Oh swallow, what did you swallow?

  Aside from being one of my favorite songs from the Wailin Jennys - which always reminds me of one of my favorite friends - Swallows are my favorite birds.  Luckily there are a lot of them flying around Windhoek, and when I am feeling blue, I get to just look up and watch them swooping about with glee.  One night this past week I was in a particularly over-socialized mood and needing some journal/alone time, so I waited outside for my host dad to pick me up and laid on the garden wall, watching the swallows...  I think it was the first time here in southern Africa that I have felt one hundred percent at peace for an entire five minutes.  It is moments like these that I am reminded of the magical quality of the world - that no matter what hardships may be happening, no matter what disaster I just finished studying in class - I can look up in the sky and remember (even if there aren't any swallows), that I am a small piece of a much larger living, breathing creation.  There is a deep connection that we all have to one another, to this earth, and even though most of the time we've forgotten this and have become fragmented, this communal, connected knowledge is an essential, innate part of our being. 
  I think this is why things like murder, massacre, cruelty astounds us so much every time it happens - because we can't understand how anyone could be capable of committing such unspeakable acts.  But I also see that the fragmentation of the communal understanding is a big reason why these things happen in the first place.  We allow ourselves to exploit one another and forget that we are all living things deserving of respect and dignity and love.  Instead we put up walls and create divides where there should be joint work towards the betterment of all.  I got SO unbelievably angry when I heard about the Qu'ran burning possibility in the US... Wondering how we could have possible come to this place, that we have so little love, understanding, and respect for each other that we are willing to actually physically burn an entire religion's most sacred text and fuel the fire of hatred and violence...
  It is here that I feel hopeless... but then I have days like today, when I get to talk to a community leader who is creating change within her own area - encouraging the knowledge, growth, health of everyone around her.  I see people working together to fulfill the true human purpose, which is to love and care for one another - to feel and live out their connectedness.  I remember that my feelings of hopelessness only gives in to the notion that we are doomed - and I want to never give into that deadened understanding of life.  I want to continue to believe in the intrinsic goodness of all humanity and that we are capable of much better - and that I will continue to push to expect that of others, even if some may tell me that it is unrealistic. 
  If we don't believe in and expect something better and different, I do fear that we will only continue to be broken, fragmented, and at odds with one another.  This kind of societal change is one of the most difficult things in the world - though I do believe it is possible.  It is all about re-working the fragmentation.  It means challenging ever person's privilege - it challenges ideologies.  It means looking nakedly at ourselves and our wrong doings - it means recognizing the ways that we do indeed affect other people and taking responsibility for it.  It means giving up the lies we've been told - like the idea that people simply pull themselves up by their bootstraps (which just allows those of us that are privileged to feel better about ourselves when we've "made it" - even though we've all had a hell of a lot of help and privilege along the way to help us get where we are at - not just our own strength, will and work).  We are all capable of great things - of fulfilling our dreams - but some of us have a much bigger hand up in the world simply by the color of our skin, what family, what religion, what place we were born into.  And with that - it means recognizing that what we have in place is a sick, cruel system in the world that is not "development" but, on the contrary, is an immature system of "I want, I want, I want" and "only you and you get to be in my club house" that we condemn in three year olds.
  I think that is a part of why I think it is so important to work so hard to rebuild and reconnect internally.  I have come to see my own fragmentation, my misguided understanding of body, soul, and mind.  It has taken me a long time to rework my thinking and my understanding of myself and of how I affect others positively and negatively.  To reconnect myself to what is true and real internally, and to let go of the external ideas that have done nothing but damage me.  To face the good, the bad, and the ugly about myself.  I am still continuously working at this - remembering to be kind, gentle, and loving towards myself when I don't get it right, since, after all, we are always learning till the moment we die and will never be perfect.  Plus, if I can't give grace to myself, there is no way I'll be able to give grace to other people.
  And what does this have to do with the rest of the world?  Well, I could be completely wrong about this, so forgive me if I am totally off base... but in my mind, by understanding my own complexities, my messy parts, I am more able and willing to listen to others - to give that grace to others who have faults because I intimately know and am working through my own.  I am more open to the possibility that I could be wrong - that I could be acting out of my own privileged ideology - and should take in all perspectives before formulating my "truth" (recognizing that perspective and "truth" is pretty subjective) I am more willing to see the humanity and goodness in others, no matter what they have done, because I understand that I also have the capacity to do great evil and great good - I've just been lucky to have the resources, community, and opportunity to stay mostly on the side of good.  I can remember that we are all grasping for life and realness and for what is good - we've just gotten confused about how to do it - and mixed up about what is really "good".  So much of the time it has become this self-centered, material focused "security" that we scramble for, ultimately cutting out other people from getting a piece of the world pie.  I see this here so clearly - globalization, neo-liberal economists, multi-national corporations... all working for what they perceive to be "good", but are leaving out entire populations of people, and worse, most of the time are actively exploiting them.  See, fragmentation. 
  What we need more than anything now is healing - and as hippie dippy as this sounds, I do believe it to be true.  Healing in our understanding of ourselves, of each other, and how this world should be working and the systems we use to implement it.  If we heal from our fragmentation, from our past wounds, we are so less likely to continue to use, abuse, and exploit those around us, while scrambling for some semblance of "security" and to get "what we deserve" at the cost of others.  We will see that we are all in need, that we all deserve stability, that it makes no difference where we've come from, what we've done, what we've seen - that we are all created in love, by love, and therefore deserve love. 

  At church on Sunday, there was a bird flying around inside - and during the service I got to look up and feel at peace watching this birdie swooping around.  However I did leave feeling worried because I didn't want it to die there seeing how there isn't much food to be had inside a church building...
  Later on in the evening Mgeno picked Iyaloo and me up at CGE, and there in the back seat, laid a box with a bird chirping, tweaking out, and scratching away inside.  Back at the house I followed Mgeno to the side of the house where we found a bird sanctuary I didn't even know existed!  He put the little, freaked out fella inside and smiled.  When I asked him how he caught the bird, he said, "well actually, first I blinded him..." we both proceeded to crack up for about five min - after which he clarified that when the bird had gone into a little space he had put his flash light on it (blinded by the light!) and scooted it into a basket.  Not only did I find out something new about my host dad - that all those birds in there had been saved from nooks and crannies in the church - but I was reminded that sometimes care, love and healing can happen in the most surprising and least expected ways.  It still takes work on our part - the dirty, frustrating work of digging up the past, examining it, and re-piecing it in a way that allows us to move on with our lives with our full history integrated into the newness of our on-the-road-to-healing selves.
    So yes, there is all of this crazy fragmentation - there are times and places that may feel, and may actually be, dire - there are times that we are trapped in a building with no food.  And yes, change sucks and is freaky, and we are very, VERY, good at being stubborn and rejecting ideas that challenge our privilege, that make us face our messy and complicated histories.  But someone, something may come out of nowhere, and blind us.  And later, after a bit of tweaking out, scratching the sides of the box, after feeling like we are in the dark - we open our eyes and see that the top of the box is in fact open, and find that we've been placed in an unexpected sanctuary where we can begin to fully heal.

Pictures! (this is all I could upload for now - enjoy all 7 of them! ha)

Sunset in Johannesburg

HIV awareness campaign in Jo-Burg

The Stadium!

School where the famous "Sarafina" movie was filmed - it is a pseudo-musical about the student uprisings

Memorial for the students who stood up to Apartheid

Hector Peterson who was killed during the 1976 student uprising against "Bantu Education" - his sister, who is in this photo, spoke to us at the memorial.

"To honor the youth who gave their lives in the struggle for freedom and democracy"

Blessings, insomnia, and a place to call home.

  I cannot believe that is already September!  It blows my mind, and also makes me feel a bit panicky about the pace that time is passing by.  Classes are starting and things are getting even more busy, which makes the days go by even quicker, which brings about more exhaustion...  And speaking of classes, I have a ton of homework I need to pounce on, but I wanted to give some semblance of an update since too much happens in a week for me to put this off...
  First off, blessings.  I have met a few Namibian's here and there which is what I want to be doing a lot while I am here.  I don't have much interest in staying inside the CGE house in "little America" with the other students all the time which is easy to fall into sometimes.  One of the people I've met, Rosa, let me tag along with her and a few of her friends to a Spoken Word event at the College of the Arts last week.  All I can say is: Awesome.  I was blown away by all the people who got up to perform, there was everything from stand up comedy, to rap, to poetry, and R&B.  Honestly, (with no offense to anyone I've ever heard perform before...) it was one of the best things I've even heard/seen in my life!  There was a great balance of political commentary, humor, poetic form, and musical genius...  yeah definitely a highlight of my time here.  Luckily, this event happens at the beginning of every month so I hope to be able to get back there a couple more times during the semester. 
  I am also feeling more settled - realizing that although I do love and need alone time to process and do internal work, I need to also balance that out with time among others of the human race... including people inside and outside of the house.  A blessing has come with realization in the fact that though I have been so good these past years at being on my own, I have also been stunting my growth in relationships with others to a certain extent.  Yes I love to listen to and spend time with people, but I have not necessarily been allowing others to be a piece of MY personal growth.  There are the few places where I've let people into my own weird little world, usually those who already know me well and have been a part of what I've experienced in my life.  But when it comes to explaining to others why I am the way I am, and why I believe what I believe, I can see I am lacking...  Part of this is because being Mennonite is more cultural than I had even understood before, (and I've been in the Mennonite bubble a good portion of my life) and so some of the common ground, or at least general understanding I usually take for granted is not present when I talk about my life, which can prove to be difficult for communication at times...  But a bigger part is my conscious or unconscious ability and drive to allow others to come and change me, teach me, and surprise me.  I am trying to remedy this at present, and lets hope it only continues to get better!  The awesome part of this is that I get to let others into my life even more deeply, including those I've just met, and get to walk along with people hand in hand on this crazy international journey.
   Speaking in more practical present tense situations... My homestay started Thursday evening and has been better than I could have hoped!  I am staying with a couple Mdiku and Mgeno - Mgeno is the pastor of a Lutheran church and is a warm older gentleman who has a great laugh and sense of humor.  Mdiku is a bubbly, loving host-mom who is constantly surprised at my willingness to eat whatever may come my way.  They have a student living them as well who is doing an internship at their church (crazy coincidence...) her name is Iyaloo and has a joking personality and a spit fire attitude that I really enjoy.  It is nice to have someone around my age who is interested in similar things hanging around the house, and who is willing to let me invade their space a bit. 
  On Sunday Ijaloo gave an incredible sermon talking about praise and thanksgiving to God no matter what present situation we may be in.  Her words hit home not only because of past experiences, but also because I need to remember that here when I have my difficult moments.  I need to remember that no matter how frustrating, sad, or overwhelming a situation may be, it will pass, and there are always things to be thankful for and things that can be gained.  During the service I was fortunate to receive another huge blessing that was unexpected, and honestly undeserved.  On Saturday night Ijaloo asked me to sing after the sermon, I (thinking she was joking) replied "oh yeah, ha ha"... come Sunday morning, it turns out that she was indeed being serious, and that I better go ahead and get prepared because it was happening.  So, at my first Sunday in church in Namibia, I got to sing Amazing Grace after Ijaloo's sermon.  And though I felt a bit awkward being this random person showing up to church one Sunday and taking up space - it was definitely one of the most powerful experiences of my life.  While standing in front of the sanctuary singing this song, I heard the entire congregation humming along with me... it is difficult to explain how that felt exactly except to say that I surely felt the presence of something bigger than myself that morning, and felt connected deeply to all those individuals in that moment. 

   To sum up - these days I am feeling both more at ease and more restless.  On one hand, I am loving getting to know this city better, loving being at my homestay and feeling like I am actually coming home each evening.  On the other hand, I am in some ways feeling more anxious, sleeping with more difficulty, and at random moments am feeling frustrated that I can't just go out for a walk alone when I want to...  But this is to be expected I guess when living in a very new place, and having to process so much conflicting information; one minute seeing how amazing people are, the progress communities are creating for themselves, and then the next minute seeing the conditions people are forced to live in, the inequalities that are still very much alive after Apartheid has ended, and knowing the uphill battle there is still left to fight. 
   I think that is all that I have for you at this present moment... sorry about the delay getting this out there - I started writing it three days ago... Hope you are doing well!