Are the kids looking forward to the trip?

I realized in my first two posts, that I did not mention we are leaving for South Africa on Tuesday. Next Tuesday, the 19th.

With any Big Plans, there is always one thing that always hits a glitch. Today, I realized that I might not receive my passport back from the South African Embassy in time to travel Tuesday morning. My kids were curious as to why Mom was stressing out. I tried to casually explain this to my kids as we were driving from one appointment to the next. "I have spent a year working on this process, and never realized that they needed my passport to post the visa. If they don't mail it back to me today, we can't travel on Tuesday." Lorne responds, "So my passport won't be ready in time?" "No," I explained and laughed awkwardly, "MY passport won't be ready."

He thought about this for a minute. "They can let us fly as unaccompanied minors, right..?"

Yes, my kids are ready to go.

And so is my passport! Thank you David Singh, South African Embassy.

A bit of back story

It was an idea that began in high school I think, when I learned of the Soweto uprising, which happened in June 1976, after my freshman year.  The idea that a place existed on Earth where white people were allowed to mow down black people, just for being black, completely jolted me.  Much of my world at that point had been a jumble of black people and white people - the South is good like that - but my family in particular, and at that time, my life in particular.  And to think that that place of all places existed in Africa, the one place where people are well, supposed to be black ... I couldn't get it.  Maybe I thought, I could go there and tell them all the cool things about black people and being black - more information, that's all.  Maybe calm some people down, like I had done many times before in my own life... maybe?  Maybe that's a big damn job.  A lot of people. With guns and tanks. So I folded up the event in my mind, and went to the high school dance that night, or the basketball game, or the house party, and danced, or cheered or drank.  But everything looked a little different after that.  A little more fragile.

My friend Colleen Jamaican-from-New-York observed about Boston once, you know, some black folks here just don't seem proud to be black.  In Atlanta, black folks are proud to be black.  Damn right, its about African America's home town.  I just kept peering around.  What would it be like in a place where everybody was black, kinda like here, but you were ashamed of it?  How much power does it take for a small group that looks like me to do that to a group that runs the place?  What would you do with that power? what for? Can you just turn it off, say no thank you?  And if you wanted to, how would you?  Suddenly I felt ashamed.  South Africa - the concept of South Africa - was blowing my mind.  I was 18.  That concept of South Africa had 18 years to go.

At the bottom of the same mountain

When my friend Marylou got married, she scoffed at the idea that somehow that day represented the pinnacle of one's life (a girl's in particular).  "If anything," she surmised, "I feel like David and I are starting out at the bottom of the same mountain, maybe in the same car."  Not a pessimist, a realist - the world as it really is.  Which is why I love her.

In a few days, I will be relocating with my daughter Sara, 12, and my son Lorne 7,  to South Africa, which many of you know, is one of my lifelong dreams.  Until I think of Marylou's statement.  Perhaps the three of us are in the same car, at the bottom of (Table) Mountain.

I will be working on a short-term contract with a national non-profit research think tank, helping to implement a web-based data centre, that will provide on-demand market data on low and moderate income areas across the country to entice economic development there.  It is work I have been involved in ever since my career in community development took a veer in January 2009.  I loved telling people I was the Director of Grants for a national non-profit grant maker, my reason for living in three words.  Now, when people ask what I do, what I do is sigh.  Director of Grants for a national non-profit, I lie.  Do they mean like right now?

I hope to use the blog to share my experiences and lessons learned in three areas: what living overseas is like to encourage many of my American friends, what accomplishing a lifelong goal is like, to encourage all my friends, and to explore why I have been called to live in South Africa, to encourage myself.  Why?  Why South Africa?  lets find out ...

Hope you stick with me, and share your experiences too.