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.

True Healing Starts from the Soul

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.

3 days in

It's only been 3 days since I arrived here but it feels like so much longer. The people here are so warm and welcoming that you instantly feel like you're part of the family.

Yesterday I was put to work. It was my first shift at the Baha'i Centre and I was put in with the kitchen staff. We started at 9am and within 30min of work I started to cry. I cried more than I cried when I left my family at the airport, I just couldn't control it no matter how hard I tried.. by the 3rd onion I gave up and asked one of the other girls to finish cutting the rest.
Now everyone teases me about how I cry everyday because today I was in the kitchen again cutting onions and crying.

I have 2 roommates Ivy and Nondwe. Ivy works in the finance section and Nondwe in the kitchen. Everyday we cook lunch for about 35 staff at the centre. Other departments include gardens, security, the secretariat and laundry. The structure is based off that of the Baha'i World Centre so it's really structured. Kitchen staff work 6 days a week 9-6 but when there are function they work 12 hours and often work7 days a week. They are very short staffed here which is why the youth are so exhausted so anyone feel like going on service South Africa is taking offers.

Today I forced Michael, a Baha'i guy from Adelaide who is travelling through here, to come with me to the Aus vs Denmark game. We got soooo lost. The stadium (Ruimsig Stadium) doesn't appear int he GPS beause it's actually called Roodepoort Athletics Stadium and its FIFA name is Ruimsig. So we got to the game late but it was ok because no one scored till the second half. We won 1-0!! It was a nice little victory and it hope it keeps our team on good spirits. It was hard to find other Australians in the crowd because there were so many South Africans at the game and they were all wearing their jearseys which are also green and gold.



Tonight I ate a whole pizza

Life here is difficult for me because I have to rely on others. I can't go anywhere unless someone can drive me. I don't yet know my way around and I can't get a sim card without my passport which is with one of the Baha'is who is holding it for me and I can't get to her without a car which I can't get to unless someone has the time to drive me.

Otherwise things are good and I'm looking forward to my big sis coming and travelling a bit.

Until next time I get access to a computer

Ta ta