Life Lessons from South Africa

1. Focus on what you can affect.
During our month in South Africa, I read Nelson Mandela’s autobiography, “A Long Walk to Freedom”. Mandela was a truly remarkable man and a hero not just to all South Africans but to all citizens of the world. As I read his book during our travels, I began to see the country and its struggles through his eyes. His experiences, as he recounted them in the book, captivated me. There were many instances when he faced seemingly insurmountable obstacles and situations that would cause any other human to wither in despair. His reaction and choices in the face of these challenges left a deep impression on me.

During the Rivonia Trial in 1964, Mandela was convicted of sabotage and sentenced to life imprisonment. As a convict, he realized early on that he would be unable to effectively lead any form of political resistance from prison. So instead, he turned his focus to improving his immediate surroundings and the lives of his fellow inmates. He saw prison as a microcosm of South Africa at large. Resisting oppression and injustice in the prison system was how he could continue fighting for freedom while incarcerated.

While serving his sentence, Mandela did not become overly fixated on what was happening in the world outside. He focused his efforts on what he could affect in his immediate surroundings and fought unceasingly to improve conditions for himself and fellow inmates. In the early years during his incarceration, he acted as a spokesperson for his ward, offered legal assistance to his fellow inmates when they were unfairly treated, fought to receive the same food rations as non-black prisons, fought to put an end to heavy manual labor for inmates, fought to have study privileges for all inmates  and taught younger inmates about the history of the ANC and the struggle against apartheid.

Once conditions in prison had improved dramatically, Mandela spent his time improving himself. Throughout his years in prison, he had an intense daily exercise routine that he completed in the morning four days each week. It included stationary running, 100 finger push-ups, 200 sit-ups, and various other calisthenics. He developed a fondness for gardening and became an avid gardener when he was given a small plot of land in prison, on which he could grow a variety of vegetables. He learned how to play tennis and organized and participated in a number of prison football matches. He became quite good at draughts and chess and played regularly in prison. Most impressively, through the last months of his imprisonment, in between his meetings with the apartheid government to negotiate an end to apartheid, he found time to complete his law degree and finally received his LLB in 1989, just months before he was released in 1990.

2. Growth is a step-by-step process.
Everybody starts on a path, without knowing where it will lead. Nobody is born a freedom fighter or a hero or a superstar. One step at a time, we build our lives using the knowledge, skills and insights that we manage to collect along the way. If we are lucky, we are moved or inspired in such a way that compels us to act with intention, meaning and passion. At the end of our lives, hopefully, we have made somebody else’s life better and done some good in the world.

Mandela ends his memoir by sharing a reflection that is deep with insight and wisdom. He admits that he was not born a freedom fighter. When he was a boy, he thought that he was free in every sense of the word. He played in the fields and swam in the streams. It was only when he realized the innocent feeling of freedom from his childhood was just an illusion, that he began to yearn for real freedom.

In his youth, his understanding of freedom was superficial. As a student, he wanted the freedom to read what he liked, study what he pleased and stay out late. As a young man, he sought the freedom to distinguish himself in his pursuits, to marry whom he pleased and to follow his ambition.

Gradually, he began to realize that life was not the same for black South Africans and whites. Blacks were met with daily indignities, big and small. Not only was he not free, but all of the people who looked like him were equally caged because of the oppression that surrounded them. He wondered – Why was it like this in South Africa? He then challenged the status quo. It was only then that his understanding of freedom came to embody the true meaning of freedom. Freedom is not just for individuals or just for a particular group of people. Freedom, by nature, implies freedom for all.

Eventually, he came to realize that he was not only fighting for the freedom of his people but freedom for all people. Blacks needed to be liberated from apartheid and so too did whites. Both the oppressed and the oppressor both suffer, in different ways, from oppression and hate.  “A man who takes away another man’s freedom is a prisoner of hatred, he is locked behind the bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness.” All people have the right to live with dignity and self-respect.

3. Give compliments, even to strangers.
When we were in South Africa, we were often complimented by strangers for our beautiful family and the good behavior of our children. It was always unexpected because we were just going about our lives and never did anything to try and draw attention to ourselves. We were usually eating in a restaurant, playing at a playground or engaged in some tourist activity.

It happened on many occasions but the one time that stands out in my mind was probably the first time. We were celebrating Leo’s birthday at Tokara Winery in Stellenbosch. We spent several leisurely hours enjoying lunch and then the kids played in the playground with other children. An elderly couple who were sitting several tables away with their extended family approached us from out of the blue and told us that our children were beautiful and extremely well behaved.

My immediate reaction was one of pride. Our kids are not always perfectly behaved, no kids are. We certainly have moments when they do or say something entirely inappropriate leaving us cringing with embarrassment. They also have their moments when they are amazing and do something beyond what we have taught them that is entirely deserving of recognition. My heart swells with pride when I happen to see it. When others see it, I feel relief that they caught sight of them at that pleasing moment instead of at an embarrassing moment.

After the couple left, I wondered why they would go out of their way to come and speak to us. I paused for a moment of reflection because I admit it is not something that I normally do. I seldom go up to perfect strangers to talk to them, let alone compliment them. The only reason that I could think of why somebody would do that is because they want to spread happiness and positivity. Compliments are like tiny little seeds that any of us can throw into the wind. When they land on someone, they grow and blossom into beautiful flowers.

I think it is a good idea to compliment others more, even strangers. It is a positive and uplifting exercise to search for something to admire and appreciate in another. To give a compliment is an act of generosity. For the one who will receive the compliment, it creates spontaneous joy, like receiving a bouquet of flowers the week after your birthday.

4. Humans are capable of great savagery.
It is hard to imagine what conditions would allow individuals to condone, even participate in, such cruel and savage practices as slavery and apartheid. Is it because we have benefitted from the lessons of history that these practices seem abhorrent and unimaginable? Is it because moral standards have changed over time? Is it because we are not in that situation, allowing us to distance ourselves?

The institution of slavery and the apartheid regime cannot be erased from South Africa’s history. Since the Cape Colony was established by the Dutch East India Company in the 1650s, slavery was widespread as the Boers used slaves to work the land. At Slave Lodge, we learned about the global extent of the slave trade. While American education focuses on the Transatlantic Slave Trade, the Indian Ocean slave trade, though smaller in scale, goes further back in history. Slave Lodge, that we visited in Cape Town, housed slaves before they were shipped to Arab ports along Africa’s East Coast to be sold to India or the Middle East.

Apartheid was a form of institutionalized racism where oppressive policies against blacks and non-white citizens deprived them of basic rights. The apartheid regime ruled South Africa for over 40 years, maintaining support among the majority of whites in the country.

It is troubling to imagine ourselves in those times. If we were the oppressor, would we have condoned or participated in the widespread and generally accepted practices of the day? If we were the oppressed, would we have resisted or accepted the status quo? What would we have done? What would we be willing to risk? These are questions that we can only turn around in our minds.

To begin to contemplate these scenarios is prefaced by the fact that humans are capable of great savagery. Besides slavery and apartheid, there have been countless other oppressive regimes and cruel practices throughout the timeline of human history. Most of those who condoned and participated in these cruel institutions are just ordinary people like us. They are sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers, neighbors, colleagues and friends. Yet, they found themselves supporting practices that today, seem obviously cruel.

After the Holocaust, scholars and doctors began to study how ordinary people could commit the heinous acts that resulted in the extermination of more than 2 million Jews. I read an article in Spiegel International, “Nazi Atrocities, Committed by Ordinary People”, that summarized the complexity of the findings in a simple way.

“Just as there is usually more than one perpetrator, there is a host of reasons why perfectly normal men turn to murder: years of indoctrination, blind faith in leaders, a sense of duty and obedience, peer pressure, the downplaying of violence as a result of wartime experiences, not to mention the lust for Jewish property.”

It is a confusing, troubling and depressing topic to contemplate. There is a redeeming idea that arises from this vortex of “what if” questions. And that is, while ordinary people are capable of great savagery, so too are ordinary people capable of great bravery, courage, kindness and compassion.

5. Proceed with an open mind.
When we left Kenya, we thought nothing could ever top that experience. But then we arrived in South Africa with an open mind and found that it was different, but equally amazing. With each place that we visited and stayed in South Africa, we thought there probably won’t be another place that is as good.

In Kini Bay, we stayed at an amazing house (Breaking Waves) right on the beach with tide pools to explore and a big lawn to play on. The house itself was perfect for our family with a massive kitchen for us to cook, an indoor braai and a pool table. When it came time to leave Kini Bay, none of us wanted to leave… ever. We all believed there couldn’t possibly be another house and surroundings to top this one.

Then we arrived in Van Reenen. While Breaking Waves was a modern beach house, Van Reenen Waterfall Lodge was a rustic cabin on the bend of a river. Breaking Waves was located in a quiet residential neighborhood 15 minutes away from the largest mall in the Eastern Cape. Waterfall Lodge was situated in the “middle of nowhere” surrounded only by nature and the odd wandering cattle. Breaking Waves had every modern amenity and convenience we could ask for – a swimming pool built into the deck, a built-in indoor braai with a strong exhaust, perfect lighting and climate control. Waterfall Lodge had a natural swimming hole filled with water from the river, outdoor braais that were exposed to the elements, dim lighting and daily power load shedding. The two houses were vastly different but we loved them equally and to the same degree.

Before we arrived in Van Reenen, we could only think of the features present in Breaking Waves and expected to compare the next house according to the same features. We didn’t expect that the entire rubric would be different. If we had been fixated on finding another or a better Breaking Waves, we would have been sorely disappointed regardless of the merits of what was to follow.

In this case, it was easy for us to fall in love with both Breaking Waves and Waterfall Lodge. But it’s a good reminder to proceed with an open mind, not expecting to replicate, but to discover something new.