“With kindness, we will shift our future” -Sakyong Mipham

On Sunday, I took the metrorail to Simon’s Town. I’m a Gautenger, but I’m staying in the Western Cape for a few months, and couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see the penguins at Boulders Beach. As the beach is an hour’s walk from Simons Town train station, I decided to make things easier for myself and cycle instead.

It wasn’t my first time taking the train, but it was my first time traveling on the train with my borrowed bicycle, and I wasn’t really sure what to expect. What I hadn’t anticipated, though, was people’s heartwarming kindness. Complete strangers helped me to hoist my bicycle into the train, carry it up and down flights of stairs in the subway, and load it into the luggage compartments of the City-to-City bus that took us the last leg of the journey. At first, I was worried about my bike being stolen, but I quickly realised that these people had nothing but the best intentions to help, with no ulterior motives or thoughts of personal gain.

This wasn’t the first time something like this has happened to me – nor, I am certain, will it be the last. In the past month alone, I have witnessed or been a part of countless small acts of kindness, generosity, and community assistance. People all across the country give up seats for each other on public transport, alert each other when they drop something, hold doors for each other, listen to each other’s problems… These small acts of kindness are all around us.

It makes my heart swell with pride and hope to see this. This is South Africa. This is my country. My country is not the squabbling politicians we see on TV. My country is not the reams and reams of depressing news stories, parading theft, corruption, murder, violence and lawlessness left, right and centre. My country is not distrust or selfishness.

My country is the security guard who walked me home last night because I didn’t feel safe alone. My country is the “bergie” I met last week, who picked up armfuls of litter on the beach simply because it saddened him to see our beautiful world a mess. My country is the strangers – normally guys off of the back of somebody’s bakkie – who used to help my mother push our tiny, ancient car to a petrol station every time we were stranded on the side of the road. My country is the kindness of everyday people towards everyday people – young and old and in between, black, white, coloured, Asian, Indian…

Some South Africans are leaving, immigrating to Australia or New Zealand or someplace else. Every day, people pack up their bags, climb onto planes, and tell us that they are headed for “a better life”. It makes me so sad to see them go, to see them give up and run away, rather than stay here with us and help us to enrich and better South Africa. Worse still, they tell us – those of us who stay, by choice or due to financial constraints – that we, in turn, are headed for disaster. They tell us we’re doomed. “There’s no future in this country,” we’re told, time and time again.

I do not believe this. Maybe I’m just ignorant, young, and blindly optimistic, as some have told me, but I believe that there is hope for South Africa. I believe that there IS a future for this country, and for everyone in it. Though our country may not be rich economically, we are rich in people who dream big and love hard.

I believe that there is hope for my country, and I believe that it begins when we, the people, join hands in kindness and generosity, lift each other up, and go forward toward a beautiful future.

Written by Aimee-Claire Smith