... And a deep sense of humility overcame me. Never before had I been so intimately honest with perfect strangers, and never before had I had such openness and depth reflected at me. What was this strange and accelerated ubuntu which seemed to defy my sensibilities and introduce me to a welcome discomfort? Quick as we were to advance past the acquaintance phase into a space usually reserved for those we’ve known for years, it never felt rushed. It felt familiar—in every sense of the word. Like an old and infinitely warm blanket it enveloped us, together. We were strangers, but oddly we were becoming a family. It felt right. It made me cry with inspired happiness. In the company of these people—these my people—I was deeply honoured and uncontainably excited...

I still am.

Let me try to put that in perspective. This is my first blog post. We are a few weeks into our South Africa-Washington International Program curriculum. And, I might say, this is quite the programme. Already we have engaged with many of our countries most serious and pressing issues, and always in a meaningful way. We have had an in-depth look at the national Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment framework; we have asked deep questions about the state of South Africa’s constitutional democracy and grappled with the very difficult history that provides context for our present. Importantly, we have debated the meaning of being an active citizen poised to meet head-on both the challenges and the opportunities that lie ahead of us in South Africa. It has been intense, this SAWIP story. It’s just beginning.

In many respects the SAWIP story is the South African story. To tell the SAWIP story is not an easy thing to do, plainly because the South African story is so complex. We all star in that story and we are all its narrators; we write the story and it is written for us. Quite truly we all have a part to play; and play it to the fullest we must!

SAWIP really has done well to cast a group to play in its narrative that represents both a South African actuality and a future of promise: a group of storied strangers. I once mentioned in passing to one of the team how great it was that we have amongst us historians and politicians, economists and lawyers, teachers and managers. Each member brings with them an invaluable perspective informed by their colourful and varied educational and historical experiences. They have strange stories to tell.

I am moved to believe that this is part of what our South Africa needs—to learn as a nation to share in and to be comfortable with our beautiful strangeness. Nation-building is family-building. In a country of such diversity smothered in pain, and with as much that is unsaid and unacknowledged as our own, we need to make it safe for people to come forward and tell their own stories and have them actually listened to. Because strangers though we may be, our stories fit together as one.

It is through our stories that we curious strangers become a nation—a family.

I recall that first day at the SAWIP selection camp when newly-introduced we each took to the front to tell our tales one-by-one—our deep and troubled and brilliant and human tales. And with each personal recollection we wove another beautiful and strange pattern into the great burgeoning blanket that draws us together in a familial embrace. And a deep sense of humility overcame me...

The largest blanket in the world. Naturally.
(Knitted by the hands of South African churchwomen. Read the story here)