Living in a Country You Didn´t Grow up in: does it get easier?

I have learned that my heart is big enough to hold two nations. It is a beautiful thing, a challenging thing. Sometimes, a painful thing. Learning what to let go of, what to hold on to. Perspective. Growth.

I have been listening to my South African playlists more and more as I get ready for this trip. Many songs bring me to tears, many songs make me dance like no other type of music can. I remember the first time I went home after moving to Switzerland, how I started to sob as the plane landed. I am not a demonstrative person but there is something about South Africa that stirs me deeply. Something infinite and ancient. It is an intricate part of me: in my DNA, in the particles of earth and water and air that sustained me as I grew up, in my scars and their stories, in my education and memories, in my friendships and family,in my speech, in my perspectives and in my soul. I was shaped there.

But I live in Switzerland now. I am being shaped here now. At some stage we had to decide to be all-in. Decide that we would live here like we are not going back and that just like coming here, God would let us know if he wants us to go anywhere.

If we are okay with some rawness, here is an extract from an email I wrote to a friend as I processed the fact that I had left South Africa:

When I last saw you, I was on a little trip around the country to say goodbye to family, friends and places. To try and get some sort of closure about leaving my country.

I must have mellowed with age because at a stage in my life I was a sworn patriot and looked down upon those who left South Africa instead of staying and building into her. Sometimes I just feel tired. I feel too much emotion toward this country. My hands feel too tied to make a perceptible difference, I feel too ignorant and unskilled but I don’t think I can change that if I stay here. Sometimes it feels as if my love for this country resembles that of a person in an unhealthy relationship. I see all the things that draw people here: the passion and love and beauty and breathtaking landscape; an interesting and bloody and broken and victorious history. A relaxed attitude toward life, a lawlessness. I see the fire that burns in hearts here. Fire for greatness, fire for hatred, fire for wealth, fire for retribution, fire for survival. A striving for harmony that is flouted by a greed that was once taught by those who colonised and seems to have fully embedded itself into our culture.  Corruption seems to suffocate the efforts of those hundreds of souls striving for the good of all.  

I realized that you can’t change people’s perceptions. You can’t explain that white privilege exists and that although you do not need to feel guilty you have a responsibility. Responsibility always comes with privilege- a deep one, not to be taken lightly or without sensitivity. I couldn’t help look with disdain upon the superficial efforts of some people to support ‘black causes’ instead of South African ones- efforts that undermined the magnitude of the problems and intricacies in our country and emphasized the use of the pronouns ‘us’ and ‘them’. I was tired of being too much for many of the white people I know, my opinions too controversial. I was also tired of not being controversial enough, of being told that although I am South African I am not African. A sentiment that although I understand, still hurts. Yet here I am, using my white heritage to run away to a country that offers more than mine can at the moment. I have been exposed to so much prejudice, so much hatred in the last few years, slowly simmering from many different angles and perspectives. I have looked ruefully upon the way that some things are so ingrained in us. I know I am ignorant of many things still. I know my opinions are not conclusive, they will evolve. I hope you don’t mind my honesty, I know that you will not judge me. I am not bitter, I have just allowed myself to be honest about my feelings, knowing that I will grow in time. I am still filled with hope. These things will take many more years, many more fights, many more emotions. I just have nothing to offer at the moment.

I did not leave to escape the bad of South Africa. Not at all. I left to learn more, to see more, to live more and to travel more. To see what I really feel about South Africa. I left because I was tired of loyalties that are defined by heritage, I want to be loyal to humankind.  I left because God moved my heart. That is the main thing.

I would talk about these things slightly differently now, but these thoughts and emotions from five years ago are allowed a place. All the thoughts and emotions that have flowed through me over time about this topic have a place. All the feelings that I repress or can´t express have a place too. That is why I jika in my kitchen or cry as I listen to Hugh Masekela- some things are just part of me and the emotions have to leak or jiggle out without intellectual thought.

I have been through many identity crises. I have worked through a lot, learned a lot. Grown up a bit.
God has laid a love for Switzerland on my heart. An understanding that Christianity has no place for exclusive patriotism. The gospel is for everyone, to be taken to all nations. I am a child of the Kingdom of God, not a certain place. Of course, this is a journey. And it is not easy living in a different language and slowly building up a social network. It is not easy raising children out of the context that you were raised in. It is not easy having so many people you love living far away. It is not easy balancing being present where you live, while still maintaining contact and nurturing relationships with people far away. But it is possible. It is possible to find a way, to find joy, to build something beautiful.

After that first visit home I wrote:

I ate sunshine for a month
I feasted on friendship and imbibed the ocean
I rolled myself in breathtaking landscape and floated on a current of emotions in many turbulent directions 
And now I am living with saltwater under my skin, a heart full of feels and a belly full of sunlight

And after living in Switzerland for two and a half years, and often really struggling, I could write: