Who Stole my Granola Bar?

5 minutes in the day of my life: this is what the past 5-and-a-half weeks seems to have been. As I sat wedged between an LA Lakers basketball player and an American corporate countryman, the finality of our DC experience was literally pressed upon me. For the past month I would have felt perfectly at home next to these two Americans- had I been nestled on a Red-Line Metro towards ‘Shaaaady Grove’ ; but on July 17 2011, as I sat on that Boeing777 bound for Johannesburg, I felt neither South African nor Washingtonian; neither tourist nor ex-patriot; neither here nor there...

I wrestled with an indistinct feeling of violation. In this wrestling match, my sense of duty as a young person in South Africa confronted a sense of romanticism of global citizenship. It felt- and still feels- as though the SAWIP Class of 2011 was mid-flight: soaring towards something great, inspirational and empowering; chartering new directions for personal, professional and leadership development- and BAM!

The trapdoor opens and we’re thrown off-board....sans parachutes.

On the homeward-bound journey, I feel almost compelled to deliver a memoir of profound reflection; but at this very point, my most profound reflections can only be that which my mirror reflects: a snapshot of a young woman with her feet re-planted in South African soil; but with eyes gazing across oceans, looking out for the next Red Line Metro a few thousand kilometers away.

The process of Re-Integration is an obnoxious character. He charges in from the moment we land on home soil, places a cup of Rooibos tea in one hand and a Mail&Guardian paper in the other and commands us to “settle in.” If only it were that easy. When I find myself listening to Ray Charles and Ella Fitzgerald over and over again on a 22-hour plane trip; unwittingly searching for Nature Valley Peanut Butter Granola Bars and Twizzlers in Pick n Pay; sitting with eyes wide open at 4am in my tiny, once-cosy, bedroom; I resist Re-Integration.

I am well aware, that to my South African compatriots, I now sound like a baby crying to go back to Disney World. Except that it was not a Disney experience. It was at least one third Disney: Times Square, Central Park, 4th of July, Lincoln Memorial, White House, Capitol Hill, Fro-Yo, Starbucks Green Tea Frappucinos...what could be more magical?!

The remaining two thirds of my DC experience roughly comprised life as a DC summer-intern, and life as a SAWIPian revolutionary ready to change my country with the help of Irish, Israeli, Palestinian and American visionaries.

Amazing! Incredible! A whirlwind! Eye-opening!

These are the weightless words that slip uncontrollably from my mouth when I am asked about the experience. Truthfully, to try to package what was such an accelerated and unique growth-opportunity would be to discredit the profound impact of this programme.

It was no mere summer internship; no superficial networking holiday; and certainly no holiday. Instead, over 5 weeks, the SAWIP Washington Experience forced us, 15 strong leaders from diverse fields, to till the soil of team-development we had sown just 2 months before. As we ploughed away- norming, storming, performing, and storming some more- we reaped tiny bulbs of enlightenment and inspiration. It was only in our last week, in fact, that we had cultivated a space safe enough to see these tiny bulbs blossom to a team-synergy so intense, so beautiful and so deeply rooted by our threads of diversity.

From polite Howdy-do’s and handshakes back in March 2011, by July 17 the SAWIP Class left Dullus Airport a SAWIP family: a family that hugs each other for a few seconds longer and in each other’s eyes, sees familiar fires.

It is a fire that brings to mind a few lines from one of my favourite poems by Dorca Matuwana:  

“I will not live in fear of falling

or catching fire

I choose to live so that

that which came to me as seed goes on

as fruit

and that which comes to me as fruit goes on....as blossom”