Things you should not hear or see

I have often wondered why something I heard or saw did not spur me into action. And then realised it is because I build my own fences, keeping myself back from getting involved, jumping in, saving or rescuing or standing up for what is right or staring down what is wrong.

The worst thing to be in this world, is proper or ordentlik, as we would call it in Afrikaans. Doing the RIGHT thing is always infinitely more important than doing things right. It takes you away from being accountable for anything. Of course it is all related to my upbringing in South Africa, where keeping up with the neighbours (and keeping up appearances, for that matter) was (and still is) the only way to live. Let's just not talk about what is happening IN and TO your heart, OK? The head does not count for much either, but the right address, car and job certainly does.

Now that I work in areas I have not ever seen the likes of in South Africa, I can feel myself tearing at my own fences with my bare hands. Whatever I have known about development and communities moving forward, I can magnify by 100 and that is my approach to a nation of people who are thousands of years behind in terms of modern living. And thousands of years ahead when it comes to social cohesion. Mixed in that the ongoing, relentless British charity approach to community development. It is done TO people, not BY people. As long as a monetary value can be put against it, we'll be right. Right?

I see flickers here of the meetings held in Namaqualand when I worked there. Ordinary people across everything about governance and management. And then have to sit through a meeting with a bureaucrat who tries to painstakingly explain the difference again - TO ME! And you ask yourself, as migrant, as guest in a country: are they all crazy in the head? (I do, after all, pay my taxes here - which gives me a bit more freedom to wash my mouth out :))

This is where I lean the ladder against the wall, hike up the braces and start climbing up to get out from behind the massive walls. Proper is out in the Territory, there is nothing proper about either side of the development story here. It should just be needs met and growth facilitated. As easy as that.

As for my role in all of this? Well, I have never won a Miss Congeniality contest.