Can you have feelings for a whole nation?

I'm a jump in head first kind of a gal. 

When I met the hubby, who wasn't a hubby of course at the time, but a dapper, worldly foreigner, I moved into his hotel suite within 24 hours of meeting him. And after only knowing him for 3 months, most of it only by phone and email, I negotiated a loan of 10 000 FIM, left Finland for good on a one way ticket and really moved in with him. A hippy university had accepted my hurried application to be a guest student for a year. I figured a year would be enough time to make him fall head over heels and never want to let me go. My gamble paid off, and I've never been happier than with him. He is my best friend, my support network in its entirety, and simply the coolest, sweetest person I have ever met. And he loves me unconditionally when I am sometimes very difficult to even like. 

Why this information that has nothing to do with South Africa, and only explains why we keep moving from country to country (true story: on a rainy night in Copenhagen the living room window starts to leak and yours truly makes the hubby call his boss and tell him we are moving to Mexico)?

Well, something that happened in a friend's life lately (added to the fact that I've been hanging out in my bathrobe surfing the net for days now, steadily working up to a decent size spell of cabin fever) got me to pondering what makes other people change their lives completely, to jump in head first, to do something without which I cannot exist. Shuffling the deck is something that I must, and I mean MUST, do every once in a while, but what if that wasn't in my genetic make up? What if having to run my life in a different culture, in a different language, surrounded by very different people wasn't my fix? What if familiarity and routine didn't give me hives but were my safe haven instead?

A friend who previously felt that even coming here on vacation on her own was an accomplishment is now so smitten, mostly with the country, but also with a brown-eyed boy, that she has applied for a job away from Finland, to be where she feels she wants to be - in South Africa. Now, there are no guarantees with the boy, but I know he is not the main reason. There is just something about South Africa, hidden underneath the crime statistics and behind the electric fences, that she was able to tap into and fall in love with. I cannot tell you what it was for her, but I understand her feelings.

I wish her luck on this new journey she has embarked on and I'm sure whatever happens it'll make her life richer. And completely from a selfish point of view (you knew this was coming) I'd like someone to speak Finnish with....

My friend, I'm crossing my fingers for you.  

Corrective measures

Yes, there are some horrifying things going on all the time in South Africa, and no, there is not much one person can do to change things. Or is there?

How can I make this place better?

In Mexico I volunteered, which I loved, but in the end as usual I got myself so involved in the whole operation, and actually took the lead (I hate being bossed around, even if leading will give me an ulcer) that it was very hard to finally extricate myself, as our move came closer. There are still certain babies' faces I prefer not to remember, because remembering would mean finding out what happened to the souls behind the faces. And what happened is not always a positive in a society like Mexico.  

However, I'm getting more and more ready to throw myself in the game again, as days stuck with the, now extremely frustrating, presence of my maid seem longer and longer by the minute. I know, I know I should just be happy someone saves me almost daily from drowning in filth, but...

I have been researching some volunteering opportunities in Gauteng, and as I'm ruling out all clearly (and sometimes overly) religious instances, here are the potentials:

Ikholwa Children's home. They take care of children infected or affected by AIDS. (And, I met the founder at a fundraiser and he seemed like a good guy)

Tshwane Place of Safety. They take care of babies and toddlers in distress.

Global Crisis Solutions. They promote human rights through practice and policy.

Mohau Centre. They provide care and support to orphaned, abused, abandoned, neglected and terminally ill children and their families who are infected or affected by HIV/AIDS.

SOS Children's villages. They take care of orphaned and abandoned children.

These all seem like very good possibilities, and I'm anxiously awaiting the arrival of our second car, so I can get out of the house every once in a while and maybe change a diaper or two, or if I'm lucky a policy or too. But, seeing as I have plenty of diaper-related experience from Mexico, and no sense of policy or politics, I'll most likely end up doing the former. I can't believe I'm actually looking forward to feces in sticky paste form. I must be bored indeed.

I'm also trying to recycle, which surprisingly has been made nigh impossible in this country. So far I'm the official empty-bottle pack mule of our bunch, and thus am always storing empty wine bottles in various ingenious places (taking my cue from the queen of weird, yet spacious hiding places, the maid). This I do, since there actually is a glass bank only kilometers from where we live and driving there once a month must be the least we can do. Still, the 'recycling' we do here in SA is nothing like what comes almost naturally (or under threat of a fine) in Northern Europe, or even in Mexico. 

We just have to keep trying, I guess. However, before the nation's attitudes and awareness about environmental issues change, the task ahead is hard. In the US people who drive vehicles (since simple cars they are NOT) that could fit their entire extended family in the back and still have room for some neighbors as well, are generally at least aware of how much their gas-guzzlers are hurting the environment, and are just choosing to be A-holes. Here so far the major concern seems to be financial, and environmental concerns don't even come into the picture. The same goes for using electricity, water, etc. I can't honestly say which option is worse.

I seem to have ranted some again. Well, I hope I have made you feel guilty enough to go and do this.

Complete and utter rut

For the past four months that we have been in South Africa I have literally done nothing worth noting with my life. I read, surf the net and occasionally drink too much wine, or coffee, or both. While we were waiting for my husband's work permit to come through (first E & Y, the good for nothing company, took over two months to translate 3 measly one-page documents into English - two from Spanish and one from Danish, followed by a prolonged Home Affairs deliberation time of 40 working days. Yes 8 weeks) I was comfortably in limbo. We couldn't buy a car, I wasn't allowed to drive the company car my husband had been allocated, so I really could get no regular activities going, let alone something I would be doing every single day, such as volunteering. I had a valid reason to curl up on the couch with my cup of coffee and go through a book a day.

Now, some days after getting the car, I still seem to be stuck in that rut. I still get up in the morning only to hang out all day long. I have started going to the gym on the estate, but that is not saying much. Again, I'm faced with the question 'what will I ever do with my life'. I'm plagued by nightmares of returning to Europe some time in the distant future and having to work in McDonalds, because no one else will hire a person, who has pretty much never worked a day in her life, not really that is. Not that there is anything wrong with working in Mickey Dee's, but I have actually, eons ago, tried it out for a while and would hate to have to repeat the experience. Burgers and me don't mix, unless the burger is going down my throat.

In Denmark I was studying and finally ended up with a Masters in a very non-practical field. In Mexico I was volunteering, and eventually got far too involved for my own good. But what to do in South Africa? Every time we move I decide this will be the time I'll finish my bestseller that will also garner critical acclaim, i.e. I'll become the next Toni Morrison, Arundhati Roy, or Philip Roth. At this point I'll also settle for becoming the next Stepehenie Meyer or Marian Keyes and just go for the bestseller. I'm easy to please.

The only slight glitches in my brilliant plan of becoming a world renowned author, are that I never seem to feel inspired enough to actually sit down and write, not to mention the fact that when it really comes to it, I'm just not that great a writer. This was a very harsh realization I recently came to as I hit a major milestone in my life. I can still feel the ripples of my existential crisis, even if the only tangible remnant of it is the question. 

I think I'm going to try my hand at poetry now. Feel my desperation.