Africa, hope and home.
You will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones
you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the
trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain
When we read the quote above I realise that there is a whole world I can discover outside of what I call home. This excites me. I get a feeling deep within me that yearns to explore, dream about and discover new horizons. To explore new feelings. To dream bigger. To discover new friends or places.
This quote invites us into the unknown.
Inside of me there has always been this yearning for meaning resonating with my inner Nevesh (נֶפֶשׁ) which refers to the inner soul, the feeling behind the ribs, that urge to get up and see stuff. See Africa. See the World. Last year I visited Mozambique with a couple of friends (came back with brothers and sisters), this year I visited Egypt with a couple of friends (came back with some brothers and sisters) and now I have my eyes on next year and Malawi. It started off as a dream between Dewald Hoffman, one of my close brother friends, and myself where we wanted to take the clothes on our back (extra undies) and our guitars on a train to Malawi. No money. No planning. No clue. Just us, our guitars and some (fake Mr. Price) Calvin Klein undies.
This all changed when some of our friends heard about this trip (never tell radical people about your radical plans, they will increase the radicality...by radically joining you) and joined the expidition. Now we are 8 people dreaming about heading off to Malwai next year to go and meet some of our future brothers and sisters there. We want to mainly go and serve the people of Malawi but also work in some classic road tripping.
This feeling. The Nevesh feeling. It doesn’t only refer to the soul. In fact the English and Afrikaans languages cannot find a proper translation to fit what was truly meant with the word. In some cases Nevesh refered to a living thing in creation (Gen 1:20) or in other cases it might refer to the inner self, i.e., the essence of life, including thinking, feeling, willing, desiring (Gen 34:3). Personally I love the word for its reference to life and personhood. When it refers to life, life is that animate part of a person existing until the state of death (1Sa 19:11) or when it refers to the personhood of someone it is almost saying that a human only becomes a person when it has felt this feeling in the Nevesh (Exo 16:16). Kinda like Ubuntu.
Now I know I’m only quoting the Bible here, but this feeling is universal. It’s not subject to religion. It’s a human feeling, not a Christian feeling. We all seek to find meaning in life. Different people try different things.
One of the ways I intend to feed this life giving yearn in me is to feed it with Africa.
Africa is a verb. It’s a movement from hate to reconciliation. In some parts we still have wars. But in others we have people forgiving other peoples unforgivable sins. We have this paradox in Africa where war and peace are in a battle to outwit and out play each other like Survivor contestants. Both will lie and cheat to beat the other.
What Africa calls for the most in my regard is utterance. Utterance of the Nevesh that is really hidden away behind structures. Africa asks of humans to become who they were intended to be. It asks of you to be real.
Dewald and I have also started a band. Starting a band baby, starting a band. Ek, Jy en Corné. That’s the band’s name. It’s Afrikaans for Me, You and Corné. Which sounds kinda weird…but that’s only because it is weird. It’s just a space where Dewald and I can utter our Nevesh. Some people draw. Some people play sport. Some people even collect all of the McDonalds Brazil World Cup chips packets…We sing. Write. And travel.
Some people call it Africa. I call it home.