Jaywalking

So I have already decided that something I am going to miss about living in Cape Town is jaywalking. Everywhere and anywhere. Cross walks exist but if you need to cross the street you do. Cars generally don’t stop so you wait and weave your way across the lanes of traffic. For anyone who doesn’t know, I hate cross walks. I hate having to walk out of your way, having to back track because of an inconveniently placed cross walk, having to wait for cars to go, and at USC in particular, having to wait 4 times as long to cross with 878997 people because of the 4 way crosswalks.

I will miss jaywalking. Because it’s easy. Since coming to South Africa, I have discovered an unfortunate side to myself – that is, I like things to be easy. Sharing this with someone recently, he told me that he loves a challenge and that challenges excite him. That’s not me. I like to learn and grow and change, but I like those things in hindsight. I like looking back and reflecting on my life and seeing how different of a person I was 5 years ago, 2 years ago, last year. I look back and think, “Man, I’ve really grown. I like the person I am becoming.” Yet how easily I forget the struggles, the trials, the tears, and the hard times that helped to grow and shape me into who I am now [that sentence made my life sound like all I face is hard times – clarification: I have had abundantly joyful times in my life that easily counter and erase the hard times, but I think growth and development is seen more clearly in said hard times]. When I feel like a struggler, I look back at my life and wish for easy – forgetting that the easy times did not always lead to the best times.

South Africa is not a place of easy. There are so many times where I’ll look at the way something is done and not understand. America is so much about convenience. It’s not like that here. “Waiting” is a word found in everything and everywhere here. Waiting for the tram. Waiting in line [in the queue, if you will]. Waiting for the ATM. Waiting for the internet to start again. Waiting for employees to finish their conversations so that they can help you.

There are so many instances where the easy thing to do is not what’s done.

Something else I’ve noticed since I’ve been here: people hug and kiss a lot, and stress and anxiety is not easily identified [I’m wondering whether South Africans even have the ability to be stressed]. Coming from USC and LA, I pass people and students every day with stress written on their faces; hurrying from place to place; going from thing to thing on their hour to hour packed schedules; trying to get done more things in one day than there is possibly time for.

I can’t tell you how many times [and keep in mind I haven’t even been here a month] something will go wrong, people will be late, what was supposed to take 30 minutes actually took 4 hours, and the only response one can offer is, “This is Africa.” It’s virtually impossible to get frustrated or upset because this is Africa. They run on different time – “Africa time” if you will – which South Africans themselves have dubbed it for me :)

Life here is not always what’s easy or most convenient. Yet life here is good. So where is the disconnect? What am I missing? What is LA missing? What are USC students missing? We work so hard for easy and convenient but it leads to stress and busyness and overwhelmedness [yep]. I think this will be a semester, and is already turning out to be so, of learning that what is easy is not always what’s good. Or even what’s best. Learning to wait and be patient and find the capacity in yourself for stillness and silence is where it’s at.

So for the next 6 months I’ll enjoy my time jaywalking. You can bet I will take every opportunity to do so. But I’ll do it with a grain of salt [does that phrase make sense here? I don’t really think so...]. And I’ll learn – not to run on LA time, not to run on busy USC student time – to run on Africa time.