Perhaps when we lose everything, we somehow find everything that matters again. Humanity and kindness!
South Africa (03 January 2020) – Carien De Villiers sat on her pavement in tears, a single mother with two children was watching her life being ripped from under her feet. She was about to lose everything, with no plan in place. Her worst fear was being realised right in front of her eyes. For the first time in her life, she would be homeless, and the thought sent chills through her whole entire being.
But then something magical happened… help found her, and she found humanity again.
“I wonder what 2020 will hold in for me. I thought 2019 couldn’t have been worse than in 2018. I was so wrong.”
This time exactly a year ago, Carien and her kids moved into their new home, a township.
“Where family, my angels and heroes, opened their home for us permanently, when we had nowhere else to go. I remember it was raining cats and dogs. My mood matched every raindrop, every lightning.”
Carien had to pack up a whole house by herself; not having a truck to move all her belongings, not knowing even where to take her things.
“Here I am, a mother with two kids and nowhere to go. Our lives packed up into boxes. I was scared, alone, lost and angry.”
But Carien and her family experienced the ultimate form of Ubuntu that night. Humanity in it’s most beautiful form.
A truck stopped outside of her house. Five people who she had never met before, greeted her with love and kindness and the biggest smiles.
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And then started to load everything she owned on the truck. Storage had been arranged for the things she would not use – and the rest was going to the township. No questions asked. She had a home.
“I remembered I sat on the sidewalk, tears more than the rain, running down my face. I cried because of people who should’ve been there for us, but weren’t. And people who shouldn’t be there for us, but were.
I cried all the way to our new home.”
Waiting outside was one of her Angels. Her second Mom. She embraced Carien, wrapping her loving arms around her.
“Moenie worry oor niks nie, my kind. Julle is nou by die huis. Soos dit moet wees. Die Here sal sorg.”
It wasn’t easy for the brave South African and her family. Although they had come to the kasi almost every weekend and holidays, it was different staying there permanently. This time they couldn’t go back to their priviledged lives.
Running water, electricity, tar roads, a hot shower, a flushing toilet, shops, schools, the doctor – just around the corner. All the things we take for granted every day were nowhere to be found.
“When I say it wasn’t easy, I’m not talking about the lack of running water or a flushing toilet inside a house. That we were used to in any case. The hard part, was experiencing people’s pain and suffering. We live it now too. We are part of it. Twenty four seven. There’s no running away from it.
No more getting into your car, going back to the suburbs, leaving people and their problems behind.
No. You are now part of it. Every day. You see the tears. You feel the pain. You share in the joy, the love.”
And even though Carien was facing one of the biggest challenges of her life, she had also found humanity again! Realising what being human and sharing kindness is all about. Her moment of adversity had become a beacon of hope in her humanness.
“It’s also then that you become human. When you understand what you have lost, and are blessed for what you gained.
It’s then that you stop complaining about little things.
When you start appreciating small things in life. Taking nothing for granted. Everything that’s been offered, you take in that very moment.
You take it, and make it yours.
When you also stand in queues for hours in the heat, waiting for the water tank, filling up containers.
When you try to comfort a family who lost everything in a fire; their home burned to the ground.
When you join singing women peeling and chopping vegetables for a wedding or funeral.
When lying in bed, listening to raindrops falling on a tin roof, or the wind blowing the sand from one side of the roof to the other, following the sound with your eyes.
When you understand money has no value. It’s then that you experience death.
A new baby coming into the world. Watching the sun set over a forgotten community, the smell of fires being started, the smell of paraffine hanging in the air. Gogos yelling for kids to come inside and get cleaned. Mothers & fathers getting off taxis, walking home after a hard day’s work. Picking up a dusty little baby and kissing his tears away.
It’s then that you see the human and not the skin colour.
Then you become one.
It’s then that you see your Angels and Heroes.
When you become you; it’s then that you know you are home, where you belong.
You found your soul and it’s only the beginning of a new great chapter.
To be continued.”
This is why loving louder and kindness is so important. We need to see each other’s humanity. Everyone is going through something. We are all just trying our best.
by 
