Week 16 - “Take me to the end so I can see the start…”

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Recently one of my friends back in the US posted a Facebook status about how cold it’s been there; she made a remark to about breaking out her fur coat. Her friend commented about how it’s seventeen where she is farther north. Meanwhile, at my desk in Cape Town, I sat missing air conditioning in the 90ish (31 C) weather. It’s funny; you’re just as likely to hear “Winter Wonderland” or “White Christmas” here as you are in a mall back in the States. How about that?

While I may be more aware than ever before how frequently the word “snow” appears in so many songs on my Christmas playlist,  it doesn’t dampen my shining Christmas spirit , which grows brighter with each white candle lit on the wreath at St George’s Cathedral (is pink and purple an Episcopal thing?). Christmas parties are in season and the ASF office has closed for a three-and-a-half-week holiday, which starts with a public holiday.

Today is the Day of Reconciliation, which came into effect in 1994 after the fall of apartheid. The day is mean to foster national unity and the spirit of reconciliation after so many years of divisiveness. After apartheid, new holidays were introduced and old holidays were - in some ways – tweaked in the spirit of being a day that every person in the country could observe. Before 1994, 16 December was known as the Day of the Vow, which celebrated the victory of the Boers over the Zulus at the Battle of Blood River in 1838.  The white Afrikaaners prayed before battle and promised God that if they won, they would hold the day in reverence for all time.

In commemoration of this day, I spent the morning walking around Cape Town on a special community walk organized for the day. With Suzanne and many others, I walked from St. George’s Cathedral to a Temple on the City Gardens and then to the oldest mosque in Cape Town. The whole thing took about two hours since at each location we heard a speech from a different person; each speaker was of a different faith, as well.

Apartheid ended sixteen years ago. The Civil Rights movement in the US was over forty years ago, but there are still too many lingering views of hatred between neighbors of different colors or faiths or backgrounds or lifestyles. My parents were still in college during the Civil Rights movement. When apartheid ended, I was eight-years-old, ending first grade and starting second grade. At twenty-four, that time in my life sounds so far away, but what about in the life  - or the mind - of a nation?