Holding Up the Sky by Sandy Blackburn-Wright Page B

allowed me some time to read over my travel diary and refect on the year. It was hard to believe that all my experiences had been squashed into a ten-month period–it felt like years since I had left my parents at Sydney airport. I remembered my naive self walking into Harare airport, imagining the next few months more like a safari than the awakening it was. Growing up in a quiet Sydney suburb and spending my teenage years in the church youth group, the worst I had seen of people was a little vindictive gossiping. Neither I nor my world view were ready for what I experienced in South Africa. Perhaps my response to it was sharpened by the contrast of the two worlds.
    One evening, I asked myself whether I would have left Sydney if I’d understood what was to come. In the end, it was a rhetorical question, as at some level I felt that Sydney had not been enough for me, could not engage my passion nor my adolescent ideology and that I had always been looking for something more. What struck me was how different I was to my own brother. Despite our identical upbringings, Jon was still in Sydney focusing all his attention on building what would become a powerful career, only travelling overseas for work or holidays, and struggling to understand why I would not do likewise. He told me many years later that he was proud of what I had done with my life, though I don’t think he always understood my motivation.
    By the time I left Vancouver to fly home I was confident about the choices I was making. I was looking forward to Christmas with family and to my return to South Africa.

06 DECEMBER 1988
HOME FOR CHRISTMAS
    I DIDN’T REALISE HOW MUCH I HAD MISSED MY PARENTS UNTIL I SAW THEM—MUM WAS HOLDING A ’WELCOME HOME’ BALLOON AS SHE EAGERLY SCANNED THE CROWD. I HAD LONG SINCE OVERTAKEN MY MOTHER’S HEIGHT—SHE WAS A RESPECTABLE 160 CENTIMETRES TALL, OR 161, AS SHE WAS QUICK TO POINT OUT. IN THE PAST WHEN WE HUGGED, I TRIED TO TUCK HER HEAD INTO MY SHOULDER AS SHE STOOD ON TIPPY TOES TRYING TO EVADE ME. TODAY, SHE DIDN’T OBJECT AND WE CLUNG TO EACH OTHER AND CRIED AS WE HAD TEN MONTHS BEFORE.
    I spent the rest of the day chatting to Mum and Dad, unpacking and just enjoying being home. That night, Msizi phoned and told me he was having a hard time settling back in, now that he was home in Grahamstown himself. He said that he and his mother were arguing a lot, which wounded him terribly. He felt they had both changed over the course of the year and didn’t understand each other as well as they had done. I hoped I would not find the same problems awaiting me. Msizi also told me that his friends were ridiculing his feelings for me. They felt he should take what he could get and move on, rather than pining over a future that couldn’t exist. The good news was that he had been offered the job with the Council of Churches, to start in February. I suspected he wished it would start straight away, leaving him less time to mull over his feelings.
    Once my own initial homecoming flush subsided I also found myself on an emotional roller coaster. I was still waiting for a letter from Steve, formally stating that I was being offered employment with Sizwe, before I could submit my visa application. Then it would take at least three months to process, assuming all went smoothly. I was anxious to get started with the work in South Africa and found the limbo of waiting difficult to manage. Realistically, I couldn’t proceed on the assumption that I would get there eventually. If my visa was refused, I would have to change direction completely. I believed I could do anything I set my mind to–so it didn’t sit well to know there was nothing I could do to influence the outcome. I had learnt to focus my attention, to work hard for what I wanted, but I had yet to learn patience.
    When I was with friends I was happy and distracted, glad to be back with people who had known me for years. But when I