Home – Wherever That Is…

A few months ago, my host mother in South Africa shared a nugget of wisdom which I found quite profound. She said, “Lydia, sometimes you look and wait for a sign towards something when actually, you’ve already been given the sign, you just missed it because you chose not to see it or it wasn’t what you were expecting to see.”

BOOM, whhhaaat.

You see, since the beginning really, circa last May 2014, I had a flicker in my heart, of hope or anticipation to see what the end of this year in Durban with Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) working with Refugee Social Services would bring.

From the start, when I arrived from Canada, I have been curious about the end. Anticipating growth, the (hopefully) successful navigation through challenges, the greater self-understanding, and, the big question mark—will I stay on afterwards?

Will South Africa, the “motherland” romance me so? Will “home” be this birth country of mine, with this people, with my family, with its joys and struggles, pain and beauty?

Truth is – yes. South Africa is home. One of my greatest joys this year has been to be close with my sister, to know my cousins, to be present with family through loss and joy.

To feel community embrace me, to feel alive and creative in new ways, to feel like I could move into the best version of myself, to be involved in social justice and work that promotes the dignity and worth and empowerment of communities, and, and, and.

But truth is also, that ‘home’ is elsewhere too.

This was a very hard decision. I gave an answer and then two weeks later, quietly called it off when my heart and mind and soul aligned in the opposite direction. Home, it turns out, is also about my well-being, about implementing life lessons and values, about the balance between the idealist’s dream and life’s mundane realities.

Home, for me, now and moving forward indefinitely, is about acknowledging that when I left my great white North of Canada, I left the door ajar, because I left in a hurry eager to leave some things behind.

Home is coming back to things undone, and second chances, and paused circumstance, having grown and gained. It’s about approaching that door in humility, about commitment and forgiveness and excitement of inevitable change even within the familiar.

Following the conclusion of my SALT term with MCC, I have decided to return to Canada indefinitely. It’s a good decision, and I feel at peace with it.

I know this is the right decision, even if it is the one that leaves me a bit terrified. I don’t know what awaits, and honestly, whether I have what it takes to implement everything I’ve learned, and everything I hope to sustain.

I want to continue living simply, of being collective minded, of working for an organization missional for social justice and promotion of dignity and empowerment for marginalized communities. I want to continue to intentionally celebrate diversity and also spend as much time doing things that are stimulating and active and relationship-building rather than simply mind-numbing with Netflix every night.

I want to live life with integrity to my values, to my faith, to inspire and be inspired.

It sounds easy, because all those things exist and are alive and well in Canada. But at the same time, they take time, dedication, investment, intentionality. I am very aware that I am going ‘home’ blindly, unsure where my next community will be.

For now, I am trying not to worry too much about the great job search that will commence in a month’s time and everything else about this next transition. Rather, I am trying to live in the moment, and soak up all the beauty and joys of the community and relationships I have made this year in South Africa.

I want to hold my cousins tight, and relish coffees and giggles with my sister. I want to take deep breaths of the sweet African air and hold on to the now familiar sounds of honks and taxi conductors on my morning commute.

I am letting my heart continue to connect to the hearts around me, and cherishing the lessons I continue to learn in these last weeks in our crazy hectic office as we respond to the chaotic aftermath of xenophobic events earlier this year [in April].

I am eating up my chicken curry with hearty pleasure, and actually enjoying my morning bucket baths (thanks load-shedding).

All these things, I do, with joy and also deep sadness at the anticipatory loss of what goodbye to this country, these people, this home, will mean in five weeks’ time.

My heart literally aches when I think about it…yup, I’ll be crying salty tears all the way back across the Atlantic.

I recently saw an article describing how one knows if they are having a quarter life crisis at 25. I laughed because by its definition, maybe I am having one. My life is not what I have imagined it to be. It’s far off the 10 year plan I made at 16 haha (in which I was married by now and getting ready for kids :/).

But, really, I am trying hard to be at peace with the unknown.

Good thing I have the best mom ever who sends me just the right Wendell Barry quotes when I need them. This one has become a favourite and I can’t not share it with you:

“It may be that when we no longer know which way to go that we have come to our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.” (Wendell Barry).

With my heart on two continents,

Lydia

Read Lydia Hogewoning’s original blog post here, republished on SAPeople with Lydia’s kind permission.

ABOUT LYDIA HOGEWONING

“When I embarked on a year long experience to do Social Work with Refugee Social Services in Durban, South Africa, as part of Mennonite Central Committee’s SALT program, I left flying by the seat of my pants, and open to the lessons it would be sure to teach me. I started this blog – LydiaInSouthAfrica – as a way to learn and reflect on practicing/living social justice, as well as think about my identity as a South African and a Social Worker. With ups and downs, it ended up being one of the most stretching, rewarding, soul-searching years of my life.

“I ended this experience in July 2015, and am currently living in Ontario, Canada, where I practice as a Social Worker, and continue to write about this adventure we call life.”