I'm not sure what to say at this moment. I am, however, grateful for yet another opportunity to visit this diverse country and learn more about its complex history. The history of South Africa is at once somewhat similar to and extremely different from the history of the United States. I say this as a Black American, the history of my people, my family, and myself having been shaped and profoundly influenced by racial injustice. We wear many scars. But that is not all that we are - survivors of racist oppression. We are so much more than that, and that is but one of the lessons I will take away from South Africa. We will never be "post racial" as some people are fond of saying, but we can be more dignified to ourselves and others around us regardless of, and perhaps because of, our race(s) and the unique/collective, beautiful/horrific/remarkable histories that birthed us. I feel like I am only beginning to comprehend something tangible, something real about human dignity as a result of these two trips into South Africa. It is strange to learn about oneself and one's country by visiting another, being a stranger, a foreigner.
This morning we sang to and with senior citizens and senior-care staff members at Nazareth House. We sang our national anthem as best we could. A few of the mostly-white residence exhibited their disapproval of our singing and our song, frowning, shooing their hands toward us, shaking their heads. We sang a little louder, with more heart, but certainly not disrespectfuly so. When we finished the white residents and others sang the South African national anthem - an anthem, frankly, more beautiful than our own, because of the history of South Africa and the three languages woven into their anthem to convey South Afica's emergence from their collective past.
Later the Black staff members sang their version of the South African national anthem, as well as African-inflected Christian hymns and praisesongs in both English and their Native African tongue. I found myself nearly moved to tears by their singing, their dancing, the swing of their hips and shoulders, the rise and fall of their voices, the bending of notes, and the clapping of our hands. Some songs I understood to be sung in English, others in a language I cannot name. But it sounded like home. It sounded like my parent's, my church, the music that plays in my head and heart when no music is literally playing. These foreign songs telling the "ways" of my life, something so familiar and undeniably soulful. I long to hear it again. I hope to return to Africa.
-mh
