony for all the kids in our Children's Classes and Junior Youth groups in Kuyga. It was so nice, we invited the parents of the kids to come too and I made cake for everyone. The kids performed and we gave them certificates. Really lovely way to bring to close activities for the year. So with that Lunathi and I decided that instead of spending the month of December on holidays doing nothing but bludging and spending money we would go on service. Somehow someone said Malawi and so here I am.

Here I am.. but where is Lunathi? My wonderful little friend failed to realise that her passport expired and it wasn't until we were at the check in counter of South African Airways at O.R Tambo airport that the lady behind the counter brought our attention to a little detail called an expirey date which happened to be in June of this year. So Lunathi will be arriving tomorrow and had to organise an emergency passport in the meantime. I am here, in some ways enjoying being on my own as it offered some break time for me to reflect on myself and when she arrives we will begin running daily junior youth groups and children's classes.

Quick story that I will share before heading off.. As a result of traffic and some 100000 people waiting in line to check in the only available seats on the plane were middle seats. I was praying that the two people who would be on either side of me would be small or women and instead I had two of the world's biggest men on either side of me and one who would not stop fidgetting. I was tired, annoyed and frustrated and I seriously wanted to cry in hopes that a flight attendant would feel sorry for me and move me to business class. To make matters worse we were one row behind the emergency exits. I could see the leg room, so close yet so far. I sat there hoping that I could endure the next 2.5hours when God, as if listening to the thoughts in my head, answered my prayers. A man and his 2 sons came and sat in the exit row seats, looking at the boys I knew they were too young to sit there and the flight attendant confirmed this. They had to swap seats. Immediately I jumped up and said I was happy to swap and take on the responsibility of guarding the exit door in the unlikely event of an emergency. I took the aisle seat, stretched my legs out, asked for the beef and enjoyed a very pleasant flight to Malawi.

Will be in touch when I have consistent internet access which unfortunately thanks to both MTN and Zain communications does not look like it will be any time soon.

Ta ta

There is nothing sweeter in the world of existence than

2010-11-26T02:02:00.001-08:00

The title of this post comes from a quote from the Baha’i writings written by Abdu’l-Baha, the eldest son of the founder of the Baha’i Faith, Baha’u’llah, and His successor after His passing. Abdu’l-Baha says “There is nothing sweeter in the world of existence than prayer.” It was in the shower at a friend’s place that this quote came to mind. As I was enjoying the force of the water against my back, the temperature exactly where I wanted it, hot enough to make you sweat but at that point where you can just tolerate it, I thought to myself how much I enjoyed showering. Now this may come across as an odd or insignificant thought to have and even writing about it now I feel almost silly to have had such passionate feelings about a shower but for the past 4 months that I have been living in Port Elizabeth I have been showerless. The family that I live with has a shower but it happens to be broken and so they use the bath. Doesn’t sound like that big a deal right? Both were designed to provide the same outcome and both utilise water in the achievement of that outcome so bath/shower what does it matter? Yeah, that’s what I thought the first night I arrived at my new home. We went through the general list of queries that we had for each other; Is there anything I can’t eat? How do we schedule who does the housework? Where is the washing machine? Then I got hit with this question... “When do you prefer to bath?” I replied “I like to shower at night” and then the revelation that would alter a vital part of my existence for the next 4 months... “Our shower is not working so we use the bath” BOM BOM BOOOMMMMM!!!!!

Towel in hand, geezer switched on, water running I locked the bathroom door in preparation for my first bath. Yes of course I have had a bath before, when I was a kid my parents would put me and my sister in the bathtub with lots of bubble bath and we would put the foam on our faces and heads and pretend to be old men but in my adult life I have never taken a bath with the intention of getting clean afterwards. Baths have been a once a year occurrence. Buy some bath oils, light some candles, enjoy 20minutes of nothing while almost dosing off as the steam of the hot water fogs up the bathroom mirror. That was my fond, tranquil, relaxing memory of bath time pre South Africa but now... I filled up the bath tub and got in, ok so far so good. The same pattern as having a shower I got my body scrub and scrubbed my body. Once I was finished with that process I began to notice something that disturbed me. I was sitting in a bath of water filled with the stuff I had just washed off of myself. Hmmmmm, strange, I had always thought the purpose of a bath was to get clean, how can you get clean if you’re stuck in the stuff you just washed off? I left that bath feeling less hygienic than I did before I got in. Even when I have my relaxing baths at home I still shower before and after the bath to wash everything off. I was faced with the prospect of having to endure this horrific process every day for the next 4 months and I did. There have been times where I have wanted to hire a hotel room just to use the shower. Anytime I go to visit a friend who has a shower I always come prepared with shampoo and conditioner in hand ready to take advantage of the opportunity to really feel clean. So as I stood at my friends house, under the shower, my first shower in just over a week a thought came to my head..”There is nothing sweeter in the world of existence than a shower” I began to think about the other things that I have learnt to appreciate since being away from home, since moving away from a first world western society to a third world developing country.

I have covered one of those things and now plan to reveal some more of them to you...

Hugo

Hugo is the name of my 1993 Honda Civic who is sitting at home waiting for my return. And no it’s not so much my particular car that I miss but just having a car. The independence that it offers, the freedom, the comfort and convenience. Yes having a car means your wallet drains much faster than it usually would as petrol and maintenance eat all your money but still all the traffic in the world is still better than relying on public transport.

When I get home, it doesn’t matter how many trees suffer as a result of it, I am driving everywhere. At least for the first couple of weeks then I’m sure I’ll go back to my beloved CityRail.

Mum’s Cooking

It’s true, no one can cook better than your mum and my mum is an amazing cook. I think that when I get home I will gain so much weight as I eat enough to compensate for a year without her food. Speaking of food though I have definitely improved my cooking skills. I have to say they’ve gone from a -5 to around a 3. I learnt how to..wait for it.. boil and fry an egg AND I made lasagne AND I have cooked meals using whatever there is in the house and it actually tasted good. Pretty impressive I know.

Food in General

The following are foods that South Africa is deprived of and I can't wait to go home and eat them all...

Seafood Laksa

Hungry Jacks Whopper

Starbucks

Boost Juice

All work and no play

I actually miss having a job, the kind that you earn money from. There's a certain comfort in knowing you have a consistent stream of money coming in. Also I've really come to realise how easy it is in Australia to find work and to make money. Working as a casual at Woolworths Supermarket I was earning $22 an hour. In South Africa the same job would earn you R14 an hour, that's less than $3. Things are usually relative, you live in a country where you earn $2 a day but that $2 can buy you a whole week of groceries but South Africa isn't like that. A loaf of bread costs about R8 or a taxi ride from your house to the shops costs R5. Minimum wage here is not relative to the cost of living which although is much lower than what it is in Australia it is still too expensive for the people living here. So as much as I complained about going to work before I am really grateful that I can go home and earn money so that I can continue to gallivant around the world.

Family

This one is pretty standard and I think very much expected. You really never realise how great your life is until you leave it behind. I miss home and my family and my friends. Not to say that there aren't families in Australia who neglect their kids or have issues but really seeing some of the things I've seen here, the way kids are raised, I am so grateful for my parents and what they offered me in life.

When I was home all I wanted to do was get out and travel and now that I've been gone for a while I am having huge cravings to be home again. I want my bed and my backyard my kitchen, all those things back. I miss hearing my little brother laughing to himself as he replays Youtube videos in his head. I miss the way my mum smiles when I see her. I miss my dad's awesome jokes and how he's always the first and sometimes the only one to laugh at them. I miss my big fat cat Chicky and the way her belly wobbles when she runs to the kitchen at the sound of food.

It's hard sometimes being so far from the people who support you, who know you and who you can turn to whenever you may need them. I have so many stories for my family and friends at home and sometimes I want time to go faster so that I can finally get home and tell them all.

The last thing on my list is the one that Abdu'l-Baha wrote Himself

There is nothing sweeter in the world of existence than prayer

Really I have learnt so much about prayer while I've been on this trip and although I always knew its importance and always used it now I have found another connection with prayer. Like I said before it can be really difficult to be so far from your support group but in those times when you feel all alone, completely isolated and helpless there is one channel of communication that is always open. A support system that never closes down and that is through prayer. I think sometimes we forget that we aren't really ever alone and I am starting to remember that more and more.

I have learned a whole lot about myself and still have 6 more months of learning left. You can only imagine how much wiser I am going to become! :)

My next block of learning will come from some service I am going to do in Malawi. I will be there for about 3 weeks helping with teaching activities, junior youth groups and children's classes as I wait to see what my plans will be in South Africa in the new year.

Will and the Indians

2010-11-22T12:20:00.000-08:00

In the last 2 days that I have begun writing again I have started 3 blog posts of which I have only been able to finish 1. What I've realised is that I don't feel like writing about myself, every time I start writing about something too much related to myself I just stop part of the way in and move on to something else so I decided that until this phase (and I hope it's a phase) ends I will just have to write about people that aren't me.

This one goes out to Will and the Indians. It's a band for which my little brother plays the drums and what I'm about to say is not completely based on the obvious bias I have towards anything involving my brother but is also based on the facts and those facts are that this is a really amazing band.

Besides the fact that they make music that is way more mature than their age (they started the band at 15.. they are now 16) I admire more than anything their amazing determination and dedication to something that they love. These 4 boys being Will - lead guitarist and singer, Kabir - guitar, Michael - bass and my brother Matin - drums, have shown a maturity and responsibility for their music that I have never been able to master. Even more amazing is that all of them with the exception of Will are fairly new to music. They have been playing for a couple of years and for the most part have been learning their instruments as they go.

Really what I want to do is share what they have created. Baha'u'llah says "We, verily, have made music as a ladder for your souls, a means whereby they may be lifted up unto the realm on high" (Baha'u'llah, The Kitab-i-Aqdas, p. 38)

These boys have tapped into a creative stream that has the potential to elevate the soul and I am so proud of them for that. All of us have been given gifts and potentials and we can only hope that we utilise those gifts to fulfil our potentials, I believe that these boys are doing just that. They make good music, music that I put on my ipod and listen to and get stuck in my head and start singing at random occasions throughout the day and I'm proud of them for that. There's nothing more satisfying than seeing someone you love achieve something great and every time I think of my little brother, my baby bro I feel so fulfilled. He makes me want to do better, want to achieve more. It's crazy to admit but I actually look up to him (right now he's probably thinking literally, yes he is taller than me too haha).

So here I go.. sharing this because that's what you do when you have something amazing in your reach, you share it with others.

Facebook

Facebook2

myspace - this is where all the music is at

And this video is the boys in the train doing one of their songs A Capella - "Cold Weather". Although I don't know who the kid is with the long blond hair on the left.. he's not in the band

Inspiration

2010-11-21T07:21:00.001-08:00

Although I had always planned to write this piece my mum had made a special request that I write about the Junior Youth group we established at Kuyga school so that she could send it in to the monthly Australian Baha’i newsletter. I have been mentally formatting how I would write about it, what I would emphasise and how I wanted it to feel and I was planning on writing it in the next few days but today I saw something that inspired me so much that I feel like it deserves to be written about first.

About an hour out of Port Elizabeth is an area called Addo. Addo is mostly known for its nature reserves mainly Addo Elephant Sanctuary which is popular with the tourists. Addo is very much a rural area, the type where you can drive for kilometres and only come across one house, a small petrol station and a general store. Addo also has a township and like all townships the environment is the same, the roads are the same, the houses are the same, the social and economic issues are the same and so you can imagine the opportunities for service that there are in this community. Now in the whole of Addo including all the farm houses and the township there is only one Baha’i. One girl named Asanda. I had heard of Asanda a few times but only met her a couple of months ago when she came to P.E to attend our Baha’i Society function. Today Asanda held an end of the year ceremony for the kids in her Baha’i Children’s Classes and she had invited the Baha’is of Port Elizabeth to come as well. Lunathi and I decided to go down to Addo and help her out with running the function.

We set up the chairs in the hall, Asanda had invited the parents of the kids to attend and she had estimated about 100 participants in total. We had drinks, hot dogs and desert enough for 100 people but saying a number like 100 and then actually seeing it are two very different things. Into the hall walked 50 kids, they sat on one side of the hall, the youngest in the front, the older kids in the back, all dressed up in their pretty dresses or their nice pants. Asanda stood in front of all the kids, owning their attention as we awaited the parents to arrive. I stood there in shock, standing behind the seats of the last row of kids, witnessing one girl conducting 50 kids. Each child sat patiently in obedience to the request of their teacher. Asanda would request a song that they had learnt and a choir of children’s voices would fill the hall.

Completely alone in this community what Asanda has achieved is a testament to the power of the individual. Asanda works full time, she lives at the Elephant Sanctuary where she works which is a 15min drive away and she does not have a car and yet she has still found the time to run two children’s classes with more than 50 kids in total. I was truly amazed.

One portion of the program saw one of the parents stand up to talk about how they felt having their child in the class. This woman stood up and said that she was so proud of what Asanda was doing that at her church she would request all the other church goers to send their kids to Asanda’s class. I was really inspired by what Asanda has achieved there in Addo. The support she receives from the parents and the adoration that you see in the eyes of the children for their teacher goes to show that even if you are the only one standing your single light can penetrate so far that it can illumine a whole town.

It was so wonderful to be part of that day and to spend time with these beautiful children who were not only exceptionally well behaved but also amazing dancers. At the end of the program a dj came and you should have seen these kids. It was funny because at first I went around recording the kids dancing and then when I joined in the mothers started recording me dancing on their phones. They were so impressed with my moves.

The program ended with the children reciting 3 prayers which they had learnt and Asanda finished with the following prayer. What she has achieved in Addo is helping guarantee that these kids receive exactly what this prayer requests.

O God! Educate these children. These children are the plants of Thine orchard, the flowers of Thy meadow, the roses of Thy garden. Let Thy rain fall upon them; let the Sun of Reality shine upon them with Thy love. Let Thy breeze refresh them in order that they may be trained, grow and develop, and appear in the utmost beauty. Thou art the Giver. Thou art the Compassionate.

- 'Abdu'l-Bahá

uninspired

2010-11-14T12:42:00.000-08:00

So from the title of this post I think you can maybe get an idea of what I'm going to write about. For me writing is my release, it's the way I express myself, it's my story. Everytime I write I empty out a little bit of myself into each word so that each sentence, each paragraph forms a picture of who I was at the time I wrote it. When I write I am imprinting a moment onto the page and that moment is me at that time. I love writing exactly for the sake of this, I feel like I am finding out about myself through my words, I'm writing a textbook on me.

My imprint, the stamp of myself at this moment is the title of this post; uninspired. I just haven't felt like writing. South Africa has started to grow on me and I think my constant exposure to all its sides has numbed me from the extremes it projects. The poverty, the wealth, the racism, the injustice, all of it. I am numb, completely desensitised and it has impacted on my writing.

Strangely enough before my inspiration fizzled I wrote a blog post that I have yet to put up because I wasn't sure about it and decided to approach it from a different angle but I haven't even been motivated to do that. This doesn't feel like writers block although it could be something like that.. Hopefully it will end soon and I will make up for the time that I haven't put anything out.

Until then I'm off

My life is like..

2010-10-18T12:23:00.000-07:00

This one’s more for my friends and family at home who might want to know what I do with my life here in Port Elizabeth so I’ve decided to go day by day and update everyone on what my life looks like on each day. Let us begin with what I consider as the start of the week which is Monday.

Mondays at the moment are my free day. I spend this day sleeping in, going for a jog, writing up reports or lessons, shopping...etc Mondays are also usually meeting days for the Baha’i Society at NMMU so I also end up travelling to the university for those sort of things as well.

Tuesdays are my favourite day of the week because that’s when the Rockstars get together. This is our weekly Junior Youth Group at Kuyga school with 40+ participants. This week there was a total of 62 participants including the animators. That’s because on Monday I went to the school and talked to the grade 8 kids about Junior Youth Group and how we need more animators, 21 kids put their hands up to become animators and 17 of those kids attended the Junior Youth Group to get a feel for it and help out. The Rockstars also have their own song and this week they had all gathered in the classroom before we got there and were singing the song together. As we approached the room we could hear this choir of 10-15 year old voices all singing their song, some showing off their dance moves, in anticipation of our arrival. It was such a successful session. We started at 1pm and went till 4pm.

After our jy group Bayan and I go and visit Aziz who is a pioneer from Kenya. He is also a teacher but works at a different school and we are hopefully going to start Ruhi Book 1 with some of the students from his school on Tuesday afternoons as well.

Tuesday nights we have a weekly devotional at my house.

Wednesdays see me temporarily changing residence to another Baha’i family’s home, the Anvaris. First off at 2pm I have a Book 1 with 3 boys from the university, Ndaba, Sanda and Zuko who are friends of some of the Baha’is at the uni. Then I head over to the Anvari’s where I do Baha’i classes with Anise(11years). I spend the night at their place until...

Thursday where I go to the university to prepare for the Baha’i Society’s weekly deepening session and after attending that deepening I spend the night with the youth who live near the university. Also if you read my post called the Basement Project you would know that every second Thursday I go to an open mic event for poetry, hiphop, rap, music and any other type of arts you can think of.

Fridays we have our weekly devotional gathering at the university and the Baha’i society meets to plan future events and things.

Saturdays are also quite hectic and spent almost entirely in Kuyga. I tutor a book 1 at 11.30am then another book 1 at 1pm and try and squish a book 4 somewhere in this day also.

Sundays the community hosts a weekly devotional/deepening which we attend. Generally over the weekends as well I go out with the youth.

So there you have it that’s what my life looks like. Soon there will be an additional book 1 which will include our new Baha’i Basil as well as some friends of the Anvaris and Monday night yoga sessions with a wonderful lady named Aunty Shanty who teaches yoga for free as a service to the community.

PHOTO TIME!!

One of our many fruitful Baha'i Society meetings..
Aviwe
Lunathi
Bayan drinking her tea and Luvuyo trying to sleep

Tuesdays with THE ROCKSTARS

Nthabisang and her group(14years and older)
the other half of Nthabisang's group
Zintle with her group(12-13years)
Sibahle and her group(10-11years)
One of the grade 8 boys Xolani helping out

Sibahle and some of her girls
The animators: Bayan, Nthabisang, Zintle, Sibahle and me :)

The Anxiety of Happiness

2010-10-10T11:18:00.000-07:00

Have you ever had a moment where you hear or read something and it is almost as if it was written for you? Like where you feel like the world is crumbling around you and you have nowhere to turn and all hope is lost and then you see a billboard that says “Is your world crumbling around you, do you have nowhere to turn and all hope is lost?” and you stand there almost completely certain that the billboard in front of you was designed with you in mind and that it was all part of some strange plan that you would come across it. The other morning I was woken by my phone buzzing to say that I had an email. It was from my big sister Melody who had sent me a quote and I had an above mentioned moment. Although at the time I decided I would go back to sleep, reading it later I felt like this quote was talking to me and the fact that my sister sent it to me was even more amazing. Have you ever had a song stuck in your head and then the person next to you starts singing it so you tell them “I have that song in my head now and I was even up to the same part that you started singing”? It’s like you are in tune with each other. That used to happen to me and my sister a lot when we were kids and now it’s the same except that instead of having the same song in our heads we have each other in our heads and when I read this email and I read the quote she had sent to me I felt like she was reading my mind.

So now that I’ve raved on about this oh so amazing quote let me explain it. Before I tell you what the quote was I’m going to explain a concept to you so that everything that will proceed will actually make sense to you. The concept of service is one that shouldn’t be foreign to any of us. Doing something for other people without any regard to yourself or any want for recognition, praise or payment is not unique only to the Baha’i Faith, it is a concept that exists in our world and there are so many in our society who participate in acts of service. The Baha’i Faith encourages service to the point where we should have the spirit of service in everything we do be it our jobs, school, hobbies and amongst our family and friends but going on a year of service is another thing all together.

As I have explained before in the Baha’i Faith we have what’s called a Youth Year of Service where youth are encouraged to give at least one year of their lives to the service and betterment of humanity. Now one thing that differs from service in general and service in the Baha’i Faith is tests. Not tests like a written exam or anything that can be marked or graded by someone I mean tests like life tests that ultimately make us stronger as people, tests that come from all different sources that force us to improve ourselves or that we learn something from. These tests are a part of service because life is all about growth and although we are being tested in our own lives every day we know that in the path of service there are even more tests. Although this may seem like a bad thing it actually isn’t. If tests lead to growth then we can come to the conclusion that the more we are tested the more opportunity we are given to grow and so tests are actually a good thing and those who stand up to serve the Cause are being blessed by being given even more tests and so more opportunity for growth. So although service is about the betterment of others everything in a way leads back to us and although we serve without the desire for praise or reward, tests which can be likened unto a gift, are bestowed upon us and so in the end we do benefit personally from service. God only tests us to the level that our capacity can sustain, we will never be tested by God if we cannot handle that test so during our time of service we are faced with many challenges and difficulties which we must learn to overcome so that we can progress. Now following the same train of understanding if we say that tests are like a gift and we receive more tests when we are serving God then we can think of the act of service itself as a gift also. Service leads to tests, tests lead to growth so service leads to growth. In that light service, which is always intended to be of benefit to humanity, is also of benefit to the individual who is serving and as service is an act which is undertaken voluntarily and with sincerity then the individual who is serving should know that no matter what happens and what goes wrong everything is actually making them stronger and that they should be grateful for the opportunity.

That’s the theory of it. We serve because we want to, service leads to growth therefore service is a gift and while undertaking service we should be happy in the knowledge that anything that goes wrong is contributing to our personal development. Sounds good but now for the practical.

Tests are hard, service is hard, life generally comes with hard times now imagine a whole year where you are being given hard times for the sake of your own growth and you feel like you don’t have the right to complain because when you serve you undertake this act knowing full well that service is not about you, you have forsaken your own self for the sake of others, you knew it would come with tests and you know those tests are for your own good so deal with it. That’s what it feels like and every time you want to talk about it people tell you the same thing, service comes with tests it’s not supposed to be easy. Do you know how that makes you feel? If you don’t let me answer that for you, it makes you feel guilty for feeling bad, you feel annoyed at yourself every time you have a thought about packing your bags and going home, you feel disappointed in yourself for not being happy and joyful everyday for the opportunity to be participating in the creation of a better world you feel regretful for every complaint that you make. That’s how you feel. That’s how I felt until I read this quote which my sister sent me and now I will finally reveal it unto you...

"To be required to be happy and assured, while busily serving the Cause, can raise in us more than a little anxiety. The Faith brings each one of us crises as well as victories. Our own lives and even the lives of the central Figures of the Faith have been fraught with agony as well as blessing, with failure and frustration and grief, as frequently as with progress. This is the nature of life...

To rise above the disappointments, obstacles, and pain which we experience in serving the Cause is difficult enough, but to be called on, in doing so, to be happy and confident is perhaps the keenest spiritual test any of us can meet. The lives of the Founders of our Faith clearly show that to be fundamentally assured does not mean that we live without anxieties, nor does being happy mean that there are not periods of deep grief when, like the Guardian, we wrap ourselves in a blanket, pray and supplicate, and give ourselves time for healing in preparation for the next great effort.

(Compilations, Quickeners of Mankind, p. 116)

Do you see now what I mean.. she read my mind AND this extract from the Baha’i writings is talking to me!! The relief I felt when I read this I can’t even explain. The saying I felt a weight lifted off my chest would definitely be appropriate for my circumstance. I mean just read it again.. “to be required to be happy...while serving the Cause, can raise in us more than a little anxiety”... “nor does being happy mean that there are not periods of deep grief.” It’s ok for me to have bad days, to be disappointed, to feel upset and annoyed, it’s ok if I don’t relish in the joy of being tested whilst serving the Faith or if I feel overwhelmed by all the things that go wrong. It’s such a relief!
To explain one thing the Guardian who is mentioned above was the great grandson of Baha’u’llah who was the Messenger of God who established the Baha’i Faith. Shoghi Effendi whose title was the Guardian was given guardianship of the Faith after the passing of Abdu’l-Baha (the son of Baha’u’llah) who was the head of the Faith after His father passed away. All three of these central figures of the Baha’i Faith suffered tremendously for the sake of their Cause. Baha’u’llah was exiled from His home by the Persian government and was a prisoner for 40 years alongside His family including His son Abdu’l-Baha all because of the new Faith that He was exalting. We as Baha’is are always told to follow the example of these central figures who devoted their lives to establishing this new Faith and to the betterment of humanity. That’s where the guilt can arise because nothing we go through in our lives can compare to the hardship that Baha’u’llah faced, my issues are meaningless when juxtaposed to the trials that Abdu’l-Baha dealt with, the hard times that I face seem pitiful next to the stresses and anxiety of Shoghi Effendi. So whenever things go wrong we’re told to follow their examples and it seems like I should never have anything to complain of because comparatively it’s not nearly as bad. But then I read that quote and it redefined everything. Being happy does not mean that you never feel grief and like the Guardian, Shoghi Effendi, I know many days where I have wanted to cover myself in my blankets and just try and recover.

Everyone of us faces different trials in their own lives and even our paths of service will never all be the same. There is no textbook on how to deal with life as we all have to write our own manuals and my manual will not be sufficient for someone else’s life but we can share experience and understanding and hope that in some way someone else can benefit from what we’ve been through. This is what I’ve experienced; feeling misunderstood, alone and without support. You know loneliness is an amazing thing, it doesn’t matter how many people are around you you can still feel completely alone. That isolation comes from feeling unsupported and without anyone to lean on rather than physically being alone. Making new friends is one thing but it never compares to the family and friends you have at home and the time differences don’t help with trying to stay in touch. Living with a new family has it’s complications as well especially where there are new cultures involved, it’s easy enough to say you want to embrace the culture of a country when you don’t know what the culture is and that’s what I was like but it’s not so simple especially coming from a western country. There’s the problem of money and the lack thereof which requires a change in lifestyle because you suddenly can’t afford to live like you used to, living in a country like South Africa where the crime is so high means you have to forsake some of your control in order to be safe. You can’t come home whenever you want to, you can’t go to certain places alone, there is minimal public transport so not everything is easily accessible and some things aren’t accessible at all and so a lot of the time you’re trapped in your home which adds to the loneliness because this only happens at night and evenings here are like 3am in Australia so I can’t even call my friends and talk.

It is hard and I know it’s meant to be hard but now I also know that it’s ok for me to admit that and it’s ok for me to complain and it’s ok for me not to be happy all the time and that in itself makes me feel better.

I really just wanted to share that quote because it meant so much to me and hopefully anyone in the same position can feel the same relief that I experienced. Service comes with tests, tests lead to growth therefore tests are a gift so service is a gift and we should be happy for it but tests are not easy so service is not easy and they can make us feel unhappy but happiness does not mean that we never feel bad so it’s ok to feel down sometimes because even those whose examples we are told to follow felt down sometimes and that’s all part of the package. That’s my conclusion.

The Basement Project

2010-09-28T10:03:00.000-07:00

The last few weeks have been very busy hence the lack of a new blog post but good news is that I got my application in to Home Affairs so hopefully that will be approved. It does mean one less stress on my mind. The Kuyga junior youth group is going really well. We had 48 kids come to the last session and we got all our Afrikaans kids back so it is a mixed group again. We split the group up by age so the 10+11 years olds together, the 12+13 year olds together and the 14+ group is together. We still have two 8 year olds that we don’t know what to do with, they just sit and observe at the moment. The kids have called themselves the Rockstars and we even have our own song. So that’s my very brief update on things just to keep everyone informed what follows is my latest blog post...

Those that know me know I love the arts. I visit galleries constantly, I studied a degree in design, I did a life drawing class with Archibald prize winner David Fairban, my lecturers have exhibitions that tour internationally and one of my design works has even been published in a book. Although it doesn’t always come naturally to me I love the arts. Photography is my art style of choice, I prefer black and white film photography as it is all about the process. You control each moment from taking the picture to developing and it’s more hands on which is what I prefer. So in Sydney I know where all the art galleries are and not just the big name ones, all the smaller, less mainstream galleries as well. Even if Sydney isn’t considered the cultural capital of Australia it still has a lot of culture, it doesn’t matter what part of it you’re in you can always find something.

Naturally one of the first things I did when I came to Port Elizabeth was look for art galleries and art classes. Now keep in mind that the internet here isn’t what it is in Australia, you can’t just google search something and find all the information you need. I really struggled to find art galleries here. I figured that if I could just find one then that could lead me to any others. Luckily someone came into my life who unlocked the door of the arts in Port Elizabeth. Sicelo is a music student at NMMU (the university here) and he came along to one of our Baha’i Society meetings to help us with the musical event we are planning. We got talking and he invited me to what he called an open mic night at some cafe. I was like ‘this sounds cool, I want to go’ so Sicelo said he would pick me up and we could go together. OMG he completely didn’t do justice to this event, it was insane. The event is called the Basement Project and it happens at Coffee Cafe every second Thursday. It’s not really a cafe but more of a large room with some couches at the back. We got there and immediately I could tell that Sicelo is a regular because he had to say hello to like everyone there. We took a seat and the program got underway. It was open mic in the sense that anyone who wanted could come up and share whatever it was they wanted to share be it music, poetry, dance, art whatever. It wasn’t open mic in the sense that there was no microphone. The place packed out, people were sitting on the floor and lining the walls and there was no lack of talent either. I mean I was blown away by some of the stuff people were doing especially the poetry. Honestly there were people who performed who were so skilled with the written word that they could have started a rebellion if they wanted to. Absolutely amazing.

One thing I did notice was the political and racial tension in people’s expressions. Art is a form of true expression and it is a form of emotional release so when every single performer stood up and spoke about the injustice white man had served them, the corruption of this government, the power that the black people needed to reclaim you can see that this is what is bearing down on these people. At one point the program stopped and the floor was opened for a discussion on Heritage Day which was on the next day. Heritage Day or Braai Day is a public holiday dedicated to the remembrance and honour of South Africa’s heritage. The opening remarks went something like this “Heritage day is just a creation by the white man to make us think that they care about our past. Everyday should be heritage day, every day we should be honouring our past and bringing back our culture not the white man’s culture which has been forced on us.”
It was then that I realised I was the only ‘non-black’ person in the room.. So of course I put my hand up drew attention to myself. I asked if the people have accepted a new heritage since the end of Apartheid and Mandela’s election or is there still conflict and tension amongst the people? This discussion happened very early in the program, clearly my question was answered with the onslaught of performers that would follow but the answer I got was that no the only heritage that counts is the one that they had before white man. This country has a long way to go. There were some counter arguments, one guy said that the people had to create a new identity because the white people aren’t just going to disappear this is their home now too and there won’t be any progress if we keep the mentality that we want things to go back to the way they were before they came. He also put forward a very sensible question which was “Culture changes, would you really walk around town topless and just wearing a piece of cloth to cover your parts, is that really what you want back?”

So after the discussion the performances continued, it was both a wonderful and very dangerous atmosphere. Honestly by the end of that session if I didn’t have such a strong mind I could have easily started resenting white people as much as they did. These artists have such a strong and powerful way with words, the speak with emotion, what they say arouses the audience, it’s so easy to fall into what they are saying. One Rastafarian guy even stood up and said “White people in the room you better suck on your sour lemon because the black people are in charge now” I waited, knowing that I was the only person in the room that could be considered white, hoping he wouldn’t give me direct eye contact as if that statement was made just for me. Luckily he didn’t and I laughed along with everyone else. I managed to talk to a few people about their work and got some details. I hope to put up some transcripts of some of the poetry as it really is amazing stuff and if there’s one way you can see the pain of a nation you see it through its art.

I left the session inspired and uplifted. Not to hate white people just in case you were concerned. I mean I call myself a writer but the only poetry I’ve ever written has been for laughs, I write these odes when I got bored.. maybe I should share one with you one day. I was inspired to write proper poetry and when I say poetry I don’t mean that how now brown cow kind of stuff I mean like the stuff that later becomes rap music but before it gets all commercialised and turns into some idiot telling the world how many girls he gets and how much weed he smokes. I wanted to write a piece about South Africa and the racial tension but I think I’ll wait till I have a few more friends because I’m afraid I won’t come out unhurt if I do it now. For now I’ll just write about myself which is the only thing I have any authority on. I’ll put up a test piece when it’s done and then I’ll let you know how it goes once I’ve performed it.

So I finally have my artistic energy source and from it I know I’ll find so many others. I will put up any work that I get off other artists because it really deserves to be shared.

Ps this is one of my shortest blog posts in a while.. you can thank my killer headache for that

Cry, the Beloved Country

2010-09-17T02:24:00.000-07:00

There was a time whilst here that I was resentful towards South Africa, when I couldn’t understand how an entire nation of people could hold so much pride for a country that offered them so little. I couldn’t fathom the standards of a government that could allow so many people to live in homes that would not be fit for animals in most other countries of the world. It didn’t make sense that the people didn’t fight for better lives for themselves.

Everywhere around me I could see injustice, I could see inequality, I could see discrimination. People were treated differently because of who they were. I could sense the tension still resinating amongst a generation of people who saw Apartheid and were punished for the darkness of their skin.

Instead of democracy the pendulum has swung to another extreme. Where black men were previously unable to progress in the fields of government it is now the white man that struggles to get ahead. Pushed to the bottom of the ladder as society overcompensates for the transgresses of the past.

The laws of segregation have been abolished and South Africa has accepted to unite but segregation does not need to be enforced by law if the people are willing to segregate themselves. White with white, coloured with coloured, black with black. Observing the people this is what you see, this is what they choose. Although perhaps unconsciously these new generations follow the same patterns of the past and only when prompted to answer why do you see that segregation is all they know.

When a society cannot function as one, when it replaces one type of injustice with another, when the people are unable to stand on their own two feet and create better for themselves then progress in unattainable.

The world was shown an image of South Africa during the World Cup, this image was of a nation labelled as third world hosting a first world event. A picture of a clean and friendly South Africa where crime was not to be feared, where people could enjoy the city lights without anxiety. The world was shown a nation that could work together and a people that could unite in support of their country regardless of their background. We witnessed a government that was able to fund a billion dollar event, able to distribute this money into projects that would benefit the community, focussing on creating infrastructure whose use would surpass this single event. A government that could prove that South Africa was a capable and proficient country. This was the image, an image that most South Africans feign to remember.

We saw what South Africa could be, a teaser of what we could have but we don’t. We were shown that crime could be controlled but it isn’t controlled now. We had a taste of what efficient government departments were capable of but they aren’t efficient anymore. We saw how funding for roads and transport transformed parts of the city but that funding is now gone.

When you see what South Africa could be, when you see what South Africa was then and when you see where South Africa is now you feel frustrated, you feel disappointed, annoyed, upset, angry. We have seen what South Africa could be, we saw this only months ago and we wonder why can’t we have that?

It was so hard for me to try and understand this country. This country should be better but it’s not, it should be safer but it isn’t, it should be cleaner, it should provide more to its schools, it should offer better health care to its peoples, it should take better care of its streets, it should, it should, it should but it doesn’t and I couldn’t understand why.

In my dismay my mum offered me an opportunity for insight; “Cry, the Beloved Country” a novel by Alan Paton. This book resolved my resentment, this book calmed my anger, took away my disillusionment. For that reason I want to share some of it with you, these are the parts that for me answer all of my ‘whys?’ and although it doesn’t offer any resolution for my disappointment in this country it does offer understanding and with understanding comes patience and patience is exactly what I need. So here I offer you the opportunity for insight into a country whose problems stem so deep that it will take such a great effort to resolve them.

“What we did when we came to South Africa was permissible. It was permissible to develop our great resources with the aid of what labour we could find. It was permissible to use unskilled men for unskilled work. But it is not permissible to keep men unskilled for the sake of unskilled work.

It was permissible when we discovered gold to bring labour to the mines. It was permissible to build compounds and to keep women and children away from the towns. It was permissible as an experiment, in the light of what we knew. But in the light of what we know now, with certain exceptions, it is no longer permissible. It is not permissible for us to go on destroying family life when we know that we are destroying it. It is permissible to develop any resources if the labour is forthcoming. But it is not permissible to develop any resources if they can be developed only at the cost of the labour. It is not permissible to mine any gold, or manufacture any product, or cultivate any land, if such mining and manufacture and cultivation depend for their success on a policy of keeping labour poor. It is not permissible to add to one’s possessions if these things can only be done at the cost of other men. Such development has only one true name, and that is exploitation. It might have been permissible in the early days of our country, before we became aware of its cost, in the disintegration of native community life, in the deterioration of native family life, in poverty, slums and crime. But now that the cost is known, it is no longer permissible.

It was permissible to leave native education to those who wanted to develop it. It was permissible to doubt its benefits. But it is no longer permissible in the light of what we know. Partly because it made possible industrial development, and partly because it happened in spite of us, there is now a large urbanized native population. Now society has always, for reasons of self-interest if for no other, educated its children so that they grow up law-abiding, with socialized aims and purposes. There is no other way that it can be done. Yet we continue to leave the education of our native urban society to those few Europeans who feel strongly about it, and to deny opportunities and money for its expansion. That is not permissible. For reasons of self-interest alone, it is dangerous.
It was permissible to allow the destruction of a tribal system that impeded the growth
of the country. It was permissible to believe that its destruction was inevitable. But it is not permissible to watch its destruction, and to replace it by nothing, or by so little, that a whole people deteriorates, physically and morally.

The old tribal system was, for all its violence and savagery, for all its superstition and witchcraft, a moral system. Our natives today produce criminals and prostitutes and drunkards, not because it is their nature to do so, but because their simple system of order and tradition and convention has been destroyed. It was destroyed by the impact of our own civilization. Our civilization has therefore an inescapable duty to set up another system of order and tradition and convention. It is true that we hoped to preserve the tribal system by a policy of segregation. That was permissible. But we never did it thoroughly or honestly. We set aside one-tenth of the land for four-fifths of the people. Thus we made it inevitable, and some say we did it knowingly, that labour would come to the towns. We are caught in the toils of our own selfishness.

No one wishes to make the problem seem smaller than it is. No one wishes to make its solution seem easy. No one wishes to make light of the fears that beset us. But whether we be fearful or no, we shall never, because we are a Christian people, be able to avoid the moral issue.”

“The truth is that our Christian civilization is riddled through and through with dilemma. We believe in the brotherhood of man, but we do not want it in South Africa. We believe that God endows men with diverse gifts, and that human life depends for its fullness on their employment and enjoyment, but we are afraid to explore this belief too deeply. We believe in help for the underdog, but we want him to stay under. And we are therefore compelled, in order to preserve our belief that we are Christian, to ascribe to Almighty God, creator of Heaven and Earth, our own human intentions, and to say that because He created white and black, He gives the Divine Approval to any human action that is designed to keep black men from advancement. We go so far as to credit Almighty God with having created black men to hew wood and draw water for white men. We go so far as to assume that He blesses any action that is designed to prevent black men from the full employment of the gifts He gave them. Alongside of these very arguments we use others totally inconsistent, so that the accusation of repression may be refuted. We say we withhold education because the black child has not the intelligence to profit by it; we withhold opportunity to develop gifts because black people have no gifts; we justify our action by saying that it took us thousands of years to achieve our own advancement, and it would be foolish to suppose that it will take the black man any lesser time, and that therefore there is no need for hurry. We shift our ground again when a black man does achieve something remarkable, and feel deep pity for a man who is condemned to the loneliness of being remarkable, and decide that it is a Christian kindness not to let black men become remarkable. Thus even our God becomes a confused and inconsistent creature, giving gifts and denying them employment. Is it strange then that our civilization is riddled through and through with dilemma? The truth is that our civilization is not Christian; it is a tragic compound of great ideal and fearful practice, of high assurance and desperate anxiety, of loving charity and fearful clutching of possessions.”

“Have no doubt it is fear in the land. For what can men do when so many have grown lawless? Who can enjoy the lovely land, who can enjoy the seventy years, and the sun that pours down on the earth, when there is fear in the heart? Who can walk quietly in the shadow of the jacarandas, when their beauty is grown to danger? Who can lie peacefully abed, while the darkness holds some secret? What lovers can lie sweetly under the stars, when menace grows with the measure of their seclusion?”

“I say we shall always have native crime to fear until the native people of this country have worthy purposes to inspire them and worthy goals to work for. For it is only because they see neither purpose nor goal that they turn to drink and crime and prostitution. Which do we prefer, a law-abiding, industrious and purposeful native people, or a lawless, idle and purposeless people? The truth is that we do not know, for we fear them both. And so long as we vacillate, so long will we pay dearly for the dubious pleasure of not having to make up our minds. And the answer does not lie, except temporarily, in more police and more protection.”

“Some cry for the cutting up of South Africa without delay into separate areas, where white can live without black, and black without white, where black can farm their own land and mine their own minerals and administer their own laws. And others cry away with the compound system, that brings men to the towns without their wives and children, and breaks up the tribe and the house and the man, and they ask for the establishment of villages for the labourers in mines and industry.

And the churches cry too. The English-speaking churches cry for more education, and more opportunity, and for a removal of the restrictions on native labour and enterprise. And the Afrikaans-speaking churches want to see the native people given opportunity to develop along their own lines, and remind their own people that the decay of family religion, where the servants took part in family devotions, has contributed in part to the moral decay of the native people. But there is to be no equality in church or state.

Yes, there are a hundred, and a thousand voices crying. But what does one do, when one cries this thing, and one cries another? Who knows how we shall fashion a land of peace where black outnumbers white so greatly? Some say that the earth has bounty enough for all, and that more for one does not mean less for another, that the advance of one does not mean the decline of another. They say that poor-paid labour means a poor nation, and that better-paid labour means greater markets and greater scope for industry and manufacture. And others say that this is a danger, for better-paid labour will not only buy more but will also read more, think more, ask more, and will not be content to be forever voiceless and inferior.

Who knows how we shall fashion such a land? For we fear not only the loss of our possessions, but the loss of our superiority and the loss of our whiteness. Some say it is true that crime is bad, but would this not be worse? Is it not better to hold what we have, and to pay the price of it with fear? And others say, can such fear be endured? For is it not this fear that drives men to ponder these things at all?

We do not know, we do not know. We shall live from day to day, and put more locks on the doors, and get a fine fierce dog when the fine fierce bitch next door has pups, and hold on to our handbags more tenaciously; and the beauty of the trees by night, and the raptures of lovers under the stars, these things we shall forego. We shall forego the coming home drunken through the midnight streets, and the evening walk over the star-lit veld. We shall be careful, and knock this off our lives, and knock that off our lives, and hedge ourselves about with safety and precaution. And our lives will shrink, but they shall be the lives of superior beings; and we shall live with fear, but at least it will not be a fear of the unknown. And the conscience shall be thrust down; the light of life shall not be extinguished, but be put under a bushel, to be preserved for a generation that will live by it again, in some day not yet come; and how it will come, and when it will come, we shall not think about at all.

Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire. Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing, nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or a valley. For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much.

The last passage I share with you inspired me, gave me a little push in terms of my own service in South Africa. I have often wondered what brought me here. What brought me to this place that I couldn’t understand with all its problems, problems that don’t just linger in the air but effect every movement you make, every word you speak, every person you meet, every place you go. In everything that is South Africa there is Apartheid. It’s name may be gone, it’s laws and regulations and the power they took from one person and gave to another, these may no longer be but the memory of it is embedded into everything that is South Africa. This country needs service, it needs leaders, it needs change. I don’t know if I can give it these things that it needs, I don’t know if I am any help at all but I am here and I will keep trying..

“Therefore I shall devote myself, my time, my energy, my talents, to the service of South Africa. I shall no longer ask myself if this or that is expedient, but only if it is right. I shall do this, not because I am noble or unselfish, but because life slips away, and because I need for the rest of my journey a star that will not play false to me, a compass that will not lie. I shall do this, not because I am a negrophile and a hater of my own, but because I cannot find it in me to do anything else. I am lost when I balance this against that, I am lost when I ask if this is safe, I am lost when I ask if men, white men or black men, Englishmen or Afrikaners, Gentiles or Jews, will approve. Therefore I shall try to do what is right, and to speak what is true. I do this not because I am courageous and honest, but because it is the only way to end the conflict of my deepest soul. I do it because I am no longer able to aspire to the highest with one part of myself, and to deny it with another. I do not wish to live like that, I would rather die than live like that. I understand better those who have died for their convictions, and have not thought it was wonderful or brave or noble to die. They died rather than live, that was all.”

Spiritualise

2010-09-14T12:25:00.001-07:00

I would like to dedicate this post to all of those wonderful people who have decided to dedicate themselves to the education of children. It is such a noble station and the work of an educator can never be paralleled by any other. Teachers build the foundation of our future societies. In the field of academic education most teachers spend more time with children than their own parents do. It is amazing how a good teacher can help transform a child and it is something that I know personally. To this very day I credit so much of myself to my kindergarten and grade 2 teacher Mrs Edwards. To think that a woman who last taught me when I was 7 could have contributed so much to the person I am today is really saying something about the power of an educator.

Teachers are in no way given the credit they deserve, they should be the most respected members of our communities because they work with our most precious resource but unfortunately we have a misguided society and that credit is rarely paid.

In the Baha’i Faith we believe there are 3 types of education and the dedication to children to foster any of these 3 types of education is equal in station. These 3 are mental, physical and spiritual education. The Baha’i Faith has in place systematic means of offering spiritual education which is education directed to the development of morals, the understanding of prayer and meditation, virtues and spiritual qualities and the building of capacity within oneself. As I have spoken about it before we have the Junior Youth Group Program. This is a socio economic program which is targeted towards kids aged between 11 and 15. Its purpose is to create an open environment where these kids can find more noble goals to work towards and find a place where they can be inspired by positive examples to help them be able to stand on their own two feet during those turbulent years of adolescence. The group works through a book, each lesson is aimed at helping with reading and comprehension thus advancing literary skills as well as bringing up concepts that require elevated conversations on different themes. The first book “Breezes of Confirmation” brings up the theme of confirmation. It stimulates discussions based on the idea of knowing what you’re doing is the right thing to do. It brings up this topic in terms of deciding what you want to do with your future and what steps you have to take to get there. For example if what you want is to study at university the book challenges you to look at what you are doing to make that happen but it also creates the understanding that if you want to achieve something and it is right for you then God will help you, doors will open and opportunities arise you just have to be able to see those opportunities and take advantage of them.

So why am I bringing this up again and why the sudden desire to praise our educators? Well today, after a few weeks of strikes and deportation from the country, I went back to Kuyga school to re-establish our Junior Youth Group. For those who want to know what happened the first time refer to my post Kuyga’s Finest. The first time was just me and Sibakheh and those 44 kids and it was amazing. The Afrikaans and Xhosa kids all getting along and happy to come together to be part of one group. It was so amazing but, but, but, but... it was a fun lesson. We went there purely to introduce the Junior Youth Group to the kids. We did an art activity and we talked for a bit and played sport and took photos. It didn’t need much in terms of coordination, it doesn’t take much to get kids to draw and play sports so it was easy.

YOH YOH YOH!!!! Today, today I realised how difficult, how straining, how exhausting the work of a teacher is. Today it was me, Bayan, Ponthi, Sibakheh, Zintle and Nthabisang and 40 kids. I was like 6 of us 40 of them too easy. YOH YOH YOH!!! Wow the things you don’t think of, the effort it takes, the logistics, the coordination. Man oh man that was some seriously insane stuff, eternally rewarding and wonderfully inspiring, but seriously insane stuff.

So here I will share our experiences running a JY group with 40 kids, how it went, what we learnt and what our plan is for the future so that perhaps if anyone else has the opportunity to do something like this they can get a little understanding from here.

School has been on strike for 3+ weeks. I asked Sibakheh and Zintle, sisters who attend the school, to keep me informed of when the strike would end so that we could start our jy group again. Monday I get the call, Tuesday it’s on. My plan is to get to the school half an hour before school ends so that I can go to the grade 5 classrooms and remind the kids. Unfortunately when you have to rely on taxis for transport time is completely out of your control. So I get to the school within minutes of bell time and I’ll just tell you something funny, when they ‘ring the bell’ for the end of school they actually ring the bell. A kid is sent around the school with a thing that makes a ‘clank clank dong dong’ sound and he walks around donging and clanking to signify the end of school. Hilarious and slightly disappointing as the school doesn’t even have the means to ring a real bell.

So schools out, I am trying to get in touch with Sibakheh to tell her to race to the grade 5 classrooms and make sure the kids don’t go home. Her phone is busy. I see a group of kids “What grade are you in?” “Grade 5” “ok go back and tell all the grade 5 kids we have class today.” Yay for the plan. Now as I am kinda considered a ‘white person’ I tend to draw a lot of attention in the townships especially in the school. Within a few seconds I have a heard of kids surrounding me, just staring at me, waiting to see what I’ll do next. Bayan is with me and she laughs “Everyone is saying come and see the white girl.” I mean really there are white people all over this country I don’t see how I can be that big of a deal, and I’m olive not white.

So me and my heard head towards the grade 5 rooms to gather our posse and start our class. There are a lot of kids here but something’s wrong. Where are all the Afrikaans students? I assume we are going to be using the same classroom we used the week before which was an Afrikaans room. I’ve already seen the Afrikaans teacher and he says its fine to use his room, then one of the Xhosa teachers tells me we should use her room instead. I ask her where the Afrikaans students are, she says they don’t really like to participate in this sort of thing and we should use her room because people might talk if we use an Afrikaans room with all these Xhosa kids. I’m so confused, so, so confused. Last time the Afrikaans kids were fine, they were happy and excited and they all said they wanted to come back and be part of it. The whole group was happy and now instead I get this and I feel hopeless and sad because I really thought we could change that whole us and them mentality and break through the cultural barrier. I guess we need to just keep trying.

40 kids manage to squish themselves into this classroom. There are a bunch of kids here that weren’t the first time so we start with a recap and a re-introduction to the jy group. Now it is time for the girls to take over the group, me and Bayan are just here to help them out but it is supposed to be their group. I ask them to start off by working with the kids to create some rules for the group. These 4 girls stand in front of the class and silence. They don’t talk, the kids don’t talk. They look at each other, they look at me. The kids look at them, the kids look at me. Oh dear. So I push things along and eventually we have our group rules, my rule is always the best; have fun or I will give you a beating. Now we distribute the books to each kid and open up to start the first lesson. We have decided that since it’s the first lesson we will conduct it as one big group so that the kids can get a feel for how things go. Ponthi volunteers to lead this section and everything starts out smoothly. We read the story a few times different kids in the class getting a turn to read then we move on to the exercise. This section asks questions about the story and you write down the answer. Usually takes a maximum of 10min. Half an hour later and we are onto question 5. Here we notice a problem. There are some kids in the class who need things to go slowly so that they can keep up and there are kids in the class who have raced ahead and have already finished the entire activity. Everything in this book is supposed to be done as a group so we read out the questions, the kids tell us what they think the answer is and when we agree on an answer we write it down together so the fact that some kids have finished everything shows us that they are getting bored because it’s too easy for them. Now what do we do with them? Bored kids means distractions, you can’t expect them to sit there and do nothing. At first I ask a few of them to walk around and help the others with their answers or with passing around the eraser or sharpener which are both in high demand. After a few minutes I see that this isn’t working and there are more kids who have finished the activity. I decide that I will take them outside and move on with the next activity giving the other kids the time they need to complete it and with less kids inside it would be easier to manage. So we go outside and it’s working or so I think. Turns out that the kids inside now feel like they are being left behind because they want to be in the outside group and so they start rushing ahead so that they can be part of the ‘other group’.

Two groups have emerged, the inside group and the outside group. I can’t think of what else we could have done. The inside group are painfully slow at completing the first activity but soon we realise why. There are two 8 year olds sitting in the class. We have 40 kids with an age range from 8 to 17. Some kids in the room aren’t even in grade 5, they just wanted to be part of whatever it was we were doing so they decided to come too. We decide the best thing to do is to have a ‘help your neighbour’ policy so anyone that finishes a question should help anyone around them who hasn’t finished yet. This speed things up especially when we ask the outside kids to come back inside and help too. Finally it’s time to move on to the next activity but not before allowing the group to stand up and do something fun so Bayan plays a little game with us all which is actually hilarious and I can’t wait to play it with everyone in the world. Then we move on.

We spend around 15min on the next exercise, this one isn’t as tedious and I change it around to make it more fun by getting kids to draw instead of write things so it doesn’t take as much assistance either. We decide that it would be better to leave the book part of the class at that as it’s been over an hour that we’ve been sitting at desks. I read out a list of names I have of kids that came to the first class to see who’s new and who dropped out and I have a lot of fun trying to pronounce the names. We take down all the kids birthdays so we can get a better understanding of the age group we are dealing with before pulling out the soccer ball and netball which makes the kids go crazy. Everything in a jy group has purpose even sport so I ask the girls who understand netball to facilitate that and me and Bayan try to organise the soccer game. The point of sport is about unity, you work together with your team mates to achieve something.

So as the kids play me and Bayan step back and evaluate the chaos that just occurred. First of all 40 kids is way too much to achieve the purpose of each exercise and to ensure that all kids are taken care of. First things first we have to find a way to divide the group. We decide to do it by age and allocate a different animator to each age group so 10-11 in one group 12-13 in another group and 14+ in another group. I’m not sure what we’ll do with the 8 year olds just yet who are way too young to understand the content of the book. Next is ensuring that these girls can stand on their own two feet even if me and Bayan aren’t there. Now in all fairness to the girls they are new at this and it is a lot of kids. Especially for Sibakheh who is only 13 herself. So we will give them time to develop their confidence and we decided that next week me and Bayan are really going to take a backseat and let the kids see that the other girls are in charge. Another issue is food. School ends at 1pm and our class today went till 3.30pm. That’s a long time without food especially for this age group. We have to think about providing something for the kids but it has to be small otherwise they will expect too much from us and it could interfere with why you come to the class. Next is establishing a structure. We need to ensure that there’s a pattern that is followed. You come inside, we take a register of who’s here, we recap on the week before...etc Another thing that I need to do is find a way to inform the parents. We don’t want kids to misuse the jy group saying that they are attending after school and then doing something else instead, with a smaller group we would accompany them home but I think the best thing we can do is guarantee a finishing time every week so that parents expect their kids home at a certain time. Unfortunately in the townships parents aren’t really concerned with where their kids are, I mean this is the second time that I’ve run a class at the school without letting the parents know. Their kids haven’t turned up at home in over 2 hours since school ended and not one parent came to the school to inquire about their child.

So basically what we learnt from this experience is that a group this large should be divided into smaller groups when doing the activities because you can’t offer each child the attention that they need when the group is so big. Also with such a vast age group kids are going to work at different paces so we have to ensure that no one gets bored waiting for someone else to finish. Have lots of short games on hand for when the class gets restless to give them a quick break so that you can carry on with a bit more energy. It’s hard to learn everyone’s names and to identify different personalities in such a large group. This makes it much more difficult to try and remember which kids needed more help and which were self sufficient. These kinds of observations are really important for the smooth running of the group in the future so maybe take notes on the child’s appearance or take a photo which is what I’m planning on doing and be willing to make fun of yourself in order to break the ice.

Today was so hectic that although I brought my camera I didn’t get a single chance to bring it out, there was just too much going on. It was a whole lot of fun though, as always I loved every minute of it. At one point a did dust angels on the floor to try and show the kids there’s nothing wrong with sitting on the ground. They still refused and just told me it made me dirty... which it did but that’s not the point.

I’m still really excited, I can’t wait for Tuesdays. I literally have to dedicate the entire day to this group, I spend the morning preparing, the afternoon conducting and the evening resting. I can’t wait to see how this group progresses and see if by having almost an entire grade going through this program it changes the atmosphere of the school and the community.

At the end of the class I again reminded the kids to come up with a name for our group, one boy said Spiritualise. I don’t think it’ll stick but I thought that was nice.

Townships

2010-09-12T09:50:00.000-07:00

Remember when I said that South Africa can continue to shock you no matter how long you’ve been here for, well today I felt it. Another shock and I’ve been here almost 4 months now.

I’ve spoken about Kuyga, it is the township that the Baha’is in P.E are currently focusing on. Well Kuyga and townships in general shocked me. That the governments solution for the poor was to build them a crummy little shoebox where sometimes 10 people were living inside was very shocking to me. Seeing the way people lived in this township, driving around on a Saturday morning and in ever front yard was people sitting around getting drunk, the fact that there are more liquor shops than grocery stores, that children wander the streets completely unsupervised sometimes even carrying their younger siblings around. In my experience of life whenever a child wants to hold a little baby parents are so protective of the baby. “Sit down and I’ll put baby in your lap, careful of her head, put this arm like that and your other arm there, very good. Awww look how cute, now give baby back.” Here if you are old enough to walk you are old enough to care for your younger siblings. I guess you could look at it as a sign of maturity that a 7 year old knows how to take care of a baby but I’m not so sure. So Kuyga is bad according to my standards of how people should be living. The streets are dirty and by the way all made of mud, there are no tar roads in Kuyga, there are dogs everywhere and I mean everywhere as well as the random cow or goat walking the streets and with stray animals means animal doo doo, you have to wear closed shoes walking around otherwise you will end up with a thorn or glass in your foot. It’s just not that nice a place.

Yesterday I was talking to someone about the difference between government housing in Aus and in Kuyga and I was explaining how if anyone were to attempt to raise children in a house like a township home in Australia they would have their children taken away from them for child neglect. He looked at me with surprise and then said something I most definitely did not believe ‘Kuyga is one of the good townships’.

Well at the time like I said I didn’t believe it, not that I didn’t think it could get worse, this is Africa it can always get worse, but more so that I couldn’t conceive what could be worse than Kuyga. More mud? More dogs? More drunk people? Today I saw it, I saw what worse looks like and it shocked me.

I don’t even know how to describe what worse looks like, a township is a concept that I don’t think you can fully comprehend when you’ve been raised in a country like Australia. I could explain to you what it looks like I could even show you photos and videos but you can never really understand until you’ve seen it. What I saw today was disheartening, it made me feel hopeless and upset and confused. I saw people stealing electricity, they would get a chair and 2 men would stand on it, one pushing the other up, to reach the power lines. They would pull a line down and then attach another line to connect to their homes. Mr Fudu who works for the council said that the council is powerless to stop this because most of the councillors stand up for these people. I mean they don’t have electricity what are they supposed to do light a candle? These people are living in shacks, these shacks are small and filled with people and there are way too many stories of them burning down with entire families trapped inside. I was shocked.

Now let me explain something about the shack houses. In a township your house is given to you for free and you don’t pay for your water. The only thing you have to pay for is your electricity. Sounds like a fair deal, a free home with minimal costs it sounds like the government is doing a great job to help tackle poverty and homelessness. Here’s the flaw. There are no restrictions on who can get a free house, there are no regulations, there are no checks. Anyone can own a house in a township all you have to do is build a shack somewhere in the township and within maybe a year the government will build you a brick house. You don’t have to be poor to live in a township and unfortunately people are abusing the system. I own a home, I want another home, I build a shack, I get a free home. It is taxpayers that are covering all these costs and with no regulations people are taking advantage of the offer.

Don’t get me wrong it’s not like these townships homes are luxury living but it’s land and a house and anyone can cash in on the offer. Sometimes you go into a township and see huge houses with nice gardens and a fancy car parked in front. People are definitely abusing the system. So why not regulate the townships and then you realise it’s all about politics. People need votes to get power, regulating townships isn’t going to make you Mr. Popularity. And so it continues, more shacks are set up surrounding the brick homes and eventually some family gets a place to live. A corrupt system is better than no system at all, at least people will have a roof over their heads. I still don’t like the idea of it, the whole system is in need of a renovation. When you continually hand out freebies there’s no incentive to work for what you have. There’s so much alcohol and crime in the townships, without even stereotyping or making an unfair judgement township lifestyle is based around alcohol. When you grow up in this world it ends up being all you know, there is this cycle that continues around and around, each generation starting earlier than the last.

So today I was shocked again. Another interesting lesson learnt. I wonder what the next will be.

And be not of those who doubt

2010-09-07T10:44:00.000-07:00

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

The Mother Temple

2010-09-01T10:02:00.000-07:00

In every continent of the world (excluding Antarctica) there is a Baha'i Temple. This makes for a total of 7. As a Sydney sider I have often taken for granted having one of these Temples in my city. The Sydney Baha'i House of Worship is a beautiful temple and although it takes just over an hour for me to drive there from good old Campbelltown now that I have come to Africa I have realised that that's not that far. The 3 months that I was in South Africa and mostly during the last month in Port Elizabeth I have been absolutely craving the temple. My heart had been burning for an opportunity to visit Africa's temple in Uganda and God gave me that opportunity. I was forced to temporarily leave South Africa and it was the ultimate opportunity for me.

I arrived in Entebbe at 7.30pm and made it to Kampala by around 9pm. As we approached the temple I could see it glowing on top of the hill. I was home. I felt such a relief, every stress and anxiety that I had been holding fell away, every tension in my body was eased. Just the sight of the temple brought me joy. I wanted to cry from happiness.

Every Baha'i temple has its own character. The Sydney temple has a relaxed and pure feel. It is a simple yet beautiful temple, for me it has a sense of homeliness. When I'm overseas and I see a picture of it I feel pride and love for my temple.

The Lotus Temple in New Dehli, India has a sense of majesty. As you approach it you fall into a state of awe. It is a magnifiscent temple, a single piece of beauty in an otherwise unattractive city. It truly stands as a flower amongst the weeds. Stepping inside this temple, however, you feel a deep sense of purity and spirituality. I think with this temple you have to visit it a few times as the first time you go it can be difficult to centre yourself and pray as you are so captivated by the amazing architecture and elegance of the temple.

The 3rd temple in the list of those I've been able to visit is the Ugandan temple. Circumstances change your experiences, I came to this temple as a refuge. I came because I wanted to be close to a channel that would connect me to the Holy Land(Akka, Israel). For me this temple has been the most spiritually uplifting of them all. I feel like all the troubles in my life have vanished. This temple relaxes me, it takes me home. It is such a simple and humble temple. It welcomes you, makes you feel fulfilled and allows you to reach a state where all your thoughts are one, where everything is right and nothing can hurt you. During the day the sun shines through the windows and illumines the whole temple, at night it stands on the top of this hill, glowing as a beacon of light, protecting everyone from darkness and guiding you home. I truly adore this temple, every moment I'm away from it I long for it's warmth and love.

On the 15th of January 2011 the Ugandan Temple will celebrate its 50th birthday. Everyone is invited to attend the celebration. The temple is now being renovated and cleaned and the gardens are being remade for the celebration. I hope to be back in Uganda for this occassion and I may even finish the last 5 months of my service here.

If you ever find yourself on this side of the world you must come visit this temple. It has extensive gardens which are so peaceful you can compltely lose yourself in the tranquility.

Also the temple is in urgent need of volunteers in the fields of gardening and cleaning. Accommodation for volunteers is free and living expenses here are minimal, I've been spending around $1 aus a day. Anyone who can offer atleast 1 month to a year of service please apply, there are also lots of opportunities to help work within the community or in any one of the 3 Baha'i schools in Uganda. If you are interested contact the National Baha'i Office of Uganda: ugandabahai@gmail.com

:)

District 9

2010-08-23T11:17:00.000-07:00

Amazing movie, one of my absolute favourites. When I watched it at home I was watching it for entertainments sake. Not to say that I didn’t take note of the social and inter-planet racism that took place in the film, I most certainly saw the film as a take on the racial injustice that occurred in South Africa but mostly I just thought it was a great film that showed the weakness of humanity in not accepting what’s different and the greed and money loving corporations and governments that will sacrifice anything to fill their pockets. My sister had a stronger impression of District 9 than I did in relation to South Africa. When planning to come here I made no connection to the movie in terms of what South Africa would be like but Melody went mental about it. She kept asking where all the Nigerians were and why didn’t everyone live in a slum. She would get so excited when she would see a township and would take lots of photos. Now obviously in exaggeration she would ask where the spaceship was but still it seemed like she really felt that South Africa looked like what the movie looked like which wasn’t very pretty.

Coming to visit she realised that people don’t get mugged every day and that she wouldn’t get shot just walking down the street, I think she even liked it here. For me I didn’t really know what I was going to get when coming here so District 9 was like a reference point for me. When I watched it at home I was with my little brother and at the end of the movie I’m sure we both would have said something like “That’s a heaps mad movie” and the following 10 conversations we each had with people would have started with “Have you seen District 9, it’s heaps mad”.

Last night me and Lunathi were deciding which movie to watch, I was reading out what I had and she stopped me at District 9, said she hadn’t seen it, I said “What?? It’s heaps mad” and then we began watching it. Now at this point I’ve been here for 3 months, I’ve seen Joburg which is what we will call the city, I’ve seen Rustenburg and Nelspruit which we will call out of the way and much more rural and I’ve been living in Port Elizabeth which is somewhere in between so I’ve had pretty reasonable exposure to SA. I’m sitting on my bed with Lunathi and the movie starts. Now I’m all like “Yeah this is such a great movie” and in my head I’m preparing myself for its awesomeness and it’s deep story and all the rest of it. I’m so intensely watching when Lunathi decides to start her commentary on the film.

“This movie is so weird”

“It looks like it’s being filmed on a hand held camera, it reminds me of the Office”

“OMG the aliens are disgusting”

“Just shoot it”

“This is so funny”

“That girls a Baha’i, she was in Isidingo”

“Oh hey they guys a comedian”

In my head I’m annoyed, she doesn’t appreciate this film the way I do. She called it funny and said it reminded her of the Office.. The Office of all things, a comedy series. But as I watch I start to think how different it must be from the eyes of a South African so I start to watch with my South African eyes. It was actually funny. When the main guy kept saying F**k with his accent and it sounded more like fok, or some of the slang that he would use, just his accent in general was amusing to me. The slums that the aliens were living in were familiar, that’s what a lot of the townships look like and especially the way they are all crammed together side by side. Gangs and rebels coming into these areas and taking over, this was all things that I had actually seen. The bit that got me the most was when they went into the alien area to hand out the evictions and they would pretty much force them to sign, completely denying them any rights and Lunathi says “This is what they did in the Apartheid era”. Suddenly it all became real, this wasn’t a movie. Replace the aliens with black people and you have the history of South Africa. The saddest part was that in this film it assumes that the black people would treat the aliens in the exact manner that they were treated and now I have to wonder if that would really be the case. If the circumstances arose would the South Africans who were treated like less than human during the Apartheid, treat others the same way? I hope not but you can see it happening already.

There is some resentment amongst the poor black community towards the wealthier black community. In a previous post I told you about the guy that said if people gave back what they had been given everyone would be better off. Here we have a race of people who were all equally oppressed by another race of people. Now that equality has been granted we see part of that before oppressed black community rise up, earn money, buy nice houses, drive nice cars...etc Then we have the rest of the community who are still poor, who live in shacks and travel by taxi. I’ve been told that this community is lazy, that it waits to be spoon fed. Whether it’s an unwillingness to better oneself or a lack of opportunity I can’t say but here we have a rift. This is what is said to have caused attacks against black people by black people. Besides what I have read in some reports and from discussions I’ve had with a few people that was the impression that I got. I would like to talk to some more people and see what they think, if they think the people have learnt from the past or if they would allow it to repeat itself.

I’m sure that the distribution of wealth in SA is not in any ways consistent. There are large gaps between rich and poor and I’m sure this causes resentment amongst those who have less especially when you are supposed to be ‘on the same side’ and all that kind of thing. I wonder if Melody has watched the movie again and had a change of understanding.

District 9 is a great movie, I still stand by that but it means something completely different to me now. This realisation is a sad one, most times the things we see in movies are make believe and we can toss the ideas out as garbage written to make money but not this time. Maybe one day we’ll look back at a film like this and be able to say that this kind of thing only happens in movies, we still have a very long way to go before that happens. Though it doesn’t hurt to hope

Home Affairs

2010-08-23T10:39:00.000-07:00

I recently declared that I hate South Africa, although this declaration at the time was as a result of a culmination of factors there is one thing that has most contributed for my distaste towards this country and that is Home Affairs.

Home Affairs is the a government department and it deals with everything from birth certificates to visas. Kind of like an immigration department but not so specific. Now if you want an expert on the dealings of Home Affairs and what kind of work they do then I am not your person but if you want an understanding of what it is like to visit this place, the procedures, the staff, the atmosphere ...etc then you have found the expert. In the last 3 weeks I have been to Home Affairs 8 times. 8 TIMES!! And after my 8^th visit I still haven’t been able to finalise my application for an extension on my visa.

I will now describe for you each of my visits to this horrid place and maybe, just maybe you will understand why I am so frustrated at this country.

I arrived here in SA on the 29^th of May 2010. 4 months prior to this I asked about my visa and I was told not to worry about it. Then I arrived here in SA, I again asked about my visa, again I was told not to worry about it, I had plenty of time. From that first moment I asked about my visa at least once a week. Always the same response, don’t worry about it and my very favourite response, just drive out of the country and come back again. Yes, every 3 months, great plan.

So I had no idea how to apply for a visa, I had no idea what I needed to apply for a visa and I had no idea where to go to apply for a visa. I figured if everyone was so relaxed about it then it mustn’t be too big of a deal.

As I was preparing to leave for PE I asked again about my visa, I was told I should wait till I got there, so I did. I waited again and when I got to PE I had just 1 month before my current visa would expire. I started again. Every day I asked about my visa. Finally success, Luvuyo took me to Home Affairs, who’d have thought on that first day that I would spend more time in this building than I would doing any Baha’i related activities.

The two of us walked up the ally way leading to the front door. “Photo, photo, you need I.D photo?” “You must buy a black pen, there are no pens inside. Do you need a pen?” We made it past the hawkers and then to security. We each walked through the metal detectors, it beeped, no one cared, we kept walking.

My first impression was scepticism. This was their office of Home Affairs? This looked like one of those abandoned buildings they show in movies where they hold hostages. The flooring is this linoleum in this beigey brown colour, the walls have stains on them, the roof is low. Another thing that hits me is the lack of computers and signs. Luvuyo leads me to the place where we are supposed to go. There is one woman sitting behind some desks at the far end of the room and around 25 people lining the walls. There are wooden benches for these people to sit on. I have no idea what this is. Do you take a number? How do you know who’s next? Is there only one person serving people? Luvuyo goes up to the lady and tells her we just need a form. She gives us the form and as we flick through it we have no idea what to do. I go back up to the lady, I just want to ask her what I need to bring in with this form, she tells me to wait in line. So we leave.

Next visit, its only purpose is to find out what I need to bring in with my application. I walk up the alley way, past the hawkers, through the beeping metal detector and into the same room as before. I get there as early as possible and there are already 15 people ahead of me and one woman working. I figure out that there is a structure to this room. You sit in the last seat and move up a seat as people are served. So I take that last spot and I wait. At one stage I need to use the bathroom so I get up and go in search of it. This doesn’t take long as the smell of it is so severe you can’t miss it. I follow the ‘ladies’ sign and see one of the most disturbing things of this trip so far. There is a woman, a large woman, crouching on the toilet, legs flared, just doing her thing the door wide open. She looks at me I walk past pretending not to notice. She calls out to me “Sisi can you bring me paper?” OMG she wants toilet paper which is not in the cubicles but on a rail near the sink. I go and roll out a huge amount and then I hand it to her and quickly get in to the next cubicle. Shocked, absolutely shocked. I go back to my seat and prepare myself for a long wait filled with painful mental images.

After about an hour and a half my turn comes. I take the golden seat on the other side of the lady’s desk. The seat everyone is eyeing off as they wait on their wooden benches. This seat has a cushion and best of all it’s the last seat. Once you’ve sat here you can leave. The lady makes me a list of all my requirements and then asks to see my current visa. She looks at the expiry date then back at me “If you’re here as a volunteer why have you left it so long to renew your visa?” I couldn’t agree more.

One of the visa requirements is to get a doctors clearance and a radiological report to prove that you are in good health and do not have tuberculosis. I asked Lunathi where I could find a doctor and she tells me to go to Greenacres hospital and I’ll find what I need. So go to the hospital. I see a reception desk and I ask where I can go to see a GP, I am sent down the hall. I go down the hall to another room, I stand and wait for around 10minutes. A lady approaches me and asks me what I need, I show her the forms that a GP needs to fill out and say I need a GP. She takes me further down the hall to another reception desk. I tell the people at that desk that I need to see a GP, “Just sit and wait and the nurse will call you.” So I sit and wait, 10minutes, 20 minutes, 30minutes, 40minutes. I get up and go back to the desk “Do I need to go to the nurse or will she come to me?” “The nurse will call your name” “How will she call my name when I haven’t given it to anyone?”

I go to the nurse “What is the problem?” “I just need to get these forms filled” “This is an emergency department, we don’t fill out forms like that” I explain that I told everyone who I dealt with that I needed a GP to get forms filled and this is where they sent me. I ask her where I should go. “Next to this building is PEGP they can help you there”

This sounds promising, so I go and find the place, step inside and tell the lady at reception that I need to see a GP. “We don’t have a GP here” ..... WHAT!!! The place is called PEGP, how can they not have one??? She points out another building and so I go there. I approach a man who has just come out of a shop “Hi, where is the GP in this building?” “You should go to the hospital” “No, I was told there was a GP in this building” “No, there’s no GP but there’s a doctor over there” WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE!!!

Finally, finally, finally I find a GP. The waiting room is empty, probably because unlike Australia you have to pay to see a doctor here and so people don’t just visit the doctor because their pinky hurts. I go in to see the doctor and tell him about my dramaful day. He laughs and explains that people here don’t know what GP means, always use the word doctor or they won’t understand. Now that wasn’t me talking, that was the doctor. Even the locals can see the messedupness of this place. He signs my forms and sends me back to the hospital for my x-rays. Now this part I liked. I didn’t have to make a booking, they did my x-rays on the spot and my results were ready within 20minutes. I really liked that, they were playing ‘UP’ in the waiting area so the time flew by.

Finally with my medical stuff done I just had to wait for a letter from the Baha’is before I could go back to Home Affairs. When that came I ventured back to that dull, dreadful place and waited in line again. This time it took about an hour for me to reach the front and when I did “Where is your bank statement?” “Why do I need a bank statement?” “We need to see that you can take care of yourself, we don’t want you to be a burden to South Africa.” Me?? A burden to South Africa? South Africa is a burden to the world!! Then I get this delightful bit of information “Go and check the chart to see how much your repatriaction fee is, you must pay it.
Ok so I’m thinking it will be like R1000... no its R10 000. Where the hell am I supposed to get that kind of money? In my head I think it must be a mistake, it should say R1000 and it’s a typo. I go to the shopping centre next door and get a print out of my bank statement and take out R1000 to pay the fee. I go back to Home Affairs and go to the finance department to pay. The lady calls me to her desk. First I ask her why do I need to pay this fee? “That’s a very good question but I don’t know, wait here and I will find out because I would also like to know.” K Ok so the lady comes over and explains that it’s like a bond that I have to pay and I get it back when I leave. Fair enough I guess, how much is it? “R10 000 that’s the fee for Sydney Australia” can I pay on credit? “No, cash only” CASH?? Who walks around these streets with that much cash. I get up and leave, again.

I talk to Luvuyo and he says that with Aziz who is a Baha’i from Kenya, he didn’t have to pay this fee. He decides to come with me on my next visit to figure this out. We sit in line and wait for almost 2 hours. This is where we meet the lady with the amazing story in my previous blog post. We get to the front and here’s some exciting news, I don’t have to pay the fee if I show them my return plane ticket. Well isn’t that just wonderful. We leave again and with 9 days left on my visa I’m starting to think that I may just have to take a little trip to Swaziland or something.

Now I have a small problem. My return ticket is for September because when I booked my flight that was the latest return date they could give me. So I have to call the airline and have this changed. They want to charge me $250, I say that’s not fair, it wasn’t my fault they didn’t offer a return date when I wanted one. They tell me to call my travel agent and do it through them. Now remember there’s a 7 hour time difference so I have to wait till after 1am to make the call. I call and we start the process. I don’t sleep at all that night as the girl I’m working with is emailing me all through the night and I have to keep responding so that we can get this sorted. Thankfully after 2 nights without sleep I have a return flight on the 19^th of May 2011 without having to pay a fee.

So now I have everything I need, every photocopy, every bit of proof, everything I need to go to Home Affairs and have this finalised once and for all. The lady I have been dealing with tells me next time I come to go directly to her and not wait in line so on Thursday, with 6 days to go on my visa I go in at 11.30am. The gates are being closed, why are the gates being closed? “Sorry we are closed for the strike, come back before 11am tomorrow.” Great

So I go back, it’s 9.30am. I don’t want a pen, I don’t want an ID photo, the metal detector beeps and I go and sit on the wooden bench. My 7^th visit to Home Affairs. My lady isn’t at work, I guess I’m waiting in line. I can hear the conversations of other poor souls like me. There’s a lady who entered SA with her kids. Her children’s passports were stamped with October 22^nd, hers was stamped with August 22^nd. She only just realised and is now here to have this mistake resolved. When it’s her turn she finds out she has to go through the whole sorry process of bank statements and forms and fees just like everyone else even though it was a mistake by border control. It’s been 2 hours now that I’ve been waiting and I am finally at the head of the line. I’m next, this is it, I am finally going to be done with Home Affairs. As I get ready to lift my bum off the seat and place it down on the golden chair the voice of a man destroys all my hopes. “We are sorry, the comrades are here and we are going on strike.” Despair, hopelessness, injustice, anger, disappointment, these are all running through me. Stunned into complete shock some of us just stand there, our mouths open in disbelief. We stare at each other, not knowing what to do. The lady in our section stands up with a grin on her face, packs up her papers and walks off without so much as an apology to those of us who have just wasted our lives waiting for her assistance. A South African lady who had accompanied the one with the wrongly stamped passport is standing in shock as well. Her friends visa expires on Sunday and now she will have to pay a fine because of the strike. She tells us this has nothing to do with money, it’s just a day off for most, they don’t care either way. She apologises to us and says that we should just leave the country and come back. She especially empathises with me, “You came here to help us and this is how you get treated.” A man who was waiting in another section looks over at us “I can’t believe this, I don’t understand why you people want to stay in this country?” I hear ya brother. There is one white lady sitting at her desk, I see her every time I come in, she’s always smiling, always courteous, the people she serves leave happy. She’s still seated at her desk, still serving the lady who’s turn was next. She announces that she will stay and serve the remaining people in her section. All the other staff are walking out, handbags over their shoulders, they leave with smirks of satisfaction on their faces. This woman stays, her priority to serve. She receives a phone call, it’s all in Afrikaans, while on the phone she starts shaking, her whole body trembling, she cries out, people are telling her to stay calm. Fear and panic cover her face and a workmate holds her and walks her elsewhere. After a few moments she comes back, she takes her seat behind her desk and carries on her work. The lady I had been speaking to tells me that this woman has just been told that she should stop working or they will kill her. I’m so disgusted I can’t even start to be angry.

A young guy comes around and tells us we should leave for our own safety, as we walk out a male employee looks at us and says “Sorry but this is out of our control” “No, it’s not. You should remember who you are working for, the people and right now the people are the only ones suffering.”

I leave, again. More frustrated and angry than I’ve ever known myself to be. I dread having to come back to this place on Monday and wonder if this is a sign that I am not supposed to be here.

Sunday night I say some prayers and I know that depending on the result on Monday I will know what I have to do.

Monday morning, my 8^th visit to my beloved Home Affairs.. It’s 8am when I arrive, that’s half an hour before opening time. There are already more than 20 people inside waiting for the place to open. I join the end of the queue knowing that being here this early I will definitely be served but considering all the set backs I have had before I am still apprehensive.

A man comes out to talk to us, I recognise him as the man I spoke to on Friday. “Everyone as you know we are on strike and so we are working at minimal capacity. The following services will be available.. Ids, passports..” I am praying he says permits, he must say permits “..birth certificates, fingerprints.” He’s stopped talking and he hasn’t said permits.. OMG OMG OMG!!

“I am sorry but those of you who need permits and visas that sector is striking the most heavily and they will be on strike indefinitely, please consider your options if you have a permit that will expire shortly.”

OMG OMG OMG!!

8 times!! 8 times I tried. No one can say I didn’t try, that I didn’t really pursue every effort to get this fixed but deep down I always knew I would end up leaving the country. From the first time Mr Shams, as a joke, suggested that I leave the country and come back almost 3 months ago I knew that it would come to this. My gut feeling, my intuition, my soul knew that this moment would come where my visa would expire and I would need to leave, only to come back and have another 3 month visitors visa issued. This whole time I had already been considering where I wanted to go on this little get away and my soul has been crying for Uganda, where one of the 7 Baha’is temples of the world is situated. I have only seen 2 Baha’i temples, one in Sydney and one in New Delhi so this will be my third and I’m actually really excited. Sometimes you just have to read the signs and the signs are saying I need to leave South Africa.

So I now have 2 days to book a flight and find somewhere to stay in Uganda. I’m thinking I’ll stay for about 5 days or so and hopefully I will come back to SA refreshed and re-energised and I can continue with my work completely in tune.

This life is not predictable and we always have to be ready to seize opportunity when it comes. You know I actually feel blessed that when God wants to tell me something he makes it pretty obvious for me what I am supposed to do. 8 times and no cigar, I can take a hint.

Kuyga's Finest

2010-08-17T10:02:00.000-07:00

I had been a little disappointed over the last couple weeks at how unfruitful all my efforts had been in this area. I felt like things just weren't working out and that nothing was really amounting to anything, people weren't turning up for classes that we had organised together and last week I went to Kuyga school to start our first Junior Youth group there. I walked in through the gates to find a ghost school, no kids, no teachers. I asked some construction workers where the kids were only to be told that the teachers were on strike. I left, disappointed again.

One week has now passed since that day, I was going back to Kuyga school to hopefully start the JY group with Zintle and Sibakheh and the grade 5 kids. I decided not to get my hopes up. In my head I kept thinking of all the things that could go wrong. I would turn up and the principal would have changed her mind and said we couldn't do it. There would be no kids willing to stay after school for the class. The school would be on strike again. In my head I had prepared for the worst but as always I went to the school with all my equipment, with the first lesson planned out and a load of prayers under my belt.

I was told school finished at 2pm so I aimed to gett to the school at 1.30pm to give myself time to prepare and remind the principal that I was doing the class. I got into Kuyga at around quarter past 1 and as I approached the school I noticed that there were kids leaving. Why were kids leaving? I get inside and see that the whole school has been dismissed and all the teachers are signing out of the principal's office. Turns out school finishes at 1pm not 2. I walk inside and one of the heads of staff looks at me "Oh we forgot about you, hold on let me go see if the grade 5s are still there." She leads me to one of the class rooms where there are something like 15 kids sitting at their desks, their teacher leaves and asks me if I'm going to be ok, I say yes. I haven't been able to get a hold of Zintle or Sibakheh so I decide to start and then see if I can find them.

These poor kids are staring at me, completely confused as to why they can't go home. I stand in front of them as they, being the good students they are, sit at their desks quietly waiting for me to give them orders. "Hi I'm Martha, I'm from Australia and we would like to start a junior youthh group with you guys." I can see that they are stiff, not this atmosphere I want for this group. "Guys I'm not a teacher, if you want to move around go for it, if you want to sit on the floor or the desk feel free." So that helped. The kids loosen up and I introduce the first activity. In order to get to know these kids I ask them to trace their hands and in each of the fingers write something about themselves, either what they want to be when they grow up or what things they like, anything that relates to them. I show them the one I did at home and then start distributing the paper. Note to self bring more yellow paper, it's the favourite. Everyone starts the activity. They sit, talking amongst themselves but mostly quietly tracing their hands, sitting and thinking abotu what to write, deciding what colour to use. I walk around them trying to read their names which I've asked them to write in the middle of their hands. These kids in this class are the Afrikaans kids, I can tell because they write in Afrikaans 'werk, soker, rukbe'. I assume as I am late that this is the only grade 5 class left and in my head I am glad because 15 kids is more than enough. Sibakheh finds, Zintle has gone home sick, and so the 2 of us carry on with the lesson. I really want Sibakheh to take charge as this is hers and Zintle's group, I am just here to help and I need for the kids to see that. I can see that she still has work to do in terms of confidence controlling a large group. After a few minutes a lady comes to the door "Aren't you going to take the other kids?" Other kids? "There are the rest of grade 5s in the other room and they are getting restless, are you going to take them when you are done here?" Now in my head I'm like are they Afrikaans or Xhosa and how many and OMGB I tell her that we want all the kids in one group so she goes and gets them... All 30 of them. They all come streaming in the room and I can see the shock and confusion on the faces of the Afrikaans kids. I take the kids to the back of the room and introduce myself and jy. I explain the activity and hand out the paper for them to start. As they begin I go around to some of the Afrikaans boys "Do you ever hang out with the Xhosa kids? Are you friends with any of them?" The response everytime is no. I ask them why? "I don't know we just don't." I wonder if there's going to be a clash having all these kids together but I figure that these kids are all 11, 12 and 13 years old. They have everything in common except for their background. Why shouldn't they get along?

All the kids are now working on their hands. Sibakheh is going around seeing to everyones needs while I find groups to talk to about Breezes of Confirmation which is thr first book in the jy series. I also go around and try to pronounce peoples' names. The kids laugh at me when I get it completely wrong. I ask them to submit their hands to me so that I can look at them. I also want to take them home and practice all the names as well as see what these kids see in their futures. As the group starts to finish what they are doing I pull out the soccer ball and a game of soccer begins. With still around 15 kids in the classroom colouring and decorating I get another chance to talk to them about Breezes. Then I do something that I know all kids love, I pull out my camera.

YOH! Are these kids posers or what? They love the camera, they made me take individual photos of them and they always had to see how it turned out. One of the boys begged to get a photo with me which was hilarious. Most of us ended up migrating outside. While there I talked to the group about or service activity and asked them to think of things during the week. I also asked them to come up with potential names for the group and come back next week with their ideas.

My fears when first staring the group were that the kids wouldn't want to stay after school for the class and that when I introduced the book and explained that there were lessons involved they would not want to come back. My goodness was I wrong, I couldn't get these kids to leave. They just would not go home. I did a big farewell to everyone, we all put our hands together in a circle and cheered "junior youth group!" I asked them if they were all excited about coming back next week and they all said yes. It was such a good feeling, such a relief. After I said goodbye I went inside to clean up and get my bag. They all followed me inside. I'm looking at these kids like you can go now. Nope, instead they stayed, helped me clean up even packed my bag for me. Then around 10 of them escorted me out of the school and walked with me and Sibakheh to her house. I said goodbye for the 12th time and this time everyone went their separate ways home. We filled Zintle in on the class and talked about how it went.

I was buzzing all the way home, I'm so excited and I can't believe we have so many kids. And the best part was that I'd didn't matter anymore, Afrikaans or Xhosa, they were all one group at the end. I hope it stays like that and we can show these kids that theuy don't need to be separate.

Things I have to do for next week, buy a netball so the girls can play their sport of choice and make sure my camera has a full battery.

A couple things I'll share based on the hands activity. So many of these kids said they want to be a doctor. The sad part is that with the education they are getting at this school it is going to be very difficult for them to achieve that goal. Another interesting one was "I like to wash my body" not sure how to take this but it came up a few times. Netball and soccer were the 2 main sports and so many kids said they love school and doing their school work. The 2 comments that absolutely blew me away were "I like to help people" and " I am proud of myself." These kids are like 12, remember that. We brush off this age group so easily but they are so much greater than we give them credit for. And I think at least 60% said they love their families, also something nice to see.

I can't wait till next Tuesday, I'm so pumped about this that I was tempted to say I'd come back on Thursday and we could have class twice a week. I might actually suggest that next class.

Those who cross our paths

2010-08-16T10:11:00.000-07:00

Waiting at Home Affairs, my 5^th visit to the place. I’ve been sitting in line for over an hour. There are still at least four people ahead of me and only one woman working the counter.
I’m tired of this place; I’m sick of its brown walls, its brown floors and its brown seats. A cockroach scuttles past, it will soon end up crushed under the foot of any of the 60 or so people who are waiting in queues. There is a lady sitting next to me on my left and a man on my right. Luvuyo comes after some time to see if he can find a way to prevent me having to pay a R10 000 repatriation fee.

We play musical chairs. As one person moves to the counter we all move up a place. Each time we scoot over we get one seat closer to the front of the line. Conversations start amongst the waiting people. In this section we are mostly all foreigners applying for visas to stay in the country. I’m talking to Luvuyo, telling him I’m not sure I want to stay in South Africa after this six months in P.E is over. I ask him if he knows where they plan to send me next. He says Polokwane, in the north. The lady next to me interrupts our conversation. “In Polokwane people will take care of you, it’s only in the big cities that you’re left to fend for yourself.”

The conversation continues. She is a 35+ lady from Spanish Morrocco, she’s been in South Africa for 11 years. “When I first came here I was in Pretoria for the first 2 weeks, no one was there for me. I had to figure everything out on my own. When I went to the rural areas that’s when people cared for me”.

She talks about living and studying in Cape Town.“I was given such a hard time there, I was called names like white caffa, it was a horrible experience”. She shows me her teeth which are all missing on top. “Everything I have was stolen from my home, even my dentures. This is a very rough country.”

She tells us she came to SA to work in the navy. She’s in the marines. I ask her if she’s ever been home. With an expression of contempt she says yes. She was deported just 3 weeks ago. All of her paperwork and visa were on the ship she works on. She was stopped by officials, asked to show her documents. She tried to explain to them that if they just checked with the government, called one of her officials, anything, they would see she’s employed by the navy and is legally in this country. Within 3 hours she was arrested and put on a plane home. Her 8 year old daughter left behind in South Africa.

I’m absolutely dumbfounded. Without even doing a proper check or trying to find the truth she was deported. After living here for 11 years! At home she contacts a friend who is a lawyer and now she is fighting back.

I’m shocked at how this could happen. I can see that this woman has suffered. It is there in her eyes. “It’s been so hard here, living away from your family and friends. The immigration people tell me to marry a South African and that will make everything easier. I’m a Catholic, when I marry I marry for love not for a visa and besides I’m already married; I’m married to the sea.”

She tells another story of life in Cape Town. In the span of 3 months she was mugged 4 times. “I was sick of it, I thought if they are going to keep trying to mug me then I’ll get a gun. So I get a license and I buy a gun. One time as I was walking these four guys approach me. Two go behind me and two in front. One of the guys pulls out a large knife. He tells me to take off all my jewellery and hand it over and while I’m at it I should take off all my clothes and lay on the floor. So I pulled out the gun, pointed it at him and told him and his friends to take off their clothes. And then I left them there, naked and I walked away with their clothes.”

Aside from being amused and proud of this woman for fighting back it’s also sad that you have to be armed in order to be safe.

I was absolutely astounded by this encounter. It’s amazing how we can cross paths with people never knowing what they’ve been through, what they’ve seen, what they know.
I love hearing other people’s stories, it opens up our own little window and through the eyes of others we are able to see pieces of the world we would otherwise never have discovered.

After her turn at the counter she walked away as any other stranger would, perhaps never realising the impact she had on me.

I still have to go to Home Affairs, hopefully for the last time and maybe while there I’ll encounter another person in line who’s story we share and even though we only have a few moments together the impact they could have on me might be just as great.

Segregation

2010-08-15T09:56:00.000-07:00

South Africa has 11 national languages, here in the Eastern Cape 3 of those languages are predominately used; English, Xhosa and Afrikaans. Afrikaans, although having the word Africa in it, is not really an African language. It is a kind of offshoot of Dutch made by the white people back in the day and it is now used mostly by white people and by coloured people(half African, half other).

During the World Cup on the day South Africa played Uruguay this country celebrated Youth Day. A day dedicated to the young students who were killed by the police during a peaceful protest. The protest was against the government wanting to make all classes in universities taught in Afrikaans. This would restrict so many from being able to go to university unless they could speak this language. The use of language as a means of segregation is unfortunately something that is occurring in many facets of society here in Port Elizabeth and in most parts of South Africa. It is embedded into every individual from the first moment they begin to think and understand, it starts in school. Many schools are divided into Afrikaans and Xhosa speaking. Children are separated based on their background. When children are taught from such an early age that they are different to one another and that they belong in different groups how can we expect them to feel united or to come together later on in life? Often if the school principal is of Afrikaans background all the formal talks and presentations given to the staff and parents will be done in Afrikaans. If the teacher is of a Xhosa background they will be done in Xhosa. Either way one group misses out every time. Now think about this issue in the work place. I was told a story where there was a work meeting in a company. The meeting was entirely in Afrikaans, there was a Xhosa girl in the meeting who could not understand anything. The next day her work mates approached her about organising her farewell party. She asked them what they meant? Turns out the entire meeting the day before was about them letting her go.

There is so much tension still amongst these two groups. When we were talking about this I could sense the injustice felt but some of the Xhosa people in the group. One said that the Afrikaans people shouldn’t complain if things are done in Xhosa because for so long they tried to control us by using their language and now finally we are taking back control and we want to show them that we have our own language too and we want to use it. English is the only neutral language in this country and almost everyone knows how to speak it at least at a conversational level, so why not just have all formal education taught in English. Why not make it compulsory for English to be spoken in the work place if there are employees of mixed backgrounds? Well for one thing the Xhosa speaking part of the schools are already being taught in English. From what I understand the unwillingness seems to be coming from the Afrikaans side. Aziz who is a Baha’i living in Kuyga was also a teacher at Kuyga school. He does not speak Xhosa or Afrikaans and so was teaching in the Xhosa side of the school. He did however start up a Junior Youth Group in the school and as Baha’is we don’t want to segregate our activities by language. Many of the kids were from Afrikaans background and the jy class was done in English. A lot of the parents were unhappy about this because they don’t want their kids learning English. Let me just repeat myself there, the parents did not want their kids to learn English. Do I need to repeat myself for a third time? No I don’t think I do. But it’s crazy right? The ability to speak Afrikaans is only going to help you in South Africa and maybe to a smaller extent in the Netherlands. No other place in the world uses it. The ability to speak English gives you the opportunity to study overseas and to communicate with so much of the world as it is such a widely spoken language. These kids can barely speak English. Even the universities here are conducted in English.

Why do these parents want to limit their children? I asked this question, I asked why people wouldn’t want to learn English. I was told that these people aren’t looking outside of South Africa. As long as they are living here they don’t worry about anywhere else. This answer didn’t satisfy me and thinking about it on my own I tried to figure out why this mentality would exist. Maybe it has something to do with separating yourself. Maybe English is seen as a bridge that will unite these two sides and perhaps some people don’t want that. If language can be used for power then a common language would take that power away. I still don’t really get it I just know that it needs to change. The attitudes that the people have towards each other need to change.

I was talking to Aziz, he was telling me how we need Baha’i teachers who can speak Afrikaans because at the moment we have no way of reaching this community. I told him I had no interest in learning Afrikaans, I didn’t want to learn a language that was used to oppress so many people. He looked at me and replied that that was why we needed to learn it. We needed to be the ones to make the first step and be able to communicate with these people and be able to teach them and bridge this gap. I still don’t want to learn it but I wasn’t so resentful any more. What he said made a whole lot of sense. We have to be the agents of change.

It’s really strange sometimes being in a country with so many cultures. Australia is a very diverse country with many cultures within it but there is still a difference between Australian culture and migrant culture. Those two types still aren’t considered as the culture of the country. Here in SA every culture is South African culture, the white people came and took the land away from the natives, they belittled them, took away their rights, imprisoned them and treated them as second class citizens but when Nelson Mandela brought democracy to South Africa all those cultures were considered South Africa. The white people call themselves South Africans, the black people call themselves South Africans, the coloured people call themselves South Africans. Even the Persian kids who are first generation born here call themselves South Africans. Sometimes in Australia I don’t feel like an Australian. I get told to go back to my own country, but I was born in Aus so what does that mean exactly? When I was growing up and people used to ask me what nationality I was and I would say “I’m Australian” they would say NO, where are you from? After a while you learn, you’re not an Australian or you learn to respond the way they want you to.. “My parents are from Iran but I was born here”.. “My background is Persian but I was born in Sydney”. It’s only now that I’m overseas that I feel Australian because people here don’t say no when I say that’s where I’m from. I guess the reason it’s different here is because the constitution of this country is so young. South Africa as we know it is only about 15-20years old. The foundation of South Africa is what we have now, it’s of different races being equal and no one race being higher than the other. So many people gave their lives for this South Africa and although it is still a baby and it still has so much work to do the essence of unity is there. No one here is told to go back to their own country (except maybe the Nigerians) haha jokes. No one is exempt from being called a South African, everyone owns pride for this country. This is where Australia differs. Australia is still owned by the white people, the ones who came in their boats all those years ago. Aside from the huge injustice that was thrust upon the Aborigines and the blood that was shed by so many of our Indigenous people this country has seen no war, no hardship, no struggle that would bring it’s peoples together. The foundation on Australia is white control and although we sing about it

“We are one, but we are many and from all the lands on Earth we come. We share a dream and sing with one voice, I am you are we are Australian”.

Even our National Anthem proclaims it, in its forgotten second verse

“For those who’ve come across the seas, we’ve boundless plains to share...”

We most definitely don’t live in a country that supports the idea of boundless plains to share for those who’ve come from overseas.. unless you are from England or the U.S. It’s a country where we have it so good that we don’t want anything to ruin it. Australia is a great country, it’s a beautiful country where people are living comfortably, where the government is always there with monetary handouts should anything happen to you, where we get upset when the unemployment rate reaches 5%. Of course people wouldn’t want that to change. The idea of increasing migration scares people. We don’t want things in our wonderful country to change and we’ve been told that more migrants might threaten our perfect lifestyles. We’ve bred a society of people who fear anything different and who resent those who don’t assimilate into the acceptable culture. This leads to racism. If anyone even tries to argue with me that Australia doesn’t have racism embedded in its blood then I’ll just give them the form that you need to fill out as a foreigner from let’s say the middle east to get a visitor’s visa to Australia. It is impossible to fill out, it is only printed in English, it has questions in it that we struggled to understand and the stupid part is that we weren’t the ones that were supposed to fill it in, the person overseas is supposed to do it. If English isn’t your second language then there is no way you would be able to understand it. Now there’s no way that I am saying Aus is more racist than SA, I’m just saying that at least here you don’t have to drink VB and watch the footy to feel like you belong. You don’t have to conform to anything or lose your accent or dress in a certain way. You don’t need to tattoo yourself with Australian flags or the Southern Cross, you don’t have to look a certain way or listen to a certain type of music to be accepted in this country. In Australia a lot of the time that’s how it feels. For someone who was born and bred there it is still so easy for me to feel like I don’t belong which is really saying something about the place. So back to SA, a land of extremes. I’m still furious at the government of this country for abandoning the people now that Phillip is gone (the World Cup). Still so many unfinished projects and who knows when they will be completed. The teachers have been on strike as they are being paid so little for the work they do. There was a great sign held up by one of the teachers on strike, it said “CAN YOU READ THIS SIGN? THANK A TEACHER” absolutely brilliant.

My next blog post will be about the townships and some new things I’ve learnt and I want to talk about District 9. Was going to go in here but I went on a tangent about Australia so I’ll save it for next time.

The Yaran

2010-08-09T15:27:00.000-07:00

Both my parents were born in Iran, both my parents left Iran, both my parents have never returned to Iran. My parents were among thousands of young Baha’is who were rejected from their country of birth because of their faith. My mum and dad were both in India during the revolution, my mum was sent to India by her parents for a few months to wait for things to settle in Iran. When things didn’t settle my mum stayed in India and her citizenship was revoked by the Iranian government. The same story can be said for all the Baha’is that left Iran.

The Baha’is in Iran had reason to fear for their safety and send their children away. Since the establishment of the Baha’i Faith which originated in Iran, the followers of the Faith have been persecuted. Thousands of the followers of the Bab and Baha’u’llah the Manifestations of God who brought the Babi and Baha’i Faith respectively were executed in Iran. These executions have been merciless and brutal, Mona was just 17 when she was hung with 9 other women. Her crime was teaching children’s classes and refusing to recant her faith.

The Iranian government, although denying that they are unjustly persecuting the Baha’is, have in place systematic measures for the destruction of the Baha’i Faith in Iran. Their approach reflects Hitler’s approach in the genocide that took place against the Jews. There is a document titled “The Baha’i question” which maps out plans for the destruction of the Faith. Attacks against the Baha’is in Iran include the destruction of Baha’i homes and property including Baha’i cemeteries where graves are dug up and the Baha’is are told to come and clean up the mess and propaganda belittling the Faith and the spreading of false accusations against the Baha’is. The Baha’is are refused basic rights like the right to attain a higher education, the right to work in senior government positions, the right to openly teach their Faith, the right to a pension and the list goes on.

Recently there has been an increase in the attacks against the Faith. Hundreds of Baha’is have been arrested and many of them have spent time in prison for crimes that they did not commit. Regardless of age or gender Baha’is are arrested many times without charge they are kept in holding cells and refused the rights of an actual prisoner like the right to family visitors or the right to one hour outdoors...etc

There are countless stories of several members of one family being arrested, their crime is their Faith and their refusal to deny it but there is one story that I want to bring attention to and that is of the 7 Yaran(friends) who have in the last few days been sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Every national Baha’i community has a national administrative body called the National Spiritual Assembly. Its purpose is to see to the needs of the Baha’is of its country in an administrative role as well as overlook the spiritual needs of the country. The Iranian government banned the Baha’is from having any administrative body in Iran so in order for the Baha’is to see to the needs of the community they established the Yaran of Iran. In each region members were appointed to see to the needs of the Baha’is in that community. Their actions were completely transparent and in accordance with the laws of the country. The government was made fully aware of the members and were kept informed of what they were doing.

In May 2008 these 7 leaders of the Baha’i Faith in Iran were arrested without charge and kept in one of Iran’s most notorious prisons the Evin Prison. Here they spent 20 months without charge, for some time they had no right to legal counsel or to see their families. In many cases in Iran where Baha’is are imprisoned it can be months before family are informed of where they are held and in some cases families are only called to collect the bodies as their loved ones have already been executed, some have even disappeared and to this day we are not sure where they have been buried and what the circumstances were of their deaths.

After a lengthy trial where the charges of espionage, propaganda activities against the Islamic order, and "corruption on earth” were made against them these 7 leaders consisting of 2 women and 5 men were sentenced to 20 years in prison. The charges were baseless and obscene, each charge was denied with extensive proof for the innocence of these 7 but this was never about justice or the law. Iran’s only motive was to bring down the Baha’i Faith in Iran, to silence its followers and ignite fear and hate amongst the Iranian people. In that regard Iran will never succeed. Everytime that government persecutes the Baha’is in Iran the international Baha’i community is strengthened. For every Baha’i who gave their life the spirit of the Faith is increased.

There is a school in the tiny islands of Vanuatu named after one of the martyrs. The Rowhani Baha’i school has hundreds of students who are educated under the banner of the Baha’i Faith in the name of a single man who made the greatest sacrifice for the sake of what he believed in.

Nothing will silence the members of this religion and so long as the Baha’is of Iran are prevented from working for the betterment of society the Baha’is of the world will only give more for their sake.

I am here, serving in South Africa, with the thought of those Baha’is who brave through every adversity and test, who forsake a university education because of their Faith, who face abuse and harassment by their neighbours or co workers because of their beliefs, who stand strong and determined when threatened with death in order to stand for their religion. If they can strive through all that and still refrain from backing down then so can we and so can I.

I remember the stories of my grandfather who spent 18 months in prison just after the revolution. The expression on his face when he talks about his time in prison, the beatings and the torture and how those months spent isolated and alone treated worse than a murderer or rapist were the best months of his life because he was in such a spiritual state, so ready to sacrifice anything for something so intangible, so incomprehensible as faith. This makes me want to work even harder.

If only to bring awareness to the sufferings of the Baha’is in Iran, if maybe to inspire us all to take full advantage of the freedoms and rights that we so often take for granted, perhaps to motivate action in the appeals of the international Baha’i community to free these innocent souls I would like you all to read about what is currently happening in Iran. Ignorance may be easier, especially when something is of no personal relation to you but if we consider the whole world as one family, if we are all the leaves of one tree then every hardship that befalls another human being is our hardship and we should take responsibility for this world. Awareness and action should go hand in hand. Through pressure from international governing bodies we can give justice to these Baha’is, that is how my grandfather avoiding execution. When the world stands up against any country that denies human rights we will see change. Writing to council members in your area is the best way to keep governments pressing Iran on this issue. The Australian government has already made statements condemning Iran for its persecution against the Baha’is and we need this to continue. Otherwise we ask for your prayers, we ask people to keep the Iranian Baha’is in mind and pray for their safekeeping.

This link is to the Baha’i news service where you can read all about Iran’s strategic plan against the Baha’is and the trial against the 7 leaders.

The following is a photo of the Yaran, now sent to serve 20 years behind bars.

The South of Africa

2010-08-07T08:13:00.001-07:00

10 weeks into my stay here and I have come to some fairly solid conclusions about South Africa.

There’s no way I would live here

This country seems to have gone backwards instead of forwards when it comes to growth and progress as a whole.

Until the people stand up against crime the police are powerless

There is no such thing as a black South African who can’t dance

People here are unaware that a GP and a doctor are the same thing

If you want something done be prepared to do it yourself

It's all about who you know

The level of respect you receive depends on what class you fit into

In terms of the overall experience I have been having a good time. The experience that I have had so far can be split into two categories the first being the World Cup experience and the second being the Living Here experience.

My World Cup experience was fantastic and I’ve spoken about it enough so now putting that aside let’s go into the experience I’ve had here just as an immigrant living and serving in South Africa.

This experience so far does not make it onto my list of greatest experiences ever. It has been insanely difficult and very trying. I would like to sit and say it’s not the people it’s just the culture and rah rah rah but unfortunately it’s been a culmination of everything. I know service is supposed to be difficult and testing but I didn’t realise I was going to dislike so much about living and serving here. Now my mentality on life is that everything happens for a reason and that even the bad things that happen to you like being stuck in traffic or missing your train all happen because there is an opportunity somewhere that you are supposed to take advantage of or to keep you safe. You take a wrong turn and end up having to detour for 10minutes but in doing that you avoided being in a car accident. It’s a sliding doors kind of thing. So with that mentality, with a state of mind that doesn’t like the idea of regret, that knows there is purpose behind everything, that tries to make or find the opportunities behind situations that seem inconvenient I even broke down and wanted to leave. I wanted to pack my bags, call another country, leave and go serve elsewhere. People would ask me ‘What are you doing in South Africa?’ and I would stare at them blankly and think “What am I doing here?” This has honestly been the hardest thing I have ever faced in my life. I have had more bad days in the last 10 weeks than I think I had all of last year. Now I have not been wallowing in my own sorrow or anything like that, what I think has happened is that I went from total freedom and independence to confined and unable. My social life went from vibrant and energetic to almost non- existent and the worst thing of all is that service so far has not been meeting my expectations. I expected Vanuatu and I got South Africa... go figure.

Really I shouldn’t be complaining but I thoroughly enjoy complaining and this is my blog so I’ll just go ahead and do it.

This country is just so backwards in so many ways. Every day that I leave the house I see something that shocks me, still after all this time. And I’ve been exposed to so many things in this world that I didn’t think I could still be shocked like this but I am.. every day!

Driving down the street and having to give way to a guy in a cart being pulled by 2 donkeys. Travelling in a taxi that only has seats for 13 people with atleast 20 people inside. My friend telling me to be aware of the monkeys when walking down a road. Asking how much an average waiter gets paid and finding out it is less than $3 Aus an hour. Going to the townships and seeing the way some people live. Visiting a young girl and having her mother and her mother’s boyfriend come home drunk and the mother complaining to me that her daughter is involved with too many extracurricular activities that she won’t have time to cook for her and clean the house. Seeing children running around in the streets when they should be at school and no one doing anything about it.

I feel like there is so much that needs to change in this country and for someone like me who feels personally responsible for the betterment of the world it is very overwhelming. Sometimes I just don’t know where to start. It took me some time before I decided to step back and plan out for myself exactly what I can do to help here and that has helped immensely. Now I have a plan and it’s achievable and it gives me back a sense of purpose.

Ok so done with complaining, I am going to stick it out and try my best to be happy in this country and do as much as I can here but at this point in time I am seriously considering leaving South Africa when my 6 month contract is up and finishing off my service in another African country, maybe at one of the Baha’i schools.

So that’s my little rant, we start junior youth with the Kuyga school on Tuesday with 57 grade 5 kids. The prospect of teaching is the biggest thing that is keeping me motivated at the moment. I will update you all and tell you how it goes. I also want to show you what Kuyga looks like so you can be as shocked as me.