I am discovering that motherhood changes us...alters our way of looking at the world around us...of listening to the way the world sings and speaks...and may even change what we think it is, or was, saying....sometimes the the message is so arrestingly different, when listened to through those mother-ears, that it stops us in our tracks and resonates within our hearts in a new way...a way that transforms what was once simply the soundtrack of a particular period in history into a moment's inspiration...into a prayer...a message from God...speaking to universal humanity....universal motherhood..."...Well, there's a rose in a fisted glove
And the eagle flies with the dove
And if you can't be with the one you love
Love the one you're with
Love the one you're with..."
- Stephen Stills, 1970
A recent Backstory article in the Christian Science Monitor titled "Home Sweet Fortress" details reporter Scott Baldauf's adventures through the labyrinth of personal and home security in the city of his latest assignment, Johannesburg, South Africa.
A timely article for me. Our daughter, Hannah, just returned to Johannesburg for another month before traveling on to her destination in a small coastal village outside of Capetown where she will spend the next year finishing her secondary education.
Hannah's epic journey to South Africa last summer was the subject of an article on safety in both the Monitor and on this Blog (scroll down October 3, 2006 blog "Securing Children's Safety" ).
When Hannah's dad and I traveled to South Africa in 1989 to pick her up as our newly adopted child, the country was in turmoil. It was during the height of Apartheid. Our visit there was rife with red tape, governmental intimidation and uneasiness. Under the surface you could almost feel the red veld itself under your feet, seething with repressed anger and pent up violence. Hatred surfaced on the faces of the white government soldiers who as a matter of routine carried automatic weapons on the streets of both large cities and small towns. That hatred was mirrored in the young black men who stood in darkened doorways with older model AK-47 rifles at the ready. High walls and large dogs that characterized white neighborhoods all gave off an angry heat that made even the African sun pale by comparison.
One afternoon as my husband and I drove from the farm where we were staying to Johannesburg, we passed the local farm school that served the children of black farm workers in that township. At first glance this could have been the modest playground of any private rural school. The girls were dressed in pleated red and blue plaid skirts and collared polo shirts, the boys in navy pants or shorts and the same white shirts or red sweaters. My husband, charmed by the sweet laughter of the young schoolboys playing a version of kickball in the yard and the little girls giggling as their friends moved in and out of double dutch jump rope, pulled our borrowed car to the side of the road to snap a photo or two.
Looking closer, things came more clearly into focus. Suddenly the disparity between the scene in front of us and a schoolyard "back home" was arrestingly obvious. The children were all black, all bare-footed. and all so thin. Until we looked at the frail limbs poking out from voluminous shirt sleeves and pant legs which camouflaged their thinness, we were convinced we had been looking at healthy children at play. But as arresting as this discovery was, it was not the most sobering element of what filled the lens of our camera and our hearts that afternoon. Just out of focus, about 100 yards away in a field of tall grasses, South African Army tanks pointed directly at the schoolyard.
I felt a cold chill down my spine as I realized the depth to which the sharp blade of threat had been plunged daily into the hearts and minds of these children's parents as they weighed their child's education with their safety. Insurgency was held at bay by the barrels of enormous military tanks pointed at small children. The message of this silent threat was clear: their children could face what had happened thirteen years earlier when hundreds of young school children in Soweto, South Africa were massacred by South African police as the children and their parents protested inferior educational opportunities and demanded the right to be taught in their own language. I felt faint with horror.
No wonder more than a million strong, intelligent black Africans had chosen not to take to the streets in opposition to the repression of their basic human rights. It was love that kept them waiting for over twenty years....waiting for a Moses to march them peaceably out of bondage and bloodshed. Our daughter was nine months old and we were back in the States when Nelson Mandela walked out of Robin's Island prison. Hannah is now 17 and is a tall, beautiful, intelligent, proud South African citizen with dual American citizenship.
She possesses flashing green eyes and a heart for defending human rights wherever she sees them being violated...wherever and whenever someone is being treated without dignity...from a middle school classroom where her best friend was made fun of for speaking with an accent, to a Sunday School discussion where she opposed the characterization of those who supported same sex marriage as immoral.
This same daughter, when asked about the crime and violence in Johannesburg that we often hear is the highest in the world, shared with us that, yes, there is a lot of crime and violence, and you have to be very, very alert and wise when you leave your gated, walled, security-system protected and dog-guarded home. But, she also offered that when she is afraid or feels unsettled or threatened, she just looks for help from an older black woman. Hannah explained that they have the kindest faces and are always willing to help you and protect you. She went on to say they are like mothers and grandmothers to everyone and it doesn't matter that she is white...she is a child who needs care.
I can only pray my thanks to these women who once faced the horrors of daily threat to their own children's safety. These women have strong hearts, tempered by the harshness of their past. These same hearts have been made flexible and open, stretched from having cared for, loved, fed, clothed and in many ways educated the young white children of their employers while serving as housekeepers, nannies, maids and governesses.
When Hannah was born she was very ill and frail. My first stop after leaving the hospital with her was our host's farm on the Botswana border where our host and her husband were entertaining friends, business colleagues, and their wives, for a holiday of safari. When we arrived, Hannah was rather weak and I couldn't get her to take food. I was surrounded by kindly, well-educated, white South Africans but it was the young black housekeeper, who already had a handful of children herself, who courageously stepped forward to take Hannah out of my arms that day. The housekeeper later came to my bedroom on the farm and continued to breastfeed Hannah until she was strong enough to take milk more vigorously on her own. This same housekeeper saw her own very young children off during a ten-mile walk each week to the local farm school. She would leave them there and make the trek back to our host¢s "camp", not seeing them again until she or her husband walked back to pick them up at the end of the week.
I think of this young woman today as I ponder my daughter's safety in the arms of the many Dorothy or Maria "grandmothers" who respond to names that an employer or sponsor gave them, not names in their native tongue that they were blessed with at birth. I pray my thanks to them. I send it over continents and oceans and hope it reaches them where they can be found embracing my daughter on a public bus, in an office building, or on a street corner...or most recently in the airplane lavatory on her trip here for her dad's wedding last month. During her 15-hour flight Hannah became ill and turned to yet another kind South African black "grandmother" to help her. This woman held her hair and cooed comfort in her ear through the long night above the Atlantic Ocean.
Nelson Mandela came out of Robin's Island and led his country out of hatred because he held the hearts of mothers who knew what it meant to love and to oppose violence wherever it raises its ugly head.
Motherhood knows no color....I feel secure in knowing that wherever there are mothers of any color, my daughter and her friends are safe and cared for. I hope and pray that I have the opportunity be a "grandmother" for someone else's child today. Join me....please...
A timely article for me. Our daughter, Hannah, just returned to Johannesburg for another month before traveling on to her destination in a small coastal village outside of Capetown where she will spend the next year finishing her secondary education.
Hannah's epic journey to South Africa last summer was the subject of an article on safety in both the Monitor and on this Blog (scroll down October 3, 2006 blog "Securing Children's Safety" ).
When Hannah's dad and I traveled to South Africa in 1989 to pick her up as our newly adopted child, the country was in turmoil. It was during the height of Apartheid. Our visit there was rife with red tape, governmental intimidation and uneasiness. Under the surface you could almost feel the red veld itself under your feet, seething with repressed anger and pent up violence. Hatred surfaced on the faces of the white government soldiers who as a matter of routine carried automatic weapons on the streets of both large cities and small towns. That hatred was mirrored in the young black men who stood in darkened doorways with older model AK-47 rifles at the ready. High walls and large dogs that characterized white neighborhoods all gave off an angry heat that made even the African sun pale by comparison.
One afternoon as my husband and I drove from the farm where we were staying to Johannesburg, we passed the local farm school that served the children of black farm workers in that township. At first glance this could have been the modest playground of any private rural school. The girls were dressed in pleated red and blue plaid skirts and collared polo shirts, the boys in navy pants or shorts and the same white shirts or red sweaters. My husband, charmed by the sweet laughter of the young schoolboys playing a version of kickball in the yard and the little girls giggling as their friends moved in and out of double dutch jump rope, pulled our borrowed car to the side of the road to snap a photo or two.
Looking closer, things came more clearly into focus. Suddenly the disparity between the scene in front of us and a schoolyard "back home" was arrestingly obvious. The children were all black, all bare-footed. and all so thin. Until we looked at the frail limbs poking out from voluminous shirt sleeves and pant legs which camouflaged their thinness, we were convinced we had been looking at healthy children at play. But as arresting as this discovery was, it was not the most sobering element of what filled the lens of our camera and our hearts that afternoon. Just out of focus, about 100 yards away in a field of tall grasses, South African Army tanks pointed directly at the schoolyard.
I felt a cold chill down my spine as I realized the depth to which the sharp blade of threat had been plunged daily into the hearts and minds of these children's parents as they weighed their child's education with their safety. Insurgency was held at bay by the barrels of enormous military tanks pointed at small children. The message of this silent threat was clear: their children could face what had happened thirteen years earlier when hundreds of young school children in Soweto, South Africa were massacred by South African police as the children and their parents protested inferior educational opportunities and demanded the right to be taught in their own language. I felt faint with horror.No wonder more than a million strong, intelligent black Africans had chosen not to take to the streets in opposition to the repression of their basic human rights. It was love that kept them waiting for over twenty years....waiting for a Moses to march them peaceably out of bondage and bloodshed. Our daughter was nine months old and we were back in the States when Nelson Mandela walked out of Robin's Island prison. Hannah is now 17 and is a tall, beautiful, intelligent, proud South African citizen with dual American citizenship.
She possesses flashing green eyes and a heart for defending human rights wherever she sees them being violated...wherever and whenever someone is being treated without dignity...from a middle school classroom where her best friend was made fun of for speaking with an accent, to a Sunday School discussion where she opposed the characterization of those who supported same sex marriage as immoral. This same daughter, when asked about the crime and violence in Johannesburg that we often hear is the highest in the world, shared with us that, yes, there is a lot of crime and violence, and you have to be very, very alert and wise when you leave your gated, walled, security-system protected and dog-guarded home. But, she also offered that when she is afraid or feels unsettled or threatened, she just looks for help from an older black woman. Hannah explained that they have the kindest faces and are always willing to help you and protect you. She went on to say they are like mothers and grandmothers to everyone and it doesn't matter that she is white...she is a child who needs care.
I can only pray my thanks to these women who once faced the horrors of daily threat to their own children's safety. These women have strong hearts, tempered by the harshness of their past. These same hearts have been made flexible and open, stretched from having cared for, loved, fed, clothed and in many ways educated the young white children of their employers while serving as housekeepers, nannies, maids and governesses.
When Hannah was born she was very ill and frail. My first stop after leaving the hospital with her was our host's farm on the Botswana border where our host and her husband were entertaining friends, business colleagues, and their wives, for a holiday of safari. When we arrived, Hannah was rather weak and I couldn't get her to take food. I was surrounded by kindly, well-educated, white South Africans but it was the young black housekeeper, who already had a handful of children herself, who courageously stepped forward to take Hannah out of my arms that day. The housekeeper later came to my bedroom on the farm and continued to breastfeed Hannah until she was strong enough to take milk more vigorously on her own. This same housekeeper saw her own very young children off during a ten-mile walk each week to the local farm school. She would leave them there and make the trek back to our host¢s "camp", not seeing them again until she or her husband walked back to pick them up at the end of the week.
I think of this young woman today as I ponder my daughter's safety in the arms of the many Dorothy or Maria "grandmothers" who respond to names that an employer or sponsor gave them, not names in their native tongue that they were blessed with at birth. I pray my thanks to them. I send it over continents and oceans and hope it reaches them where they can be found embracing my daughter on a public bus, in an office building, or on a street corner...or most recently in the airplane lavatory on her trip here for her dad's wedding last month. During her 15-hour flight Hannah became ill and turned to yet another kind South African black "grandmother" to help her. This woman held her hair and cooed comfort in her ear through the long night above the Atlantic Ocean.
Nelson Mandela came out of Robin's Island and led his country out of hatred because he held the hearts of mothers who knew what it meant to love and to oppose violence wherever it raises its ugly head.
Motherhood knows no color....I feel secure in knowing that wherever there are mothers of any color, my daughter and her friends are safe and cared for. I hope and pray that I have the opportunity be a "grandmother" for someone else's child today. Join me....please...
"...Well, there's a rose in a fisted glove
And the eagle flies with the dove
And if you can't be with the one you love
Love the one you're with
Love the one you're with..."
And the eagle flies with the dove
And if you can't be with the one you love
Love the one you're with
Love the one you're with..."
K
Dwight Oyer - May, 1989 - Randfontein, South Africa
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