Convalescing

This weekend I made another retreat to Dedza, sponsored once again by Mac and Dana. Their home - knitted into the beauty of nearby Dedza Mountain by their flower and vegetable gardens - is most definitely a retreat. I left Lilongwe Friday with the ambition of hiking the Mountain, but instead a small uninvited colony of Giardia kept me running from the bed to the bathroom. The Mountain will wait. One benefit of spending the day in bed was that I did have the chance to do a lot of reading. I’m finishing My Traitor’s Heart by Rian Malan. Malan is a white South African journalist who spent years reporting on apartheid and race relations in SA. This non-fiction, which was published in 1985, reflects his personal tortuous process of sorting through horrific imagines and conflicting emotions. He gives voice to victims and perpetrators alike, and convincingly illustrates how virtually all South Africans were complicit in unfathomable atrocities - actions following thoughts, conscious and subconscious, arising from the old putred stew of fear and hatred. It is well written, provocative, and utterly depressing (at least up to now, I’m not quite finished). I recommend the book but it wasn’t the best choice for me following a couple rough weeks filled with frustration and death. I’m feeling better today as I’m sitting here typing but I’ll admit that my path definitely has a few potholes that send me stumbling into a generic existential crisis every now and then.

Sometimes it is so incredibly tiresome to consider life's injustices, the millions of people who dedicate their lives to creating positive change in the world, the millions who do nothing, and how all the roles just seemed to be recycled again and again as we push forward and slide back. At times it seems that both complacency and activism are equally undesirable choices. That’s the line of the very hopeless voice in my head. In more hopefully moments I have to believe that whatever I’m doing is resulting in more good than harm, that I am making a positive impact even if it is only in the lives of a few whom I directly touch. Whatever happens beyond personal interaction is truly in the realm of hope and faith. I found one beautiful and inspiring quote along these lines in Malan’s book. It is taken from a white South African woman who, along with her husband, truly gave everything to understand, share, and ameliorate the suffering of impoverished black South Africans . . . “Any change is so slow as to be imperceptible, and so deep as to be virtually immeasurable.”