a tug of worlds

As I leave my adolescence behind, I find myself in the middle of a ferocious tug of war. After many touching encounters with the world’s underprivileged, I have wanted to forsake my lavish American lifestyle. However, the desire to meet societal standards makes it a challenge. For a humanitarian spirit like myself, to buy or not to buy is a troubling dilemma.

At first glance it may seem simple. I must simply avoid the unnecessary acquisition of stuff. But I, like many American Generation Y-ers, was raised in a world where happiness, acceptance and success were all implicitly measured by the designer brands you owned, luxury cars you drove and extravagant vacations you enjoyed. I live in a land where 16-year-olds receive new SUVs and sports cars for birthday presents. A place where college students, including myself, carry their books about poverty, disease and other world injustices in designer bags. And where private schools schedule ski vacations so families can make use of their “snow homes.”

I always had an innate sense of caring for others. I would put money in the offering at church for those starving African children, and my family made several trips down to Mexico to give away our old clothes. I was well aware that there were many people in the world who lived nothing like I did. But it never really affected me. That is, until my first trip across the big pond to South Africa. There I made friends which shoeless children dressed in tattered clothing. There I held children whose parents’ lives had been stolen by a rampant disease called AIDS. At the formative age of 16, I found myself in a place that didn’t put value on brands or appearance, but rather on life, simply because life is a luxury there.

Upon returning, my heart had been transformed. Instead of longing for a new Coach purse, I wanted to see shoes on the feet of the AIDS orphans I had held. Yet within months, I was competing with my Juicy Couture-clad friends. I was spending $700 on purses. I was asking for a new, faster car. And I was concerned with the weight of Nicole Richie.

Year after year I returned to South Africa to see my friends who were delighted with their one tattered uniform and the chance to attend school with poor lighting and no heat. I held one dying child after another. And I would return each time to the States adamant that in remembrance of them, I would not succumb to our materialistic society. And time after time, I would fail miserably at my resolve.

As I am about to return to the poverty and crime plagued country that changed my heart three years ago, I wonder if seven months will be enough to transform my whole heart and mind. When I return, will I be able to ignore my society’s demand to impress? I’m not sure.

As an American Generation Y-er, consumer is my middle name. We are notoriously known as big spenders. A recent study published in the Journal of Consumer Marketing found that Generation Y responds to advertising and marketing. They are much more likely to spend compulsively. Growing up in an age of the cell phone, the credit card and the Internet, we have learned how to get what we want when we want it.

So what do we do? I’m not sure I can give any answers. So for now, I will continue to wrestle with what it means to be a globally aware young American. With time, I am certain this tug of war will be resolved and I will find myself in a place of true harmony.

published in magazine "Generation WHY"

ubuntu

As you are all well aware of by now, South Africa has stolen my heart. Actually, it’s probably safe to say that South Africa has taken me hostage.

“A person is a person through others,” states a Zulu proverb and my personal favorite adage.
This maxim reflects the sub-Saharan Africa ideology of ubuntu. It is the belief in a collective bond of sharing that unites all humanity. It has been translated as “humanity towards others” or “I am because we are.”

“A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed,” South Africa Archbishop Desmond Tutu once said.

As I am about to move to the country that was founded on such a principle, I ask myself what does it mean to become “human” through other people? How am I going to allow the people I come in contact with over the next seven months to shape who I become?

My new community will consist of Xhosa and Afrikaans speaking South Africans. I will be learning the languages, eating the food, attending their churches and building relationships. When I return to the States seven months later, it is my hope that I can be called a person with ubuntu.

Tutu wisely advises that true self-assurance comes from being a part of something bigger than ourselves. In our American society the individual is emphasized, but I believe life is meant to be lived in community.

So as we prepare to leave the APU community for the summer, the semester, or even for good, I encourage you to engage in a new community. Whether it’s a missions team, a study abroad program, or a new job, immerse yourself because who you become over the summer can be the result of something bigger than yourself.

Engage by learning the language or memorizing the mission statement. Find out the history of the organization, school or country you find yourself a part of. Get to know your coworker’s favorite childhood memory or their big dream. Whatever it is, take the time to engage.

I leave you with a question wonderfully posed by former South African President and civil rights pioneer Nelson Mandela. “Ubuntu does not mean that people should not enrich themselves. The question therefore is: Are you going to do so in order to enable the community around you to improve?”