Wading Through Being
What led you on this journey, I ask myself.
Why do you hurt for others and feel this need to do something about everything? Is it the anger you feel when you see children crowded in a run-down classroom, with no furniture, teachers, or tools for learning? Is it the woman whose 14-year-old daughter was carrying a child? A child that was implanted by her husband, the father of her 14-year-old. Society frowns at the atrocity the father has committed, but society does nothing as this little girl is left to fend for herself and the child she is forced to carry while her father moves to another city to start a new life with a new wife.
Or, could it be that village somewhere very far away, where their water is poisoned by the very thing their land is blessed with? Their gifts of precious stones and metals were safely tucked away in the ground but now extracted with no compensation to the farmers who lost their farms and the herders who can no longer graze their livestock. Their hope to fix the inequalities they are confronted with has become the pandemic that slowly takes everything away.
Mothers lose the babies they carry in their womb. Children fall to their death. 1–2–3 children, drop dead. The shaman says, the land is cursed and a sacrifice to appease the gods must be done. The numbers reach the hundreds, and panic overwhelms these people who desperately search for answers. Then, they realise the hunger and their desire for better living standards put them in harm’s way.
Maybe it is those little girls and boys I watched growing up in the house next door. I wondered why I always heard sounds of them being beaten and punished late into the night. Their “guardian”, or dare I say, slave mistress, would make them work all day and all night, the clothes they had on looked like rags, they did not go to school, and it looked like they were always punished for one infraction or the other. I remember asking myself, why their parents never came to take them away, I wondered if they had any family, then I would say a prayer for them, hoping that the police, someone, anybody would come and take them away from that horrible place.
What started you on this journey, I ask myself. Is it because I have seen inequalities strip people of dignity? Yes. Do I want to play a superhero, wear a cape, and save the world? I wish I could. Do I want to change the systems that keep people in the throes of indignity? Definitely.
Then, I hear that quiet voice that speaks when you are alone. It’s all too much for you, you are powerless, the odds are stacked against them, everything is rigged against justice and equity, you can never succeed. Trust me, these days are more than the days I feel pumped to tackle corrupt systems which cause inequalities to fester.
I remember waking up on many mornings, paralysed by an inexplicable fear, the kind of fear that makes you not want to get out of bed, the fear that has you wondering if you will make it through the day. That fear that has you feeling like you are of no worth. Trust me, I have lived that fear for numerous days and nights.
Then… This Journey
The Journey starts by telling me that I need the humility to see the world as it is, and the audacity to imagine the world as it could be. (voilà, the hope I needed). Then it says, I need to live the question and trust the process. (hmmm, what does that even mean?) Like that’s not enough, I am told to get off the dance floor and up to the balcony (maybe sometimes, all I need is to take a step back and reevaluate the situation and probable solutions). The Journey has me re-energised, equipped, truly aware, and it surrounds me with a Community. I am reminded that I do not have to go it alone. I don’t know where this voyage will lead but I am excited about the courage it gives to me.
I no longer fear for the future. I have learned to make each moment count, to be deliberate about nurturing relationships and to not force them, to walk away from things that suck the life out of me. I have learned to be grateful for everything. Starting with gratitude to God the source of my faith and my reason for being. I am grateful for the rising and setting of the sun, my toes sinking into the sand on the beach as the ocean waves rinse them off my feet. I am grateful for the job I have and the people I work with (in and outside the office). I am grateful for friends who have become sisters. I am grateful for the children who love broken and imperfect me, telling me that I am the best Mom ever. Me, best Mom, ever? I am grateful for relationships that I am undeserving of and people who have chosen to love me in spite of me. I am grateful for my parents and my family. I am most grateful for life and the journey I have been on. I am still on the journey but as I said earlier, I am no longer afraid.

