Ohana Means Family

A knock on my bedroom door. It’s Dan. “Lydia, it’s time for dinner. Let’s go!” It is Sunday night. Family dinner night. Our four boys have spent the past several hours preparing dinner for us. Salad, baked potatoes, and boerewors with ice cream for dessert. As I sit down at our dining room table and begin to pile my plate with food I look at the eighteen people around me and smile to myself. This is what families look like. “Can you put some salad on my plate?” “Pass the chips down here!” Some people politely ask for help while others crack jokes at the expense of housemates. On the outside there is chaos. On the inside there is love.

We were all drawn to South Africa for different reasons. Some of us are here with the primary goal of serving. Some of us are here to find our callings. Some of us want to be close of lions. Whatever the reason was that brought each of us here, we were all thrown into a similar situation. In January we moved in with a suitcase or two, maybe knowing one other person in the house. We started an adventure together. Five months later we are anything but strangers. In fact, I know a lot of things about these people that I never thought I wanted or needed to know. We have hiked up mountains together (both physical and metaphorical). We have cried together from laughter and from pain. We have done group-bonding activities from the circle of truth in the backyard to flip cup tournaments at our giant dining room table. We have come a long way from twenty strangers sitting together in the Amsterdam airport reading Africa fact cards.

My notion of family has changed dramatically during the past several months. In early February if I was feeling homesick I would get on skype and wait not so patiently for someone, anyone, from home to get online, or write an email to my friends or family. Anything to feel closer to people who know me. Now when I get down about something, an event at my service site, homesickness, realizing that I am leaving Cape Town in less than three weeks, I walk into the house and find a network of support waiting for me. I know who to go to when I need to laugh. Who to talk to if I need a Catholic Worker-esque, social justice conversation. Who will give me great advice. 2 Kimberley Road has turned into my home less because of the fact that all of my junk is here and more because of the people who fill these walls. The people who I have come to know and love as family.

I could not ask for a better family back home in the states. My immediate family. Metanoia. Mary. Open Hands. White Rose Catholic Worker. The random, beautiful, chaotic mess of people that have entered my life throughout the years. These are the people who know my story. Some of them can tell you stories about me growing up as a fat kid. Others can regale you with embarrassing tales of high schools. Still more can give you insight into my transition from angsty atheist to radical Catholic. These are my people. Yet, they will never know what my time in South Africa meant to me like my current housemates. These nineteen people have been with me as I jumped head first out of my comfort zone. They saw me cry at house meetings with Nomfundo. They told me to lock it up when my smart mouth overcame me. They were there as I fell in love with this country and the people and cultures that reside within it. My housemates may not know everything about me, but they know what this experience has meant to me and that is something that only the twenty of us can truly understand.

This semester I have come to know and love a group of people that I do not think I would have ever chosen to be put in a house with for this long, but I have appreciated them because of and in spite of our differences and similarities. I will never forget what a tremendous effect these people have had not only on my time in South Africa, but also who I have and will continues to become. In the wise words of Tyler Atkinson and and Lilo “Ohana means family and family means nobody gets left behind.”