The End of The End

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 :)

Saying Goodbye

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.

Explanation

In my haste to start ranting on about my life I forgot to explain what it is exactly that I'm doing.

I'm going to South Africa for what we Baha'is call a Youth Year of Service. I am a Baha'i (it's a religion) and all the youth in the Baha'i Community are encouraged to dedicate atleast one year of their lives to service to humanity. This can be in any form whether it be helping in one of the Baha'i Institutions like the Baha'i World Centre in Haifa, Israel, at one of the Baha'i Temples or in any one of the Baha'i Schools around the world or it can be community based service which is what I'm doing. In my case I join a community and help them build the capacity of that community. This can be done by establishing local community classes for children, junior youth and adults which aim to develop moral and spiritual consciousness through prayer and virtues.

So here's the plan, I arrive in Johanessburg on the 29th of May and hopefully someone will be there to pick me up from the airport and take me to the National Baha'i Office where I will be staying for the first few weeks. Whilst there I will most probably be helping out in whatever way I can and attending the two Socceroos friendly matches on the 1st and 5th of June.

On the 14th of June my big sister arrives in J'burg from Haifa where she has been serving for the past 2 years and she will stay for 2 weeks and we will attend the world cup together. Then, through consultation with the Baha'is in J'Burg, I will move to another community that I can help out and that is most likely where I will live for the remaining 10-11 months.

So at this point in time I don't know exactly where I will be living but it will all be revealed in this here blog once I find out.

FAQ- for those who don't know it means Frequently Asked Questions :)

Q. Are you getting paid?

A. No, it is completely voluntary

Q. How will you afford to live if you aren't getting paid?

A. Accommodation will be supplied, I will most likely be staying with a family and so food and shelter will come with the package but I have also been saving for this trip for some time.

Q. Why South Africa?

A. I've always wanted to go to Africa for service, I first inquired about going there in 2008 during Uni holidays but I was told that because I only had 2 months free that it would be better used serving in one of the islands around Aus and so I went to the Rowhani Baha'i School in Vanuatu instead. Now that I have more time I am fulfilling my first wish which was Africa and South Africa kindly accepted to have me.

Q. Are you scared with all the violence and the high crime rates?

A. Yes and no. I think that anywhere you go in the world you have to be cautious and careful otherwise you could get hurt. People are murdered, bashed, mugged, stabbed...etc in Australia too. Sometimes the media can over emphasize the violence in a certain place and this can lead us to form inaccurate judgments of a region (the same can be said for Campbelltown). I'm not ignorant to the fact that it could be dangerous but at the same time the Baha'i Community will be looking out for me and as long as I try to stay safe then hopefully I won't have anything to worry about.