Moments of clarity like to hit when we least expect them. For me, it was dancing the Electric Slide in the rain at night in Swaziland, 16 hours into an 18 hour Crazy (yes, capital C crazy) road trip.
Let’s rewind a bit.
It’s the first week of September. My palms are sweaty as I wait for my 1 on 1 with Tessa, our program coordinator, to hear more about details on what I’ll be doing/where I’ll be volunteering this year. The church door opens and Tessa’s smiling a bit to reassuringly for my comfort.
“So, do I get to do program management like was in the letter?” I blurt out before we’re even seated.
Her smile gets even bigger as we sit. This can’t be good. She pauses for a moment. “Housing fell through in Kimberley, what do you think about Cape Town?”
Silence. Processing. Everything I thought I’d be doing, out the window.
Twenty seconds later, with all sincerity, “Yes! Sounds great!”
During the beautiful “it’s okay to mourn for lost dreams” speech that subsequently followed my mind sped through the few things I knew about the city. Ocean. Mountains. Big city. Tons of cultural minglings. Baboons. So what comes out of my mouth, ending her eloquence entirely?
“There are baboons in Cape Town!”
So yes, folks, I’m now in Cape Town! Sister city of San Francisco, penguins on the beach…you read that right. And the dean I’ll be working with seems great! Tomorrow we’ll get a chance to talk about housing and volunteer options, one thing on the list is work at a reconciliation center. Stoked. I’ll also get a chance to update more frequently now that I’ll finally be settled (and no longer living out of a suitcase!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) All of this falling together on such short notice and fitting perfectly is totally God working. Already I feel like I belong here and am fitting into the community.
What does this all have to do with the Electric Slide? A simple matter of learning to say “yes.” In the waiting time for Cape Town logistics to come together I was sent with Katie, another volunteer, to Swaziland on the second craziest road trip of my life to attend the Young Adult League biannual conference. It was more than we had bargained for, to say the least. Eighteen hours each direction, eleven women yelling at each other in Tswana the whole way, a stop at a town named Bethlehem where I bought a ham & cheese sandwich from a cashier in a devil outfit, tons of Christmas decorations in Bethlehem with none of them religious (please appreciate the irony in both of these), a conference that lasted from 7am to 2am with no breaks. 16 hours into the journey there and I was tired, still hadn’t heard the final confirmation on Cape Town, and was incredibly grumpy. Life wasn’t turning out like I had planned and honestly I would have rather been settled anywhere than on the road and living out of a suitcase again for another weekend. Stop at wrong hotel #3 looked dismal as ever and I chose to stay in the van instead of stand outside in the rain with everyone else. The music turned on, the same African slow jams we’d been listening to for hours, and, against all odds, people started dancing. Sitting grumpily in the car by myself it hit me that saying “yes” to opportunities was entirely my decision. Whether I enjoyed the bumps in the road or stewed in my own pit of impatience was all up to me.
So what did I do?
I said “yes,” got out of my comfort zone, and started dancing in the rain.
*Zulu marriage counselor story next…I figured moving to Cape Town was slightly more important
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