Last week for work, I had to hire a car to go visit some of my organization’s sites for a project that I’ve been working on. So for the first time in my year and a half here, I learned to drive on the other side of the road and how to navigate my way around not by public transportation but rather on my own. For those of you who do not know, I have a terrible sense of direction. And by terrible, I mean I have no sense of direction whatsoever. You might say I couldn’t find my way out of a paperbag. Last Thursday, I got lost in downtown Durban at rush hour and ended up going around in circles for a pretty long time. It was scary because I’m still not overly confident driving on the left side of the road and I don’t know the streets of Durban that well (aka which ones are one-way) and the driving of South Africans is erratic at best. So I ended up in tears in a McDonalds parking lot, totally lost and feeling hopeless.
Eventually I got home, safe and sound, but I really hate being lost. I feel frustrated and mad at myself for not being able to figure it out on my own. It’s also a very scary and belittling feeling to really have no idea where you are, how you got there, or how to get back home. Someone once told me that whenever he gets lost, he figures it means he wasn’t supposed to know where he was for awhile. That maybe it’s okay to not always have direction, to not always be sure of where you’re going or how you’ll get there. But inevitably, we always manage to find our base again, to find our way back to the path where we were meant to be. And there is that wonderful sense of relief when you see that familiar landmark or that familiar face (who may or may not be laughing at you because you’re sitting in your car crying in a McDonald’s parking lot). Lesson learned.
My last blog update was a bit lacking in the hope department, but I guess you could say I’ve been able to navigate my way back to hope again over the past month. Nothing miraculous has happened. I still feel overwhelmed by the amount of work that needs to be done and by my own personal inability to make a difference. But there is something so beautiful about the enthusiasm and joy that I saw in the schools that I visited last week. For work I’m monitoring the impact of a reading program that the organization I work for is funding. So I’ve been visiting the schools that are participating and sitting in on classes and meeting with learners. I visited a third grade class yesterday where there were 120 students in the class, sitting four or five to a desk. Many of the desks didn’t have surfaces on them and almost none of the students had any books. And yet the students were SO enthusiastic and excited. When they know the answer to a question, they snap their fingers in the air and yell “teacher, teacher” while jumping up and down. Buy my favorite part was the beginning of class when the teacher had them all stand and say “I love you neighbor” and hug the person next to them. Now there must be some hope in that. Afterall, who’s to say that learning to read is any more important than learning how to love your neighbor?
During this past week I have also been reading the book I know why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou. There is one chapter in which Angelou discusses faith among poor communities. She says that “People whose history and future were threatened each day by extinction considered that it was only by divine intervention that they were able to live at all. I find it interesting that the meanest life, the poorest existence, is attributed to God’s will, but as human beings become more affluent, as their living standard and style begin to ascend the material scale, God descends the scale of responsibility at a commensurate speed.” Funny that I, a person who has never had to wonder where my next meal would come from, lose hope so easily. And yet all around me people who very often have absolutely nothing, have more hope, more faith, and more joy in their hearts than I could ever imagine. It’s quite humbling. The silly things that I stay awake worrying about at night are absolutely nothing in comparison to the problems that many people face, and yet they are able to thank God everyday for what they’ve been given and have hope that things will work out.
I still feel discouraged when I visit a grade 6 class and meet a twelve year old who not only cannot read but also cannot write his own name. I get discouraged when I look around the classroom of 120 enthusiastic seven year olds and think that statistically at least 30 of them will die of AIDS. And I have been especially discouraged lately by the xenophobic attacks that have been sweeping across South Africa. In the last two weeks, something like 50 foreigners have been killed by mobs of South Africans, mostly in townships in Johannesburg, but a couple here in Durban. Some South Africans are angry about foreigners from other African countries who are taking already very scarce employment opportunities. Although I am in no way at risk (this violence is not aimed at Americans or Europeans, just immigrants from other African countries) it does strike close to home because I am also a foreigner, I just happen to be from a more acceptable country. The stories of violence are truly horrific… people being burned alive, women being raped, people being chased and beaten by angry mobs… all because they were born in a different country and do not speak the right language. Not since the last days of Apartheid has violence to this extent erupted in the townships. It has gotten so bad that the president has dispatched the army to the townships to try to keep things under control. I drove by a police station near one of the townships last week and saw a make-shift refugee camp that had been set up for about 500 foreigners who were living there temporarily. Men, women, and children, who are terrified of being attacked and murdered… all because they came to South Africa in hopes of finding a better life. It just makes you want to scream… are these not our brothers and sisters as well? Where is the spirit of ubuntu: “I am because you are.” My humanity is bound up in yours. I cannot hold another person down, without also holding myself down.
Well I seem to have navigated myself back to a feeling of hopelessness. Sometimes I guess it all just gets too heavy to carry in your heart. It reminds me of a quote that says “anyone can slay a dragon, but try waking up every morning and loving the world all over again. That’s what takes a real hero” (Brian Andreas). The world can be unjust and senseless, cruel and brutal, terrifying and confusing. But there is still hope to be had. Whether you find it in the faith of those who have nothing, in the beautiful smile of a seven year old girl who cannot read and wears tattered clothes but is still filled with joy, or in your own undying belief that the world is fundamentally good in spite of, or perhaps because of, all of the struggles. I guess if I cannot believe that the world is fundamentally good, then I don’t really know what we’re all fighting for, what the point of it is. And so I have found hope again not through my faith or through some wonderful hope-restoring event, but rather out of necessity. We must have hope. We must wake every morning and love the world, for all of its pain as well as all of its joy, all over again. We must believe that a better world is possible, and that we have a role in creating that world. Perhaps if we truly believe that, we can find our way back towards the path of hope. Perhaps it is necessary to get lost and have a good frustrated and hopeless cry every now and then, in order to be reminded of how important hope is. Without hope, we have nothing.
