Connecting Things Unseen

            I think I remember buying it on Ebay, an odd choice considering I was working at the world’s mecca of braillers, Perkins School for the Blind. Personally owning one of these cumbersome machines was both an admission of my impermanence at Perkins, and also a sort of proof, to my deafblind students and to myself, that I would stay within reach.

            It’s been an odd object to own everywhere I’ve been in the fifteen years since. I left Perkins and lugged it as a carry-on through airports on my way to California, and after that, all over the country and world. I used it to keep in touch with one of my students as he grew into an adult and a dear friend. We brailled about the trials of life and planned our travels, some that we would take together but most that we would not. We outlined parts of his memoir, a project we’d never complete. Eventually emailing replaced this braille correspondence, and even this came to an end when he died six years ago.

            By then I didn’t keep my brailler for its brailling function anymore, but as a symbolic grip on that part of my identity. As it gathered dust on shelves or sat in overhead bins, it reminded me of the lens on life and humanity I’d learned through the unique experience of being known and loved by a few deafblind kids. It held in it a collection of hard-earned impressions about bravery and trust, identity and interdependence, communication against all odds, and the layered secrets of a life built only on vulnerable one-on-one connection. Sure, I did some braille demonstrations in the occasional pre-school class or to entertain my son’s friends, but mostly I carried that damn brailler around because I was uncharacteristically attached to it, attached to the perspective of that year that I deeply wanted to hold onto. I felt entrusted to carry and represent it in the world.

            Then this winter I stumbled on a fundraising campaign through my friend Elizabeth as she helped raise money with the Society for the Blind in Kosovo—a country that happens to border the one I now call home. Their goal was to gain the resources to give the blind kids in the area opportunity to read and write in braille. Barred from school until this is accomplished, many of them had thus missed out on years of their education already.

            I immediately wanted to meet them, and instantly sensed that the years of me lugging a brailler worth $800 around the world just for sentimental reasons were coming to an end. A blind kid in Kosovo would need my Perkins brailler much more than I ever did. Even considering this sort of donation broke and filled my heart in more ways than I knew how to deal with at first.

            I went to Kosovo last week, my brailler taking its final trip with me in the overhead bin of a bus. With an hour to see the small city of Gjakova before meeting the kids we stopped to admire the exterior of the Hadum mosque. The brailler drew its usual share of attention and after Elizabeth explained its purpose in Albanian the man in charge of the mosque decided to unlock the door and lead us inside. Taking off our shoes, Elizabeth’s mismatched socks reminded me of my deafblind friend that I’d lost, and as I walked around I wondered what he’d think of this place and how far this brailler and I had journeyed in his absence. After a gracious welcome and tour, the man asked if I would braille a note in their guestbook. While I thought I’d used my machine one last time the night before, I found myself instead writing a note of gratitude in a mosque in Kosovo, baffled at the ways life is often an unfolding so unlikely and so inescapable all in the same breath. Gratitude was of course the right bookend to this part of my story, in an obscure nook of the world, in an ancient place of worship so foreign to me but certainly no stranger to honoring things unseen.

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            Last but not least we went to the center, where they’d just gained enough funding to teach braille and mobility twice a week for two months to five of the ten local blind kids. Two months is not long to learn all your letters and how to read. The two teachers (one of them blind himself) moved eagerly and affectionately between the students at a round table, who were at varying levels of ability but all unlocking this secret of potential literacy for the first time. Watching them I smiled until my cheeks hurt.

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            One small nine-year-old girl, Besiana, was hammering out braille dots manually with a sharp tool. Brailling in this way it would take approximately forever to write a few sentences, not to mention the fact that you’d have to do the whole thing backwards in order to read it forwards one you flipped the paper. But for now we were just working on some simple As and Bs. Besiana practiced these letters and also some combinations that are yet meaningless to her in order to test her fingers on identifying which dots were present and which were missing in any given braille cell. She moved determinedly from one space to the next, grinning all the while. Her father told Elizabeth that Besiana had spent years wondering why she couldn’t go to school like her sister did. He said he would do anything for her, that he would give her his eyes if he could.

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            Besiana flipped over her page of work to try and read it. After a couple successful passes of reporting which dots were there and which were not she came to a string of As and Bs. She called them out one at a time and when prodded by her teacher she knew that together they spelled “baba.” The Albanian word for dad. Her father looked on with the other parents, his face gripped with emotion.

            My brailler will likely go home with Besiana at the end of their two months of class. Meanwhile, fundraising continues as they hope to extend their work with these students, as well as to start with the other five, who are perhaps still at home asking why they can’t go to school too.

            Elizabeth checked in with me as we left, knowing that parting with my brailler would be an emotional experience.

            “I feel profoundly empty-handed,” I confessed. “But I’m okay. The ability to read and write… it can give someone the whole world. And in order to write, a blind person needs a brailler. Besiana just got an unlikely shot to own, well, the equivalent of a pencil.”

            Ringing in my mind were Barbara Kingsolver’s words that true generosity lies in really giving something up. I’d never experienced this concept to this extent before. I cried at the end of my day, as if a chapter in my life fifteen years ago was closing yet again. This hard act of generosity did feel different than other kinds. It swelled inside me, overwhelming me with layers of gratitude, mourning, and a bottomless sense of interconnectedness. I knew I’d left a real piece of me there in those mountains, and a piece of my deafblind students who had unknowingly changed me forever and for whom I’d owned this odd contraption in the first place. There is a sparking and dancing energy that Besiana can’t yet know is thundering towards her, and as she grows I hope it carries her into the world in mysterious ways, as it carried me.

To donate to the efforts to teach these students, please go to:

www.globalgiving.org/projects/see-me

Or Via PayPal at:

http://theideaspartnership.org/wp/?page_id=73

Starting New

This is what it feels like to move to a new country:

You land and are driven from the airport, probably at night. Looking out the window, heading from one unknown place to another, you squint and think about how this foreignness will somehow become what your future self considers normal. For now, you can’t tell the difference from one white light to the next.

You open up your bags, your meticulously packed, exactly 50lb suitcases that felt like overkill for every step of the journey and now seem bizarrely inadequate. There isn’t enough to fill a home, a room, a drawer. This place does NOT feel like your new home, it just feels new.

You put t-shirts on your pillows because you don’t have pillowcases. You brought enough deodorant to last a year but there is no shower curtain. You have the book that you finished reading this summer, but you don’t have a sharp knife in the kitchen. The fridge is so small.

You want to make one familiar meal. You walk to the grocery store, against better judgment, considering you’re pretty sure the store is named Gonad. You pull out Google Translate on your phone as you scan the spice rack. The most likely candidate you find for Cumin translates into “Wiley.” You buy it anyway. You display all your colorful money to the cashier, as it somehow seems you’ve also lost your ability to count. She takes the bills she needs. Meanwhile, your son has an imaginary light saber battle at the end of an aisle and breaks open a bag of pasta. You don’t know how to say, “sorry.” You buy the pasta too.

You go to a coffee shop and make your best guess at a drink order. What you get doesn’t resemble what you thought you ordered. The next week you try again. Different, but still not what you thought you asked for. You drink the coffee each time, each lesson getting you closer.

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A friend recently said this to me about the experience of moving abroad: Moving to a new country is like toddlerhood. Every experience is brand new, and at the same time, you are trying desperately to communicate your needs, and your mom is trying to get you to say all kinds of new stuff that you don’t even understand. At some point, you just lay down in your macaroni and cheese and call it a day.

Exactly. There is no brainless grocery shopping or driving or walking. EVERYTHING is creating a new space in your brain. You want to hide in your bedroom and take a nap but your bed is covered with your landlord’s moon and star bottom sheet, pink top sheet, no blanket, and the pillows are wearing your t-shirts. Still. You have a suspicion that your son’s sheet is actually a tablecloth, but you aren’t sure.

You want to call your friends or family but the time zones never seem to line up correctly. The people you want to talk to in the morning are still sleeping; the ones you want to debrief with at the end of the day are long abed. And so you go to bed crying some nights. Your kid goes to bed crying some nights. Everything is fine, and yet nothing is fine because it isn’t YOURS. Your friends aren’t there, your paintings, your frisbee, your routines, your birds, your language, the store where you know you can buy black beans. You wonder why you left.

And yet, there’s the clue that reminds you that you’ll be okay: You don’t wonder why you left all the places you’ve lived and loved, you just wonder why you left the LAST one. You miss a feeling of home, of comfort, and yet your life is filled with proof after proof that you can build this again, anywhere. Because that home you miss? It was, not too long ago, also a new place.

Why do we live like this? Some days we are more sure than others. Personally, here is what I do know: one day, maybe not far into the future, I will wake up in the morning having slept through the noisy nighttime trash pick-up. I will cross the street effortlessly, maybe pass an Albanian who recognizes me and waves, and go into a coffee shop where I will order the drink that I actually want. I will sit in a lovely courtyard to do some writing, unafraid of taking up space or violating some foreign norms. And through this series of tiny moments I will feel a whisper, deep down, of“I got this.” That feeling is worth all it takes to get there, is a greater sense of accomplishment than when I earned a college diploma. I will know, in a personal way that shocks me further to my core each time, two things. One, that this world is so much more wiley and endlessly variable than I could have previously imagined. And two, that I am more resilient than I think. A renewed faith in these things is what keeps me whole, keeps me me.

And besides, as Rumi said, “What will our children do in the morning if they do not see us fly?”

fairy goddaughter

To a Fairy Goddaughter moving abroad,

You are standing at the edge of an unparalleled leap. As you can already sense, the world is waiting. From an ocean away, because I’ve lived oceans away, I will tell you what I can see.

Once you live beyond the borders of America, everywhere seems so much more accessible. It is a ticket to everywhere. You will forevermore feel like a citizen of the world. The chance to live like this has been one of the most amazing and defining opportunities of my lifetime, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Things back home will mostly continue as before, while your life will feel like you are learning and growing and gaining new experiences at lightening speed. Your brain will be building maps and connections and different perspectives every single day. It is exhausting and addictive and alive. Let this change you and make you bigger. My favorite thing is the way unexpected moments of wild humanity sink and resonate down into me, forging new contours in my heart. Let yourself be moved, and don’t let the naysayers pressure you back into being anything smaller. There’s no turning back once you stretch yourself this way.

Beyond the new culture you are joining, you are also entering a community of people who live beyond their passport country. We can’t wait to have this in common with you. Even if we always live on different continents, you will be amazed at all the new ways we inherently understand each other’s experiences out in the world.

There will be so much that works differently than you expect and you won’t realize it until you are standing somewhere looking like an idiot. In those moments, have the courage to laugh at yourself, ask for help, have patience, and use the opportunity to marvel at the crazy amazing variations on the human experience. Read this again when you’re embarrassed or frustrated, and remember that even the hard stuff is, by definition, sorta frickin’ cool.

You will absolutely miss big events in the lives of those you left behind. It will be painful, and you will feel so far away. You must make peace with this.

To many people at home you might as well be on another planet, and they will forget to include you on things. Perhaps this disconnect is rooted in them not knowing what your life is like anymore and not feeling a part of it. Many of them may not even ask what you are experiencing when they do see you. Be gracious and share anyway. Make new bonds, and never take for granted the people that do the work of knowing the evolving you, despite the distance.

It is going to feel scary, right up until you realize that it’s not. It's just LIFE, and you are still you, and you have all the tools you need in order to figure everything out. Ask questions that feel stupid and questions that feel hard. Take ten deep breaths and start taking on those hurdles one at a time. You’ll eventually look back and feel empowered beyond belief.

I’m cheering cheering cheering for you. Go get ‘em.

Love,

Fairy Godmother

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farewell africa

My departure from Africa has been set. Mid-June my family will leave the Bantu languages and unparalleled sunsets we have called home for six years. We are excited (and a bit daunted) for this change, and while we’re logistically preparing for the adventure ahead I am keenly aware of the adventures we are ending as well.

People say that once this continent is in your blood, it becomes an inextricable part of you, always. I’ve never heard this said with such gravitas about any other place. I’ve dreamed of living in Africa since I was a teenager, a mysterious calling that I alternately longed for and pushed against for over a decade before coming to this land. It was a relationship I did not enter into lightly.

I first arrived in Dar es Salaam, and to be honest I’ve looked for it everywhere I’ve gone since. Watching dark faces wearing kitenge prints amble past vendors selling chapatti beneath umbrellas on a crumbling sidewalk in the muggy, salty breeze is a rugged beauty to behold. But for me it was also transformative. Being alive there expanded my sense of place in a way that felt ancient, from deep underneath me. I’ve been gone four years now and yet emotionally it still grips me. The feel of this life against my skin is a lens through which I see everything now, including myself and all that I love. In certain weather I can actually feel the Dar-shaped hole in the center of me. The idea of leaving it is like trying to disconnect from a part of my very root system.

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Johannesburg was different, a more intellectual struggle to be waged within the slow-turning tides of history. Here I took long hard looks at racism and shame; saw the faces of humanity’s growing pains; and attended the funeral of one of this century’s greatest men, who challenged us all to be better than we think we can be. I breathed the same air as Mandela. It is in my cells. This fact sets a tall and important task into me and every interaction I have, one that I have an obligation to carry.

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I am both tied to Africa and acutely aware that I am leaving it. Last week I took a trip to Mozambique, a country I’d never been to. In the drive from the Maputo Airport my chest filled with what I can only call a physically painful nostalgia. A man was selling coconuts, a tuk tuk honked, I smelled burning trash and a fish market. Though I was a complete stranger, my heart stung with love. It was as if my twisted African roots were already there, waiting for me. I was simultaneously heartbroken and filled to the brim, knowing I’d be leaving this place too. Similarly, on the Kenya coast last May, I found myself reverentially muttering, “My God, I can’t believe I lived here,” even though I’d never been there before in my life. I couldn’t help it... something resonated.

Living in Africa has stretched my heart into a new shape. I wonder if, far from this humanity and earth that takes my breath away, will the new expanded spaces in my soul deflate? I fear that I will never be full in quite the same way again once I am gone.

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bushmen

Over the last six years living on this African continent, I’ve had the chance to see a few amazing endangered species of animals. Black rhino, African Penguin, Mountain Gorilla. But this past summer we visited Namibia and I witnessed a sort of loss that I’d never before seen with my own eyes: an endangered people, a culture on the very brink of extinction.

You may remember the San Bushmen from the movie “The Gods Must Be Crazy.” That’s them. They are modern humanity’s oldest living ancestors— that is, you (whoever you are) and I can both be genetically traced back to them. The Bushmen have lived as hunter-gatherer nomads around southern Africa for the past 20,000 years, at least. They know how to seasonally harvest and use hundreds of plants in the region for food and medicine, they build temporary dwellings from resources they find and with the tools they fashion, and they hunt with snares and poison arrows. They are people you’d see on National Geographic, peaceful and totally badass.

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But then there’s this little idea our world has: land ownership. After independence in 1990, much Namibian land was re-appropriated. Many groups of Bushmen, with no money or concept of ownership, were now trespassing on privately owned land, everywhere their nomadic ways took them. No longer free to roam, they were also no longer allowed to hunt as they once did, as conservation programs and game reserves came with strict rules.

We stayed on a giant farm/reserve where the owner told us that when her family had purchased the land, it included a certain acreage, an estimated number of wild game animals, the buildings, and oh, exactly twelve Bushmen.

We visited the homes of these twelve, where they live as permanent guests on their once boundless homeland. The government gives them some meat to compensate for the lack of hunting rights, and they make jewelry to sell to culturally-curious tourists who pass through. The children ran around with western underwear underneath their loincloths, speaking a language with multiple varieties of clicks while they expertly flicked through photos on someone’s iPhone. I couldn’t make sense of any of it. In one breath I was baffled that I live at the same time on the same planet as these people, and in the next could see nothing but the fact that so much that made them unique was turning to dust.

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Only the elders have actually lived that traditional life. Their children and grandchildren, if they even learn those skills, will never use them for survival. Tens of thousands of years of indigenous knowledge is being lost at this very moment, within this one generation. This unnerves me to the core. Extinction is a verb, present tense. I could taste it, and at times I could barely breathe because something once so sturdy was so unmistakably fragile.

Some might argue that we no longer need hunter-gatherer minds among the ranks of our species. After all, we’ve invented tractors and slaughterhouses and the internet… drop the loincloth and go to school, for goodness sake! I asked the Bushmen (through an interpreter) if their lives are better or worse now, and they thoughtfully answered, “both.” They gained some things, lost others.

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It seems like a question worth asking all of humanity, and I think we should be periodically called to take stock of the costs and benefits of development. Because tractors, slaughterhouses, the internet, and all the rest, both benefit and cost us something, culturally, if you think about it. Changing the way we live is never an uncompromising straight shot toward “better.”

I am happy for the Bushmen in some ways, and I would also say that there is something to be mourned in our collective unconscious, as that way of life ends. It is the loss of one incarnation of our most raw, survivalist selves, and a loss in our human diversity, the thing that ultimately makes us so strong. I don’t claim we should stop progress, and I know civilizations will keep moving forward. But in honor of that little group I met in the Kalahari that day, I would like to put my vote in for doing so as thoughtfully as possible, please.

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Mandela's death

Next week will mark two years since Mandela’s death here in South Africa. By popular demand (thanks, mom) here are the emails and news from what we were experiencing those days on the ground.

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Johannesburg (CNN) -- For the Xhosa people of South Africa, death is traditionally not something to be talked about or to be planned for, no matter how inevitable or close it may seem.

But in the final years of his life, secret plans were hammered out between the government, the military and his family as they prepared for a fitting farewell for a great man.

Below is a breakdown of how those plans will unfold over the next 10 days, culminating in a state funeral to be broadcast to millions worldwide and a very private farewell for those closest to him.

According to multiple sources involved with the planning of the final farewell to the South African icon, the 10 days of mourning will combine both Western traditions and those of the Thembu, Mandela's native clan.

hello all, 

so here we are. eyes and ears and hearts on the ground in south africa during this amazing time in history. it is such a humble honor to be here right now. 

we dashed out of school at the end of the day and headed for soweto. (this is a collection of townships where much of the apartheid resistance was organized. mandela and desmond tutu both lived on the same street-- vilakazi. it is still almost exclusively a black area, rich in culture and life and love.) we stepped into one of our most memorable cultural scenes we've ever experienced. the atmosphere was joyous for the most part, in such celebration of the man they love so dearly. they paraded up and down the street, singing songs from the struggle, to which everyone knew the words and dances. 

the energy was so welcoming. as we sat at a crowded outdoor restaurant, where many people were singing under a tent, one woman even came and sat by us. she wanted just to thank us for being there in soweto. she said that this is all mandela wanted: to have whites and blacks sitting at the table together. we were brought to tears again. it is a time of such mixed emotions. rowan seems to be really taking it all in too. 

we'll send updates as the events continue on. there is a memorial at the stadium on tuesday, viewing in the capital wed-fri. not sure yet what the school schedule will be for the week. here are a couple pictures from the afternoon. 

it feels really good to be among the people here. celebrating and mourning. please send us any question you have, or share things you've heard. 

love from a mourning nation.

k, h, and r

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CNN- Day 1 to Day 4

Mandela passed away at 8.50 p.m. Thursday (1.50 p.m. ET), surrounded by his family, South African President Jacob Zuma said. CNN understands that during his final hours, Mandela would have also been surrounded by Thembu elders. Importantly, at some stage - either at his home or in the mortuary - the traditional leaders will gather for a first ceremony, a tradition called "the closing of the eyes."

Throughout the ceremony, they'll be talking to Mandela, as well as to his tribal ancestors, to explain what's happening at each and every stage to ease the transition from life to beyond.

i've been feeling really icky inside since the news that mandela died. almost like an anxiety attack, way deep down in my soul. like a stress that i couldn't explain or define, it just churned at me, making me feel... anxious, or urgent, or grumpy. monday night i had a meltdown about it.

i knew madiba's death would be a big deal, but i didn't think it would be personal for me. i mean, he's 95 and hasn't been doing anything in public life for years. moving here, i knew that eventual death was the only news left coming from him. and yet. there it was-- this pit of anxiousness in my gut that overwhelmed me. my wife eventually said, as i cried in bed, "maybe deep down, you body can tell. something in you knows there is a big shift happening right now in the universe." and as hokey or improbable as that might sound, i think it is true. something in this world has changed, now that he is no longer a part of our breathing humanity. and i find myself mourning. 

CNN- Day 5

No formal public events will be held until five days after Mandela's death when tens of thousands of people are expected to converge on the FNB Stadium, known as Soccer City in Soweto for a memorial service.

It was at that stadium that in July 2010 Mandela made his last public appearance at the World Cup final.

Dear AISJ Community,

As you are now aware, the official memorial service for Mr. Nelson Mandela will take place tomorrow. AISJ has made the decision to close school as a mark of respect. We believe this will allow our students, parents and staff to celebrate Mr. Mandela’s life in a manner they choose.

Andy Page-Smith, School Director

NEWS BLIPS WE COLLECTED IN ORDER TO MAKE OUR PLANS:

·      A total of 53 heads of state had confirmed their attendance at Mandela's memorial service at FNB Stadium on Tuesday. US President Barack Obama would be accompanied by three of his predecessors: Jimmy Carter, George W Bush, Bill Clinton, their spouses, and 26 congressmen.

·      The official memorial service at FNB Stadium will take place at 11:00am on Tuesday, with gates to open at 06:00am.

·      Mandela's body would not be at the service and no cars would be allowed near the stadium. Mourners were asked to travel to FNB Stadium by Metrorail and the Gautrain.

·      "Members of the public who want to attend the national memorial service at FNB... must plan their trips carefully, leave early and use public transport," he said. 

hello again, from the mandela memorial week. 

we went yesterday (tuesday) to his memorial service at the FNB stadium in soweto. we drove took a couple forms of public transit that morning, leaving the house around 5am. trains were full, and crowds were always singing. we were cramped and part of a tremendous river of people, but we always felt safe and amazed to be enveloped in it. people here say that when things are hard, they sing. and when things are good, they sing. it continues to be a week of much song. 

it was rainy. it was cold. we sat in the upper decks with most people, where there was some roof cover. people sang and danced, shaking the cement below our feet . we ate and waited a few hours for things to start. it kept raining. it was like a hollywood funeral, full of black umbrellas. announcements were made as dignitaries paraded in from everywhere in the world. 

did you hear obama's speech? if not, please listen. it was amazing.

obama's speech for madiba

as with most things we've seen here, the mood was celebrational. to the point of irreverence, actually. people weren't even listening to the variety of world presidents and leaders (with the exception of obama). the crowd was scolded over and over, eventually with some fierceness from desmond tutu. sometimes i thought that maybe this was just not the type of event that these people wanted or needed. and then other times, it just felt like a testimony in itself that we were somehow not worthy of him. that we are still so far from achieving what he thought us capable of. 

11 hours after leaving, we returned home wet and cold and SO glad we braved it all. i still have lots of mixed emotions about everything that is happening, and feel a bit sad and lost now that we're all living without him and his vision. we still need it. i still need it.  

love.

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CNN- Day 6 to 8

According to sources, Mandela's body will then lie in state for three days at the Union Buildings in Pretoria, the seat of power of the South African government.

The first day will be reserved for dignitaries. The public will be allowed to file past his casket on days 7 and 8. Viewing hours are expected to be limited to daylight. Long lines will likely form from the very early hours of the morning.

It was at the historic Union Buildings that Mandela was inaugurated as president on May 10, 1994. On that extraordinary day, crowds converged around the building to witness history being made. That day, a former political prisoner achieved what was once unthinkable and became South Africa's first post-apartheid black leader.

thursday i went with a friend to pretoria, hoping to join the crowds to walk past mandela's body. we went to one of the shuttle collection points (you have to be shuttled in-- no driving or walking). we stood in an epic line, unlike any i've ever seen, snaking around the university grounds. it reminded me of photos i've seen of people here waiting for hours and hours for their first chance to vote. the scope of this line was just insane. we met amazing people of all races, and just the ability to have such rich and compassionate conversations, on equal ground with such diverse people, was such a powerful testimony to mandela’s life work. seeing a sense of community at work all day (holding peoples spots in line while they sat in the shade, passing around umbrellas, sharing money and getting drinks for strangers, etc) was so heart-warming.

as time went on, it became clearer and clearer that we had no chance of making it to see his body. yet, people were not deterred. one woman said, “the point is not that i make it there, the point is that i spent this day trying to. i just needed to be here today.” the line kept moving, turning new corners and ever-surprisingly even longer than we’d originally imagined. we waited in line for 5 hours, and we were still at least 2 hours from the buses when they closed for the day. the buses that were only going to bring us to the real line at the union building.

so i did not get to see him, and i simultaneously feel so full, in getting to share the experience of showing up anyway.

CNN- Day 9-10

Thousands of mourners are expected to line the streets from Mthatha airport to watch as the military transports Mandela's casket on a gun carriage to the remote village of Qunu, where the former leader spent his childhood years.

Along the way the procession is expected to pause for prayers to allow ordinary South Africans to pay their respects.

Once at Mandela's house, the military will formally pass responsibility for his remains to his family. The South African flag that is expected to be draped over the coffin will be replaced with a traditional Xhosa blanket, symbolizing the return of one of their own.

The funeral will take place under a large tent nestled in the hills where Mandela ran and played as a child. At midday - when the summer sun is high in the sky - Mandela will be buried into the rocky soil of his homeland. It will be, according to custom, a homecoming.

The event will be broadcast to an audience of millions around the world.

we will watch the funeral in qunu on TV tomorrow, at a friends house, and hopefully get some closure on this emotion-consuming week. we're on holiday break now... though we almost forgot to notice!

much love to all of you, from all of us. have a lovely holiday season. 

k

Cheering

My wife ran a half marathon in Pretoria a couple years back. (Actually, she accidentally only ran 10k, but that is another Africa story for another time.) Our son and I were among the crowds gathered in the big field at the finish line, where spectators set up awnings and chairs, made food, and settled into race day festivities. We picked a spot to wait, and as the first racers started coming in, we started whooping and clapping and hollering.

At this point, the other spectators, sitting on blankets or standing at their grills, turned and stared at us like we were crazy. As the exhausted runners continued past, desperate for the finish, my son and I were the only ones cheering. The runners themselves looked at us with huge smiles, gave high-fives, and through their heavy breathing, thanked us. The people around us continued to gawk. It went on and on like this. So many onlookers had come all this way for an early morning race, but it was clearly not the cultural norm to offer encouragement, even when the runners themselves kept responding so gratefully. We kept cheering.

This is one of the South African moments that I can’t shake, one of the symbolic pictures in my undertaking to know and love this country. On the one hand, there were so many people of all skin colors rising together to meet a challenge that day. On the other hand, while so many were struggling to achieve something great, no one was cheering for each other.

Let’s be honest: all you have to do is yell and clap. Cheering is fun. I can’t not cheer when someone is inspiring me and doing something amazing. Cheering isn’t hard. Something that is hard, however, is forgiveness. And I’ve slowly realized that perhaps this is what makes it difficult to cheer here.

In the long run, apartheid screwed everyone. Black and coloured people, obviously, for the generations of being treated as less than human. Without equal education or ownership over their own land or destiny, it continues to be a slow slow climb to live equitably in this now modern culture and country that they didn’t get much input into designing. I can’t even imagine this journey.

But white people walked away limping too. It is no small task to have all your expectations and opportunities turn on a dime. Life, as white South Africans knew it for generations, largely came out from under them. In the short time since Mandela, the government and police systems have become notoriously corrupt, and crime, including violent crime, is rampant. To provide equal opportunity for blacks now seeking better jobs, I hear it has become difficult to get hired as a professional if you are white. White South Africans who inherited land from their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents, are shamed because it was originally stolen from black people centuries ago. Who is the rightful owner of any of this anymore? This is no longer the country that the white people built either.

There’s nowhere to run from any of the unfairness on either side. South Africans of every race are not visitors like me, they have South African passports and this is their home. This is their story to navigate. These different groups, each nursing their own wounds, must forge a new country and a shared identity. So far, the best way I can describe my observation of the state of this nation is that there’s still messes to undo, new and old, not nearly enough opportunities for the number of people that need them, and in the meantime, people are not yet cheering for each other.

I don’t just mean at running events, of course. It is hundreds of tiny interactions, between people of all skin colors. To cheer for someone in the daily slog of life, to offer a smile or a gracious thought, is something that must be cultivated. You can’t genuinely cheer if you feel resentful. You have to imagine what he or she might have had to overcome to arrive in this moment. You have to rise out of your skin and be gratefully in awe of humanity, to the point of overflowing. You have to be proud of someone else’s success, because you have faith that everyone’s ability to thrive is intimately connected to yours. There is even a word for it here: Ubuntu. This word is a goal that none of us have mastered yet.

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These growing pains are not easy. Everyone here seems to think they got the short end of the stick in this tale, and in some ways, everyone did. In this formative era of democracy, new laws and systems must go hand-in-hand with a change of heart, and not just for the white people. Everyone must find ways to approach connection without primarily feeling defensive and entitled. They must learn to trust, and earn that trust, which are two tall orders for absolutely everyone. Mandela worked to inspire them, but each must build some new pathways in their own hearts if they want to find a way to rise up together. And I’m pretty sure that together is the only way up from here.

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Diepsloot, the township near our house

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Us at the SA Constitutional Court

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Soweto, the day of Mandela's death

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International Day at the American International School of Johannesburg. Hope, for a future of cheering.

Crawl

Sixteen years ago I started a tradition with a man named Adam Mellema, who would later become my best friend. It began in Chicago, on a whim, when we had trouble deciding between two restaurants. In this one fateful moment, instead of choosing one or the other, we decided to eat at ALL the restaurants that we wanted to try, sharing one thing at each place, and seeing how much we could taste in a day. Our first Restaurant Crawl was born.

We loved it, immediately deciding to make it a tradition. This was a bold move in our fairly new and fairly rocky friendship. And yet there was something about a tradition and a commitment that must have compelled us. Over the coming years we sometimes loved the Crawl more than we loved each other. Through eras of highs and lows, growing apart and together, we remained committed to this annual ritual, each year in a different city. And perhaps not surprisingly, very important parts of the woman I’d become were forged on these days of eating and talking and exploring the world with him. Our friendship grew up too, and we both learned an invaluable lesson on what the practice of commitment looks like.

Portland

Montreal

Traverse City

San Fransisco

Cape Town

In Elizabeth Gilbert’s new book Big Magic, she writes about her commitment to become a writer, and how she invented her own rite of passage to commemorate a vow she made to a creative life. It reminded me that beyond the ritual of marriage, our culture offers very few traditions and expectations for serious, long-term commitment. In some ways I get it. We are ever changing and we shouldn’t bind ourselves to too many things we’re not sure we’ll always want to honor. After all, look at how often people switch majors in college, and later in life, careers.

And yet, the Restaurant Crawl created in me a strong faith in traditions, and in sticking with them through thick and thin, no matter how we come of age over and over. Our culture is a bit short on traditions around commitment, but that is not to say we can’t invent them for ourselves. The Restaurant Crawl is one of the ways my bestie Adam and I know we’re never alone or unaccountable in this world. It is how we remind each other that we have committed to trek this life together, no matter how our paths diverge. It is a vow of friendship (which at one point did include actual Friendship Vows) that makes us each stronger inside, safer. And once a year, fatter.

So cheers from the 16th Annual Restaurant Crawl, in Bangkok. Inventing your own traditions with the people you wander this life with makes everything more delicious.

Bangkok

Bangkok

Please shoot this black man, South Africa

“Excuse me, can you please shoot this black man?”

Believe it or not, someone said this to me last week. It was a greeting of welcome and friendship. It’s not hard to guess that I am far from the streets of America.  

I was at Joseph and Royal’s wedding in the Johannesburg Botanical Gardens, where for some reason my family and half the wedding guests were expected to attend the wedding photos. Walking around with my camera, some strangers approached, and wanting to be included in the festivities, asked me this question.

For starters, in a city known for its crime rate and gunshot wounds, “shoot” is also the word they use for taking pictures. If you’re passing any number of black children and you have a camera, you will hear shouts of, “Shoot me, shoot me!” It takes some getting used to.

The black man I shot, and his friend.

But aside from the shooting, there was another surprising part to being asked to shoot a black man: the man's oh so casual reference to race. In South Africa, your race is a non-taboo identifying feature. This felt uncomfortable at first, and also feels like a huge relief. No one is offended by being called black, white, or coloured (which is anything in between). It’s just a fact. Every skin color carries a story and identity and relationship to privilege. And I’m finding it is so much easier to talk about privilege or inequality when we’re not uncomfortable acknowledging out loud in mixed company that we each have a race.

I was singled out at the wedding on many occasions for being a white woman, and I also shot a black man that day. Many of them, in fact. And we had a great time together.

Tribe, South Africa

            I’ve had a heartache for the word “tribe” since I moved to Tanzania. Around East Africa, it represented an identity in a way I couldn’t understand. It impacted financial, cultural, linguistic and family systems, to name a few. It bound the people to the world differently than I felt bound. While I historically called myself a nomad, I humbly came to realize that even real nomads had a tribe. In Tanzania, a man on the bus and a government official each spoke this word like it had a mountain of meaning beneath it. It sent me momentarily adrift in the world as I acknowledged to these men that I didn’t have such a thing.

            Like many young Americans I left home to seek my place in the world. My peers and I scattered to universities or the lights of bigger cities. I never heard anyone voice the opinion that one way forward might be through a commitment to an interdependent circle of people who would continue to raise and define each other. I moved around, meeting and loving many diverse and/or like-minded individuals. I left all these relationships in pursuing other adventures, partly because no social norms told me that the people were reason enough to stay. None of them were steering their lives around me, after all.

            What I’ve realized over time is that in those years, while most of us wondered where we might live and what we might do, we were actually in search of our tribe. Trying to find an ancient sense of connection that compelled us to stay.

            I don’t know how to explain tribe, but I do know that if we’re not born into one, there’s something missing until we find them. We Americans must define it differently from others in history, but I believe this is worth our time. It involves building ties that don’t fit neatly into our traditional relationship structures of romance, friend, or family. It definitely involves being vulnerable. I’ve met a few souls that I could have been platonically tethered to for life, and admittedly, it was a blow to my whole identity when it seemed like “my people” had better things to do than be my people. I’m sure I’ve accidentally done the same to others.

            And yet. While tribe has become a primitive-sounding word with few applicable examples in developed society, at the core I believe it speaks to something central in our humanity. As much as we might try, we haven’t evolved out of our need for this deep well of belonging.

            Last year, here in South Africa, between shared family runs and group meals, our friend Eric said out of the blue, “You know, I feel like we are different than friends. I sort of think of you all as, well, our tribe.” We were eating frozen watermelon, and sitting on the bumper of his car while our kids ran around. We’d never discussed this word or idea before. I nearly burst into tears.

            So I am finally in a place of learning and treading tribal waters. Here’s what I can report back so far: For me, tribe is having a common vision of the best possible life and envisioning together how to get there. It is being different in ways that inspire each other. It is sharing children. It is showing what is behind our walls and fears, and even then having someone willing to uproot their plan and family to stay with us. It’s accepting their traditions as part of our own family system, and vice versa. My tribe recently moved into our neighborhood, because five kilometers was just too far away. They want to carpool, share appliances and gardens and socks and pizza-movie nights and meals many days a week. It is new life breathed into our days, and a new childhood for our son.  We’re redefining this word for ourselves, together.

            Have you found a tribe? Where? How? Share this post with them. Tell them they’re yours.

Exhausted at the end of my half marathon, when the tribe came to run me in.