Inner-confusion...

Since my stay in Germany, it has been an ongoing struggle for me to actually figure out where I belong. A part of me belongs here, where I feel at home between German traditions and cute things they do, and also where I appreciate more serious things such as: safety, a secure future for children, good education, a nation that is proud to be just who God made them to be no matter what their job or standing, things that are just run and work, people that are extremely efficient, a clean and neat, organized environment...

And so, as I was traveling per train to and from my "old guest family" from 7+ years back I came to this conclusion. Even if SA gets a monkey for a president and the whole country is smashed like a chewed-up orange, I am still extremely proud to be South African. Yes, we have our con’s and we have our pro's, but at the moment where I am, is exactly where God wants me to be! It does not mean I plan to emigrate like my happy and settled parents when I try to register as a dentist in Holland and Germany. And I have settled in my mind that if the going is really unbearably tough, and if my children get no better education and have no future of substance there, if we fear for our lives and are prisoners in our own homes, then, and only then if God leads us here, will I call this my home.

The Turkish people with their dozen children of no discipline where making a rocket in the train. I thought: they are just as annoying as our "baboons on bicycles" in SA. And they pollute the culture and take up German just to really dirty it, and make menace with. And suddenly the two countries I love most where equal. I putt on my South African Melktertkomissie and Andre Swiegers, and the words just rang so true. "'Cause I am proudly South African..." "Waar was ek heen? Ek het gaan soek. Ek het na meer gaan soek. Ek het my nodigste gepak en op reis gegaan, ek het reguit paaie en roetes wat krom is gevolg....In 'n land ver van hier het ek 'n man ontmoet, wat dieselle taal as ek kon praat maar wie sou ooit kon raai? Dat al het ons ook hoe hard probeer mekaar te vestaan, het ons almekaar net bymekaar gepraat...Waar was ek heen? Ek het gaan soek. Ek het na meer gaan soek...Ek het besef dis weer tyd om op te staan, soveel dinge beleef om in my songs te vertel. En die moral of the story van my hele reisverhaal: Dis amazing om so af en toe 'n lekker droom te vang."

I feel better now that I have cleared this up in my mind. I will be wise as to keep my options open for my career here in Europe, but I will continue to be deliriously happy in a country with just as many imperfections as Germany (they just fall in different weighting categories). My wish is to continue to stay in God's will and go where so ever He leads! And South Africa and its people is His will for me now. My heritage and culture foreign to SA, enriches me and whomever I get into contact with. It makes me who I am, it makes me want to be close to that part of me, but I have a passion for SA and until that changes, I will only visit and enjoy Europe tremendously as traveller, not citizen.