Soul Vacation

It has been nearly three weeks since I arrived in South Africa. So far it has felt like a much-needed soul vacation. Granted, most of the days have been jam-packed with tours and orientation lectures and other program activities, but the days in between and the evenings prove to be an opportune time for personal reflection. I did quite a bit of research on S. Africa’s history before I arrived so that, when I arrived, I could focus on the current conditions in the country. Also, I could be a little selfish and focus on myself. But there is a misnomer about this word selfish, I think. Devoting one’s energy to oneself is not a bad thing so long as the result is something positive. In America we are taught to focus so much energy on the self, but the result is not positive in the sense that I have in mind; we are taught to focus on the self in terms of achieving success, making money, earning rewards and promotions. In fact, I think this is one area in which American (and perhaps other Western) schools could improve; I only say American schools because they are the only ones that I have experienced first-hand. We focus so much on academic achievement and marks that we sacrifice the importance of the individual. Students, and eventually society, do not know who they are at the core of their being; they define themselves instead by their achievements. Consequently, students tend to value themselves based on the marks they receive rather than the positive personal characteristics that reside within themselves.

The mainstream person, the one who just rides the waves of life, never changed society. It is those who defy the waves of life that make a difference. It is our Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa, Gandhi, and Hitler, who refused to float through life; instead they chose a non-conformist path. They were labeled “outsiders” by society because they adopted lives of nonconformity. Not all nonconformity is for the betterment of society, mind you. In fact, it probably occurred to you that Hitler does not belong in the aforementioned group. Here it is important to make a significant distinction between those who are internally and externally motivated to adopt lifestyles of non-conformity. Those who are internally motivated have some passion that drives them to fight for the betterment of the human race simply for humans’ sake. On the other hand, those who are externally motivated seek to gain something in return. Hitler was externally motivated. He did not have it in his heart to improve society - even though one could argue that, in his mind, this is exactly what he was doing.

I have gone off on a tangent. All of this was sort of inspired by something one of the coordinators at the Love Life Center said on our recent visit there. (Love Life is an after-school center for students aged 12-17, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, that offers educational programs including HIV/AIDS, teen pregnancy, safe sex, etc.) The coordinator said that the mission of Love Life is to help the students realize who they want to become before they turn out to be who they did not want to become. His exact words were, “I think the biggest tragedy in this life is not realizing who you are until you become who you don’t want to be.” In other words, more important than the external factors which life has dealt you are the internal qualities that drive you. If the seeds of hope inside you are planted, watered, and harvested, you too can become an internally motivated non-conformist who will improve society. I realize that this commentary is quite abstract and that you might struggle to grasp my point here, but at least I will be able to glean my point from this when I read it later.

I brought with me to South Africa some of my favorite inspirational literature, and have been borrowing some from housemates. I am not the only one on this journey of soul searching. It is comforting to be in the presence of others who are also on some version of this journey. Some sort of bond forms between two people who can discuss the deeper meanings of life in terms of humanity and spirituality, as opposed to race and religion, for example.

This will conclude this post. This evening we are departing for High Africa. They haven’t told us much of anything that we will be doing this weekend – many things in this program are a surprise. However, if you Google “High Africa” you will get results. It seems that we will be doing team-building activities and setting goals for our service projects, which should be interesting since we haven’t been officially assigned service projects yet. Also, our classes begin on Monday, and we have yet to receive our class schedule. One thing a person must learn in Africa: patience. That the world will not end if something begins 10 (or 45) minutes late. I generally prefer to have a schedule, and adhere to it, but learning patience is a good thing for me. It forces me to surrender some small sense of control that I have over the happenings in my days. I think we could all benefit from giving up a little bit of control in this matter.

One more thing. The African sun is much more relentless than in North America. I officially have my first legitimately painful African sunburn. But the sand and the waves were beautiful!