Reflections on Africa: romanticism vs. relationships

Today is one of those days (there have been many since we’ve been home!) when we longingly reminisce about our time in South Africa, especially the friends we made there. In retrospect, the relationships are the biggest miracle of our six months away: we arrived as foreigners and left as friends. I recently came across the magazine article below (from http://www.relevantmagazine.com), and thought it fitting. It is SO TRUE!

There's something romantic about Africa. Throughout history, its people, its tragedies, its beauty and its wonders have caused outsiders to romanticize the continent. When Western explorers documented their first steps and journeys onto the shores of the African continent in the late 1800s, Americans read with wonder and intrigue about an untouched place of people, animals and land that exceeded the imagination. Even today, National Geographic captures stories of people who are exotic and beautiful. Travelers, photographers and wanderers have dreamed of visiting places that are contrary to and seemingly far removed from a Western lifestyle.

I remember my first thoughts of Africa. I, too, had romanticized it as a place of simplicity, poverty, culture and beauty. To many Americans, Africa has simply belonged in the travel magazines, in the headlines of the newspapers and in the argument for why American children should finish their dinners. I have found, though, that we tend to sentimentalize that which is different from us because we do not truly know a person or a place.

I am writing from a small village in East Africa, traveling with my colleagues from Jars of Clay. The band members, who are also the founders of Blood:Water Mission, have come to build relationships with people and to see the work of their growing organization.

We are living in a village where there is no running water. No electricity. The conditions are much less luxurious than most can imagine. We interact with people whose lives have been defined and held captive by extreme poverty and disease. Children are malnourished and most people subsist on less than a dollar a day. A one-room, mud-walled hut in a remote Kenyan village is drastically different than a furnished, air-conditioned, two-car-garage house in suburban America. A hole dug in the ground with a stick fence surrounding it does not look or feel anything like a porcelain, flushing toilet. Languages, landscape, food and traditions are so very different than what we are familiar with in the United States. It's easy to pick up the camera and capture those differences between us. And yet, no one in our group is talking about such things.

Despite all the obvious differences that exist between North America and Africa, our experiences here have shown us the beauty of our similarities. Jewish philosopher, Martin Buber, speaks about the I-Thou and I-It relationships. The I-Thou relationship occurs when two people see each other, simply, as people created by God in His image. There is no qualification of poor or rich or us or them. I-Thou sees the humanity and the divinity within each person. Conversely, I-It exists when a person sees the other as an object to be used to serve his or her interest. It gives a person permission to define, label and objectify the other person.

I've seen how our romanticizing of Africa has caused us to regard Africans as the It instead of the Thou. We have the tendency to come into these places as if we were in a Spielbergian wildlife park, seeing only the separating differences instead of the inviting similarities. We are horrified by the tragedy of poverty, which often estranges us more than connects us. When we focus only on the contrasts, we fail to see the other as a brother or a sister, as a reflection of the image of God, who is equally loved and valued by Him.

Seeing a person for who he or she truly is can be challenging because we are broken people who easily assume the hierarchy of importance, intelligence, development, materialism and position in the world. We feel better when we can put people in a box or under a label, usually underneath our own status. When we relate with our friends in Africa, it's easy to label them as poor and unfortunate, but that is only because we do not know them.

Imagine what the world look like if we could surpass the tendency to see someone as It, and instead see the sacred in every person. What if our response to suffering was a desire to see people for who they are and to learn from them about their experiences instead of making a one-sided attempt to heroically pull them out of their circumstances? It takes discipline of the heart and mind to treat others as Thou, but when this radical transformation occurs, we can no longer keep Africa in a place that is distant, strange and objectifying. Our friends may live in a world very different than our own, but when we look at and interact with one another, we begin to see a reflection of ourselves and of God in one another.

I feel as though we are experiencing a taste of that relationship right here in this village, where lasting friendships are being built between Americans and Kenyans. The differences and unfamiliar realities exist, but the communion of music, volleyball games, bellyaching laughter, prayer, dancing and meals filled with honest conversations overlooks them. When others become Thou to us, we can no longer romanticize the exotic and the unknown. We can simply celebrate the new lens through which we view, know and love one another.

Jena Lee is the executive director for Blood:Water Mission and contributed the reflections in the photo book Hope in the Dark by photojournalist Jeremy Cowart. The book is available from http://www.relevantmagazine.com

More to come....

In case you are wondering, the blog is staying active for awhile yet. We hope to be able to use it to post some more pictures, and to tell you about how we are adjusting (or not!) to life back in Calgary.

Thankful to be home

It's been over a week since we arrived back on Canadian soil; in other words, we are loooong overdue for our "we made it home!" update.  There's so much we could write about from this week: excitement, change, exhaustion, “re-entry” shock, decisions, and fun times.  But instead, I’ll simply list ten things we are especially thankful for this week:

• A safe arrival!  Amazingly, we have flown over 35,000 km on this trip.  We’ve driven thousands of km on adventurous roads, usually in unreliable vehicles, and often (especially for Jess & Micayla) without seatbelts in the backs of “bakkies”.  We’ve been to a part of the world some of the worst violent crime rates, yet God has brought us safely home.
• Good health!  Once again, we have no one to thank for this but God, who watched over us even in conditions that sometimes felt unsanitary, and in a region with the highest HIV/AIDS infection rate in the world.
• A “celebrated” arrival!  Our arrival at Calgary International Airport was celebrated by a country musician, a cowboy armed with a lasso, and cowgirl trying to “brand” us...it’s been Stampede Week here!  But more importantly, 10 good friends waited & waited for us (about 90 minutes because of a suitcase that didn't make it on the flight with us) and were there to hug our necks when we arrived.  We even got our first hugs with baby Lauryn, who was born just weeks after we left.  A huge thank you to those of you who took the time to see our tired but thrilled faces.
• A (brief) party the first night!  When we arrived home, the pizza had already been ordered (thanks, Norb!), and fresh flowers were on the table (thanks, Mom!).  We tried to party for awhile, but kicked everyone out by 8:00 because our bodies, still on London time, demanded that we go to bed.
• A house to come home to!  Words cannot describe how nice it is to be in our own home, sleeping in our own beds, with space to be a family without being on top of one another.  Though average or even simple compared to others in our neighbourhood, our house is a mansion when compared to most around the world.  Last November, as we prepared for this trip, we were still praying for renters for our home; the answer to this prayer was a family from Newfoundland who needed a place for a six month work contract.  Thanks to them and our “property managers” (Norb & Jen), the house was in great shape when we arrived.
• Reliable Internet! (and electricity, phones, television, dishwasher, dryer, bathtub).  Boy, do we feel spoiled!
• Summer Sun!  Although we’ve had to fight through jetlag, the long, hot summer days in Calgary sure made the fight easier!
• The Cats Came Back!  Yes, Bob & Willow survived their six month adventure as well.  They seem genuinely glad to be home, although from what we can tell their adventure was much more luxurious than ours.  Thanks to Wendy & Rex for caring for and even spoiling them.
• Friends!  Our phone continues to ring, friends and neighbours stop by; we love it!  Micayla in particular has spent almost every waking hour visiting with her buddies.  On Sunday, we attended SCCC, and were very glad to see our friends there as well.  If we haven’t seen you yet, we’d like to!
• Support!  If you are one of the people who supported us financially, encouraged us, emailed us, or prayed for us, we want to say a HUGE thank you.  Many people ask, “What was it like?” and while we could take hours to answer that question (as evidenced by this blog!), the short answers are “amazing” and “life changing”.   We are so thankful to have had this opportunity.

Typical Tourists!

It's been so great to get to "do" London for 2 days. We've packed in as much sightseeing as we could, and now we're ready to pack our suitcases and head for our home and native land. It's certainly been a culture shock to be back in the Western world where everything is fast, accessible, and expensive!

Yesterday we took a guided "walking tour" of Notting Hill (saw all the places in the movie!), experienced the Portabello road market that I've dreamed of going to since I was a child, and went to the famous Harrod's department store. I proudly bought an "elderly" (but not quite antique) silver teapot at the street market, but could not even afford a pair of socks at Harrod's! We had fun riding around in double-decker busses and sipping cappuccinos at beautiful streetside cafes. Jessica and I also toured the Kensington Palace and saw an original collection of Princess Diana's dresses and portraits. I must sheepishly admit that she was a childhood hero of mine and I loved the chance to see where she had lived.

Today our bus route took us past St. Paul's cathedral, so on a whim, we decided to have a look at it up close. As we climbed the massive steps to the sounds of ringing churchbells, we realized that the Sunday morning service was about to start. So, we took a seat along with hundreds of others to worship in this incredibly historical place. It turned out to be one of the most beautiful services I've ever experienced. The "worship band" was the London Sinfonia, the "worship team" were the St. Paul's boys choir, and of course the sanctuary was breathtaking! Our girls were amazed by this experience. It was very cool for a bunch of Baptists like us to worship in a huge Anglican cathedral and strongly feel God's presence there.

This afternoon consisted of a walk along the Thames River, over the Tower Bridge, and a tour of "The Tower of London". It was Jessica's dream to visit this rather ominous historical landmark that housed kings and queens and criminals of great notoriety. We also saw the "crown jewels". Strangely all I could think about was how much of an extravagant waste those jewels are, and how much Africa could benefit from the sharing of this wealth.

Tomorrow morning we will head to the airport shortly after breakfast, and hope to be back on Canadian soil by mid afternoon! Hopefully, we'll have the energy to post some pictures when we are back.

Solemn Summer Day in London

Just a quick note to keep you all informed of our progress as we slowly head home. Our last post was from Mozambique, where our travels continued to be adventurous! We never did manage to get a hold of any Mozambiquan currency, and so we had to leave after 4 days. It nearly killed me to be around so many great craft markets with such cheap and beautiful art and not have a cent to spend. But, we had heard that people will take old clothes in exchange for items, so we decided to try it. It was hilarious to see Dan holding up his pants (not the ones he was wearing!) and attracting a crowd of enthusiastic vendors who wanted to trade with him. Truthfully, they even asked for the shorts he was wearing, but I thought it might be nice if he did not trade away ALL his clothes!

We were detained at the Mozambiquan border for a while and experienced some stressful moments when the border control threatened to seize our rental car. We were apparently missing an important document that should have been issued to us when we first crossed into the country. After threatening to take the car, we were told that they could possibly make an exception if we agreed to pay a "fine" for our error. It took some time to convince them that we really, truly had NO money of any kind, and that Dan's clothing supplies were running low as well!

But, here we are in London, so we obviously managed to escape Mozambiquan prison and flee the country. We drove back to South Africa through Swaziland, and spent our remaining 2 days in St. Lucia. This is a beautiful little town on the North Coast of SA in the middle of a wildlife reserve. Dan and the girls did some snorkelling, and I took some beautiful long walks. The tropical birds, monkeys, hippos, and crocs were well represented in this area. These days were bitter-sweet, as we enjoyed the beauty around us. We will all miss the flora and fauna of SA.

After one last night in our little cottage at the farm, we took the night flight to London and arrived here early this morning. We all got a few hours of sleep on the plane, but arrived slightly exhausted at just after 6am to fight the crowds at Heathrow. In some ways, we wished we were flying straight home, as now that we have said our goodbyes in Africa, our homesickness has only increased. However, we've got a few days here, and want to see the sights. We stored most of our luggage at the airport, and navigated the London Underground (subway system) to our accomodations. We are staying at a wonderful "hotel" especially for foreign volunteers and those in full-time Christian ministry (see http://www.thehighburycentre.org). It has been running since the 1890's, but still has everything we need for a great stay in London, including our first reasonable high-speed internet connection in many months!

As we look back on our holiday time over the past few weeks, we are amazed at how blessed we have been. We have often been in stressful or dangerous circumstances, but we have experienced safety and health. God has protected us in amazing ways, and has led us to experience amazing things. There have been so many times when we've stopped to ask for His help in situations, and His faithfulness has blown us away. All four of us have experienced answered prayer again and again, even though I'm sure we have kept our guardian angels very busy!

One more wild experience today...as we were speeding along in the London Underground early this morning, Dan picked up a newspaper and realized that today is the first anniversary of the bombings that targeted the transit system of this city. We were at the stations that were targeted, and even rode a bus on the same line that was hit by one of the bombs. It was sobering to see the whole city stop in remembrance, and to realize that the 52 victims of that day were people just like us.

More Adventures

Never a dull moment! We left Western Swaziland on Thursday morning to visit the Hlane Game Reserve along the eastern boarder. We hired a Swazi guide to drive in our little car with us, and in a matter of a couple of hours, we spotted lions, elephant, rhino, and cheetah!
After an uneventful boarder crossing and a couple of hours drive, we arrived in Maputo, Mozambique. That's where the "fun" began! Beleive it or not, we chose to visit Mozambique on the very weekend when they are changing thier currency. The Mozambiquan "Meticash" has become so devalued that we paid 1.2 million meticash for supper last night...thus the change in currency. This wouldn't be a big deal, except that all bank machines stopped issuing money on Thursday, and will not work again until tomorrow...maybe! So, with NO cash in our pockets, we spent over 6 hours yesterday trying more than a dozen banks to see if they would give us a cash advance on our Mastercard. No luck.
So, after a night in a nasty little guesthouse that we couldn't pay for (because they don't take credit cards), and even a visit to the Canadian embassy for help, we did what any stressed and weary North American tourists would do... we checked into the Holiday Inn and handed them our credit card. The place we stayed the first night generously took our email address and is trusting us to send them payment later!
In general, Maputo is crowded and incredibly dirty, but the people are lovely. Yesterday a massive downpour caused a total blockage of all the drains (because of the tons of garbage in the streets) and resulted in flooding of the city streets. We literally waded in calf-deep water and floating garbage! But, we do feel safe and are now comfortably settled at what seems to be the nicest hotel in the city. As much as we want to "experience Mozambique", we are done with high adventure for a few days and are not too sad to be stuck here (right on a beautiful beach and away from the nasty city) until we're able to access some money. Dan is enjoying the world cup on the big screen (the people here are going nuts over Portugal's win an hour ago!), the kids are thrilled with the pool and the beach, and I'm pathetically thankful for clean sheets and a comfy beach chair!
Cathy