...Or when you have the freedom to choose
Smelling Freedom
I was in Cape Town, South Africa, the day after Christmas 2017. It was a muggy day and with a South African friend of mine I was walking in the Camps Bay sunset. The light was the kind that only Africa can give you: intense and soft, warm and welcoming but cooled by the loud crashing of waves on the rocks. Families come there in the afternoon to picnic and let the children play in the natural pool that is created in an immense concrete tank.
I see a little boy running to the edge of the pool, his mother shouting from a distance, telling him to come back that it is dangerous. He looks at her, turns around, looks at the sun, the sea, smiles and runs back. He makes it all the way to the edge but then the road stops and alas he has to give up and stop.
How many times have we run to chase a dream and then stopped?
And did we stop because the road ended or because we stopped dreaming?
That child wanted to run, wanted to chase freedom, what about me?
I'm complaining about not being free, about not being able to achieve what I always wanted, about not having time for me and my things...and what do I do to achieve them? I'm the one who stopped running and not the road that's stopped.
Few days after, in Cape Town, I met Mzuvukile, 44 years old, tour guide and driver; born in Cape Town and never left the city: too expensive to even fly to Johannesburg. Over our car ride and lunch he told me about his story, the story of the country through his eyes, the story of his people. So proud of being born in the first township and to represent the soul of Africa.
He told me how he got upset with Mandela for asking to forget and to forgive; he grew up with the feeling of wanting to kill all white people due to the oppression and repression he and his people lived through.
He then told me something I will never forget: as a kid, when they asked him what he wanted to do as an adult, he would say "I want to go to the school that makes me become white", dreaming of a different life.
He has five kids, one is 30 days old, a beautiful wife and, when he can, he loves to have whisky at night.
I reflected long after about my white guy privileges, nothing I ever had to fight for, that I often take for granted and that were most likely remotely secured through physical and cultural oppression.
When you have the freedom to choose and you do not choose freedom it is an offense to those who have not had this choice and may never have it.
You might be the lucky one to have the freedom to make choices.
A year later, casting one glance at the sea and one at the sky, I left my job and many securities to run toward my dreams and to try to rebuild myself
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