Ro Ro Ro Your Boat...GENTLY Down Your Stream

I will find the answer if I let it go Give myself sometime to falter Everything will come around In time

Tonight I spoke with my dear friend Rochelle. It was AWESOME. Skype is a technological miracle, and I am so grateful to connect with those I love. Like most of you, Ro thinks what I am doing is brave and exciting. Not to burst her or your bubble, yet I told her it is mind numbing how normal life is carrying on as I carry on around the globe. I typically feel behind in emails, blogs, and posting pictures. I often wait until the last minute to make reservations be it accommodations, train, or plane and end up with not quite what I wanted, yet with it all working out in the end. I don’t make it to bed early enough, and leave the dishes for the next day, and wake up late only to leave brushing to the chewing gum.

Rochelle reminded me how fortunate I am, getting to experience such vastly different places, cultures, and people during this stretch of time. She listened as I moaned about my neighbor/housekeeper who is eating my chocolate, accidentally locking me out, and calling my digestive cookies ‘dog food’. I went on to brag and beam that I love the girls and women at the center I am volunteering at and that they love me! I teach impromptu to dances classes, feel productive and useful in English class, and most importantly-finally feel free to be my silly seriously goofy self.

She asked me more questions, and I continued to rattle on about ‘Incredible India’ and how I am in love with the head tilt jiggle. I boasted at how I did it myself unconsciously yesterday after only 4 days in India, and how I received many eager and happy girly tilts in return.

And then it DAWNED on my to ask her about HER in return.

The lumpectomy was a success which she knew directly after surgery on Friday. She received her prognosis from the doctor today that 14 of the 16 lymph nodes are clear, leaving just two as pooh stubbornnotgettingthehinttheyarenotwelcome left.

Yes, while I have been prancing around the world, Rochelle, Queen of Roboobia, has been battling breast cancer.

When I gleefully come across her on FB chat, or reach her my voice or video, she is positively interested in me. My goings and comings, my interactions with people, my health, safety, and so on.

I seriously tend to forget she is going through this war on herself while speaking with her. Instead, I get this burst of energy, surge of happiness, and feel ladles of her love lapping over me.

Towards the end of the inandoutSkypefromonehalfoftheplanettotheotheroverinternet call, she tells me about some documentary that she is going to send me in email. She was going to do it , ‘right now’ so that she wouldn’t forget to send it to me.

I receive the email with two attachments. The first is a zip file with PDF documents about the director, producer, and the timeline for the film. I am a bit curious as to why I should bother with all that stuff, and look at the second MOV attachment that has only download 4% and figure I should take a look at the first. I first read about the director-never heard of her, then move on to the producer, and I am starting to feel like I should recognize something. I like the title, “Right Where I Belong” straight away without knowing what it is referring to, beyond applying it to my own life. It is not until I start reading about the film, that I see Rochelle’s name.

The film is a documentary about her experience with breast cancer.

The trailer has downloaded, and with it my tears, my guilt, my frustration, and most importantly my renewed admiration for Rochelle.
I watch it again, crying the full 3 minutes. I then go to her blog, and reread, and shamefully-read for the first time about her experiences in the last 5 months. Tears were steady, and began to pound behind my temples. Could it really be that long that she has been dealing with this? How could I be so blind to all the trauma, pain, and fear that Ro Ro-who is so near and dear to my heart, has been experiencing?

Looking for comfort, I ran to iTunes to listen to songs that make me feel connected to Ro. I typed in Wicked, “ For Good “ and realized it is only on my recently lost iPod. I next typed in Sarah , and got “Perfect Girl”, a song until now I hadn’t especially like.

The first line seemed to be the questions I was feeling, and the chorus felt like answers from Ro.

Am I faithful? I am I strong?

Don't worry you will find the answer if you let it go Give yourself some time to falter But don't forgot know that you're loved no matter what And everything will come around in time
This is how I feel every time I speak with her. That I am on a journey to find some answers, and to take my time and enjoy. If there are times of doubt, times I want to run home, to remember that she loves me no matter what.

Towards the end of our phone call, we were both marveling at the different paths that our lives were taking, and yet how important it was to be ourselves, independently growing and feeding our souls the lessons that would create our true selves. I wanted a hug from her at the end of our phone call, and yet I knew I had just received one.

Tonight I was going to do the normal and mundane things that life requires. Go to bed early, find out more information about the trains and hostels, answer emails, cook dinner, and read my novel until I fell asleep.

Instead, I received a astounding jolt through visual image and sound of the tumult that Rochelle lives everyday.

Again, I am so grateful for technology that connects me with those I love.

I am so proud and amazed by Rochelle’s fortitude and ability to share her experience so that others might grow and feel empowered to find their true self.

Tonight, I took one step closer to mine my true self. Thank you Rochelle for loving me and allowing me to attend to my journey as you attend to yours.


To read about Rochelle’s light and energy that shrunk her cancer go to: http://www.navigatorgaia.blogspot.com/

A Heart Full

I have bits of words from the musical Les Miserables stuck in my head, ‘A heart full of love….In my life…..touches my life….waiting near…waiting here’.

I have been on the African continent since November, experiencing the ebb and flow my heartbeats, skips, and aches.

Last night I picked up a book about a Aussie woman’s experience living and working in S.Africa, and since then I am finding it difficult to ignore the aches. Page 28 finds me on the verge of tipping over. I have continually fought back the urge to get my computer and type this, yet page 28 won. I now sit in the large spacious common room in Durban’s hostel, The Happy Hippo and wonder if I should move back to my room where tears in waiting might be better received.

The author arrived in South Africa in 1988, during apartheid. She talks about how her whole life she dreamt of coming to Africa, and how she was prepared to fall in love. She was surprised at the underlying hostility she felt once crossing the border from Zimbabwe into SA.

I too feel it.

I’ve spent my time with Black, white, and mixed race, what here is termed ’coloured’, yet the majority of my time has been with whites. I wonder why that happens. In Tanzania and Ethiopia that was not the case, yet whites are also the minority there. Yet here, wandering around on my own, I still tended towards meeting and befriending other white people. Walking down the street in Wellington, the small town I stayed while working on a wine farm, it was white people who waved me over to the local watering hole and insisted on buying me a drink. Yet last night in a huge Texas like thunder and lightening storm, it was a Black man that rolled down his window during the tumultuous rain and asked if I was lost. I then followed him to the street that would lead me to my night’s destination. People are kind. People are good.

Yesterday, I failed to give a young Black man a ride out of the National Game Park. I felt guilty the entire drive out. I have given loads of women lifts, yet never a man-regardless of color, though honestly a white man was never asking. Would I have turned that young man down had he been white? I hope so (as does my brother Jared), but…

One cannot help but to continually role the ideas of race around in this country. As the farmer I worked for said, “We are all just one race-the human race. Race is just fabricated by us as an excuse.”

But is it really this country? I often find myself struggling with such issues and ideas at home as well. What would have been my life like had I bought a house in Oakland? Would I be more aware of the problems, as I would be more a part of a Black community? Has my life been kept idyllic living in sweet suburban Campbell?

When I was around 7 or 8 my mom asked me if I had anything against Asians. What?? She went on to say that she had noticed that I did not have any Asian friends and wanted to make sure that I felt positively towards all people. I wonder if my mom remembers this, as the impression it made on me has never faded. I believe I made an effort to create my own little United Nations circle of friends. Yet looking back, I do not believe I had any Black friends. Did she only ask about the kids in my neighborhood? I don’t even remembering having Black classmates until middle school.

Since I’ve gone back to my childhood, I am going to dredge up a haunting memory. Many of you know I wear contacts and glasses. I did not get contacts until I was a freshman in high school, and as a child my glasses were Coke bottle thick. I was often made fun of and taunted due to my ugly ducking goggles. During the ride home from a field trip to Marine World some kid from another school made fun of me with the usual taunts of Four Eyed Freak and Ugly. Now these were nothing new to me, I got them at home regularly from my brothers so one might have thought I’d built up a tough skin by then. But no, I found that I finally had something hurtful I could say back. So I called the kid a Nigger.

It worked, though like me- he was able to quickly cover up his hurt with anger and his verbal barrage started a fresh. I have no idea what he said back then, but still now, I remember the moments after I said it felt as if a heavy weight came down on my chest and shoulders, pinning me to that place while the rest of me was desperately trying to run away.

Again the impression of that moment has never faded. That I retaliated with hate, and with something that my young mind did not quite comprehend the power of. I learned young, that that was something I did not ever want to repeat. Not just using a racially derogatory word, but spitting back hate.

This has been a bit of a purge, now hasn’t it? Bear with me.

Africa, and more particularly, South Africa brings to surface all of these confused feelings of race. Yet, digging deeper, it is really about where we all fit in. Having a place in the world where one feels accepted, valued, and has the ability to prosper are the basics needs of the human experience.

Hence page 28 of Sandy Blackburn’s Holding Up the Sky.

“… to believe in God means to care about what is happening in the lives of people around you.”
Now this has a bit of a stickiness to it for me due to the reference of God. So if I take the word God out, and substitute it with us. Us meaning, we the people of the planet earth, I feel calmer about my place here is the world because I know I care.

Blackburn continues to explain her purpose as part of a mixed group making presentations to high school students in the Durban area during apartheid, “ We were attempting to communicate that if you were black you could not avoid politics; and that if you white, you were still impacted by politics although it felt far less uncomfortable.”

Campbell is far less uncomfortable than Oakland. The U.S. is far less uncomfortable than Africa. My life has been far far less uncomfortable than probably 90% of the world’s population.

So what am I doing about it?

My baby step is caring about what is happening in the lives of people around me. I still have more white friends than Asain or Black, but I do care about others.

And Africa fills my heart with that.

Baggage That Can Weigh You Down

I repeated a scene today at the Cape Town Airport from Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible. In fact, I took it to the next level. Kingsolver’s character’s are smart enough to the check the luggage weight limit before they got to the airport, I on the other hand, assume I will not even be close. Guess, I picked up a couple souvenirs two many from the wine farm.

I arrived to the airport about 5 hours early, thanks to a great friend that offered me a ride from Wellington, so I did not have to take the train. And because I was not taking the train, I would not have to manage my luggage (car, cart, plane), hence the overabundance of food and drink items I felt free to bring that might otherwise have weighed me down.

I got up to Mango’s counter, after carefully repacking some more items (food) acquired along the way, and smartly double checked that I could take on 6 bottles of wine- as it was a domestic flight to Durban.

Three.

Three, really? Are you sure? I was told six.

Told, smold.

So I not so happily trotted outside to the bubble wrap department and paid to have 3 bottles bubbled and skipped right back into the counter.

So, I can carry on all three of these?

Got the head nod, thumbs up and expected to see the counter agent waving me in with the neon lukeskywalker saberish traffic control lights when I was told there would be an additional charge for the overage.

It seemed I was 8.5 kilos over…17.6 lbs and it would cost me 240R ….40USD for my oversight. In light that my ticket was only 320R, it seemed ridiculous to pay so much for a bag.

Um…really? Can’t you just pass it on by and give me a ‘Hey we’re glad you came to our country to volunteer’ type thing? (yes, I know…I volunteered on a wine warm. It was still volunteer work!)

She looked at me and suggested I try repacking.

Entered amped up Poisonwood Bible scene.

I first decided I must off load my books, the ones I was hoping to give to someone who wanted them or resell them back to the used bookstore in Joburg. I found a woman at the tourist counter, who after calling her supervisor to make sure it was okay to accept my contraband, thanked me for the 4 books. (-1ish kilos)

I then started my repacking by finishing my Stoney ginger beer, baguette with mouth watering salami and goat cheese on the assumption that they couldn’t weigh me. Next, I went to the ladies room and opened my Ceres white grape juice and drank as much as I could (I can just see the pride on my father’s face) and poured the rest in my water bottle hoping security will over look it. Then I started to take out items and stuff my pockets. I mean stoof! Wallet, glasses, ipod, camera, journal, pens, phone, chocolate bars (had to be counted), and headphones. Then I pulled out my fleece and tied in around my waist, and tied my jacket on top of that, stuffing those pockets as well. Place my hat on the head, and hung my sunglasses over the neck of my shirt, as they looked ridiculous on, inside and would most likely fall off if resting on my hat- causing me to have to bend over to retrieve them whilst other items would follow suit from my pockets and expose me to the authorities as a crook. Lastly, I put more things in my basket that previously just held my backpack, hoping they would only weigh my backpack and not look into my bag.

I was ready.

I returned to the counter, a new ticket agent was behind the counter, yet the same supervisor who naysayed my volunteer line was still on duty.

I smiled and handed over my ID. I slightly panicked and thought the jig was up when she asked for my credit card that would require unearthing from my over burgeoning pockets, yet managed to dig it out without incident.

22.5 kilos! I had managed to offload 5.5 kilos…most of which was secreted on my body. I held my breathe as I waited for her to comment on the 2.5 overage…yet she just kept asking about my travel experiences while beautifully multi-tasking my bags on through to the conveyer belt.

Hurray!

Next step security.