Back on the Streets

Well, I am back on the streets. For a few weeks I have been out of my regular routine due to confirmation camp, flu, and a visit to the Drakensburg Mountains. So I have been getting places mainly by car. I also have had to stop my running routine because of the flu but today I was able to walk to church and then back to the lodge where I stay. Then I went on a forty minute jog with my pastor upto Howie's Hill to get a great view of Pinetown, the city which I am staying in. Then I walked back to the church and here I am. When I walk I am usually the only white person on the roads walking and I get the privilege to see so much of the kind of "real life" of everyday life for a person here. I get to see mothers spanking their children for being naughty, or men running to get to work on time, children walking home from school, etc. I noticed today how much I missed walking on the streets. It made me realize how easy it is to create or own little bubble of a life. When we have transport for the most part we can see what we want to see when we want to see it and if there is something that we might not want to see, well, we can speed right past it. So, the past few weeks, it feels as if I really have been living in the white christian woman's bubble. Whether the surroundings I have found myself in have been in places of poverty or privilege, I have chosen to go there and have been able to prepare myself for those experiences. It has been a true blessing to be out of a bubble and on the streets. I wonder if any others of you in international places have experienced this kind of bubble as well?