For those of you who are following this….do not fear. The epic tale of my typical day in Africa shall continue after these messages. I take this moment to digress a bit, however, because of an interesting insight I gained just this morning. It has mostly to do with my own paradoxical psychology and the affect it has been having on my life and service up until now.
Some months back, when I was still quite new in the village one of my students (who was then in the 7th grade) came over to visit me. I had been showing him pictures from my photo album or my family and friends abroad. We had been looking over them with wide-eyed interest for some time when finally he looked up and said “Ms. Rethabile (my Tswana name) you have been travelling a lot haven’t you?! How many countries have you been too?” I told him yes, that id been to 7 countries in my life and that I hadn’t really lived anywhere for longer than 2 or 3 years since I left high school in 2001. At that he gasped and after a pausing a moment asked, “….Ms. Rethabile…what are you running from?” I remember being quite taken aback by the very pointed question and I really had no idea how to answer him…was I running from something? Why is it I just can’t seem to stay put? I know many of my friends and family have been wondering the same thing and have sometimes asked me when I intended to “settle down.” But alas here I am at 28 living in rural Africa and much farther from “settling” anywhere than I ever was.
It wasn’t until this morning that I came closer to a real answer to that question. Here I am, it is day before I have to report to school for my first term teaching. After days—and even weeks- -of fearful anticipation (as those of you have read my earlier entries well know) I opened my eyes this morning and WHAM! Seemingly out of nowhere I am gripped by a very strong motivation and eagerness to get started teaching, to buckle down and flesh out the practical aspects of my projects and start making the difference I came here to make. It seemed bizarre to me how suddenly it came to me. In what seemed like an instant all my insecurity and apprehension regarding my work here seemed to evaporate. I credit it in part to divine intervention(for indeed I’ve had a lot of demotivating things weighting on my mind of late that only a miracle of sorts could liberate me from.) But aside from that I discovered there is something else, very deeply rooted in me at work. The best way to describe it is the engagement of the fight or flight response.
It is commonly known that in the world of animals, most creatures have two basic responses to a threat or challenge in their environment: either they fight, or they flee. I realize im not much different…for me however, I’m constantly doing both. Those who know me well know that I am prone, on the one hand, to be constantly in a state of doubt or fear concerning the rightness of my actions in various situations or my ability to perform, and on the other had am prone to do crazy things like earn a degree in a foreign country, studying in a foreign language, or go place simply because I know nothing about them, or move to rural Africa for two years. Somehow it doesn’t add up. So, this morning as I was laying there analyzing my feelings as I was having them (in my typical fashion) I finally stumbled upon the answer to my student’s question…the answer to the question everyone’s been asking me. All this running is my fight & flight response to life. In order to overcome my anxieties and fears I must be pressed into a corner. I must be forced into such an intense state of fear that my fight response kicks in. Otherwise I won’t live; otherwise I won’t reach my full potential. The worst of all my fears is to life the life of mediocrity, fully within the comfort zone of what is normal and expected…which is often also a place of general ignorance and apathy towards the rest of what’s going on in the world…a horrifying place humans so easily slip into. And so I run, I run away from the threat of mediocrity and constant under achievement due to fear. I run to where I know I will be pressed and pushed beyond what I’m comfortable with…where the fighter in me comes out…that’s the place I like to be.
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