Explaining myself, a short bit of history
Where am I?
I’m in a small town in Iraq called Tal Afar, about 40km East of Syria and 50km South of Turkey. I’ve only arrived here a week ago and will be leaving this place again in about six weeks. I’m sharing a house with an Iraqi colleague from Kirkuk and made friends with two teenage cats. They’ve adopted me as their feeder and occasional stroker, one however disappeared, so I’m not sure what happened to it. I’m a single white male with an ENTP personality type that used to be an accountant but became a humanitarian aid worker. As a single male in his early forties in a culture where marriage and family is often the highest priority, I often feel like I have to explain what’s wrong with me. My status also seems to be a problem in my home country of South Africa, especially within the church community.
Why o why?
So the question beckons, why? Why am I here, doing what I do and not conforming to the norm of settling down, getting married, having kids, living in a safe place and having a steady job? Am I anti-family (or more specifically somehow against the nuclear family)? Don’t I care about my parents’ desire for grandchildren? Don’t I realise how terrifying it is to grow old alone? Don’t I realise how important it is to have an intimate and long term relationship with someone else? Am I so picky to reject all the woman that has shown an interest in me? Am I so pathetic that I can’t win the heart of any woman that I’ve been interested in? These are questions that people have asked me directly or indirectly and to be fair, I’ve been asking myself these questions for a very long time. I’ve even asked these questions to my psychologist, but he doesn’t seem to think that there is something terribly wrong with me, just that I’m different. However, that’s not very helpful. If there’s something wrong with me, then I can work towards fixing it, but different, that’s something I somehow need accept. Different also means that there is a norm that the majority fits into, so being different means that I fall outside that norm. Some might think that I want to be different, but that’s not the case. On the contrary, I’ve always tried to fit in, even when my conscience told me not to do so.
Early years
My father is a Catholic immigrant from the Netherlands who met my mother, a Protestant from Pretoria while trying to jumpstart his career as an Engineer in South Africa. Back then South Africa was to many Europeans what England, Canada and Australia are to South Africans nowadays. A place where you can earn some decent money. My father liked Cape Town and decided to buy a house at the foot of Table Mountain and raise his family there. I was born some years later as the youngest of three boys.
I had a diverse set of childhood friends, well, as diverse as was legally allowed in the ’80s under Apartheid. There was the wealthy friend who lived in a big house further up the hill. I spent many afternoons at his home playing with the latest toys, experimenting with fireworks and inventing new games. We also spent all the money we could find on arcade games to the detriment of my mother, who was worried that we’ll be targeted by drug dealers. Then I had the sporty friend who always wanted to be active. I suffered from asthma back then, so I wasn’t able to keep up with him; however, he had the most extensive Lego set that I’ve ever seen, so we just had to be friends. Another friend was the one with no parents. He lived at the orphanage, which I thought was the most magical place. Loads of kids in the big mansion, a bit like Neverland, but without Captain Hook. These kids also got free stuff at the fares and I would often be counted as one of the orphans when joining him on outings and would thus benefit from all the freebies. My fourth friend was the poor friend. His dad was not around, and his mom fixed clothes from home to try and pay the bills. They lived in a small apartment where he shared his tiny room with his siblings. He was not popular at school mostly because of his interest in frogs, birds and whatever small animal he could ‘rescue’ and keep ‘safe’ in his pocket. Perhaps that’s why his clothes always looked like it was falling apart. Then finally there was the angry one who would lose his temper at the drop of a hat. We had fun hanging out as long as I didn’t make him mad because then our play would turn into a fight.
These were separate friends like oil and water that could not be mixed. I somehow kept a good schedule of only hanging out with one at a time. One day I even had to send the poor one home early because the sporty one was coming in the afternoon over for a sleep-over. The other kids, however, all seemed to be part of a larger group. Still, I, for some reason, was never able to gain group membership. Things became interesting when I was about to turn ten, which was a big thing because this means double digits, like what adults have. My mom hired the hall of the ‘Voortrekkers’ (Afrikaans version of the boy scouts), turned my party into a political theme with the slogan ‘stem vir ‘n lekker party’ (Afrikaans for ‘vote for a nice party’). She even got the deep fryer out to make deep-fried chicken for all of us. My mom also prepared invitation cards for all the friends I had to invite from school. It included my five friends and a bunch of other ones, including the cool kids. This was my chance to get in with the cool group and establish myself as a member. I made sure that I targeted the coolest ones first because I knew if I can get him to come then all the other kids being invited would pitch as well. Yes, back then I kept track of the number of kids arriving at my party and comparing it with who I gave invites, keeping score of the ones not coming. So off I went to invite the coolest kid he took his invite and looked at the other invitations in my hand. Then he looked back at me and said; ‘if that kid (referring to my poor friend) gets invited then I’m not coming’. I assured him that I won’t invite him, and with that, he agreed to come to the party. That day felt like a great success because I was able to ask almost everyone on the list. The one invitation that I did not hand out, however, was for one of my five friends. My dad taught me to treat everyone with equal respect, regardless of their wealth or social status. He thus had a little chat with me when he found out that I did not invite my poor friend and convinced (or instead convicted) me to invite him. The next day I made sure to ask him but to tell no-one that he was invited, just to rock up at my party just in case news spreads to the cool kids that he would be there. All but a few kids came to my party, and the cool kid luckily forgot about my agreement not to invite the poor kid. The poor kid also caused some excitement when he teased the angry kid, which in turn led to a fight that my dad had to break up. So, all in all, it was indeed a ‘lekker party’.
High School
Not much changed after primary school in terms of group belonging. I started to realise that looks, sport and academics are rather important determining factors for group acceptance. None of these, however, were my strong suits. Chronic medical conditions and not being allowed to play rugby didn’t help either. I spent most of the recess people watching, this was before realising that it’s a thing. Sometimes another guy would join me, and together we would sit and observe the different social groups commenting on the kids in them. Luckily there was a group for the un-cool kids, and I belonged to them by default until I got my break in cool kid club.
My break came via the most popular girl in school. She was captain of the netball team, did part-time modelling and drumming so yes, making friends with her really helped. I knew where I stood with her after she hugged me one day after saying something nice to her just to be pushed away with the words; ‘I can’t believe I just hugged you, you’re so ugly’. At least she was honest, even if brutally so. Her boyfriend was really a jerk and used to tell her off, but he was handsome and sporty, so she stayed with him. I was someone she could talk to, the nice guy, but that was it. Anyway, it did get me into the parties with the cool kids, even if it just meant being in the background. This got me in trouble with the un-cool and somewhat depressing kids because flirting with the ‘other side’ was not done. This meant that I didn’t really belong to them anymore even if I didn’t really belong with the cool kids either. So somehow I managed to get stuck somewhere in the middle.
University
Student life in Stellenbosch provided new opportunities to define me, so I decided that this is my time to shine thanks to the new social rules. I got into my residence of choice, where I could define myself as belonging to this residence of about two hundred students. We realised why our residence was superior to all the others, and the elders of the residence saw a lot of leadership potential in me. This basically meant that I could out-drink some of them, had a significant vocabulary of swear words and knew how to use effectively in cutting others down. A handy skill when taking on members of the other residencies. However, we still had sub-divisions in our residence. The main divide was between first-years and seniors, the next one was between English speakers and Afrikaans speakers, and the final one was between farm boys and city slickers. This was just at the end of Apartheid, so everyone was white. My roommate at the time was a farm boy from the Northern Cape. A conversation I had with him highlighted the typical mindset that many of us had at the time. He told me how terrible black people are; then he followed it up by explaining the horrors of the English. This was followed by explaining how the city slickers didn’t know anything about life, and it ended with the ‘fact’ the dairy farmers aren’t real farmers. I formed a group with mostly Afrikaans city slickers along with a token Englishman just for good luck. I even had a signature army jacket that I wore every time we went out to town. This jacket somehow motivated me to lead our pack when going out drinking and to form some kind of offensive against members of other residencies. It was nothing serious, though, just a bit of teasing and looking for trouble.
Transformation
The ’90s was also when the charismatic Christian movement landed in South Africa. I remember my cousin taking me to some of these meetings when I was at school. I found those meetings rather strange and very contrary to what I was used to at our traditional Dutch reformed church. However, on 8 May 1995, the day before my birthday, everything changed. My life was great, I had new friends, loved the student life and didn’t have a care in the world. However, a strange kind of depression gripped my soul, and I knew something was up. This wasn’t something I could figure out because it just didn’t make sense, so I went up the mountain to sort myself out. Somehow I knew this was super-natural because I felt like I’m about to die, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I went to lie down in the bushes and basically surrendered to God. At that moment, something like fire came into my soul, and this deep depression was turned into joy almost like someone just flipped a switch. This would not be my only transformation experience, but I would classify it as my most significant one. I joined probably the most radical charismatic church group in town shortly after. My life of drinking, parties and causing trouble was turned into a life of church meetings, prayer walks and bible reading. That also lead to changing my friends, and now I belonged to a new group of people. Looking back, I also realised how exclusive and somewhat judgmental this church group was. The Catholics were idol worshipers because they prayed to Mary; the Dutch reformed church had become stale in their faith and was practising dead religion. Some of the other charismatic churches would be labelled as too ‘seeker-sensitive’ (meaning they didn’t have strong morals) or too legalistic.
Getting to work
I somehow landed my first job in accounting before I even passed my final exam. This was thanks to our head pastor and a Dutch passport. So, early 2000 I went to Luxembourg, all I really knew about the place was that it was in Europe. The company was English speaking, but the country spoke mainly French, so I had to learn it a bit of French if I were to have some success in shopping and eating out. I joined a small English speaking ex-pat church and was adopted by a Brazilian family. This was where I regularly ate, and in turn, I agreed to babysit their little kids whenever they needed someone. This was a good deal because the food was excellent and the kids well behaved even if very energetic. I also befriended a young Nigerian woman. She was smart, beautiful, an excellent cook and had a powerful personality. This was my first black friend as an adult, and it seemed very reasonable, perhaps it was because we were all foreigners in this country.
After six months, I quit the job and went back to Cape Town to start a business and to try and turn a long term friendship from varsity into a romantic relationship. Neither of those things worked, so I went over to Europe again, this time to Holland. It was an excellent opportunity to connect with my Dutch relatives, further my career in finance and learn Dutch. My one cousin also helped by shoving the correct pronunciations down my through. I landed a great job, thanks to my good English and load voice. My manager was an older Englishman with a hearing problem. The company paid for me to get qualified as an accountant and my work included a lot of travel throughout Europe, so definitely a good deal.
I joined a local Pentecostal church in Rotterdam and along with it the young working group. Even though I spoke Dutch and looked like everyone else, I still felt different. They referred to me as their African friend, which perhaps made them feel more diverse because everyone else was very much Dutch. I even fell for a hot-and-cold Dutch girl. One day she would be really into me, and the next she would barely know me referring to any romantic engagement as a ‘misunderstanding’. I remember waiting for her one day at the train station from where we agreed to go out for dinner just to realise that she bailed on me. Since that day I always made sure I had a book with me when I have an appointment with a woman so that at least I have something to read if she doesn’t rock up. I would then pretend that it’s not a big deal, because I’m ok with eating out alone, as long as I have something to read. I later found out via her friends that she was also seeing another guy in another city, I wondered if he knew about me. This reminded me a bit of how I had separate friends when I was a kid and wondered if I was her ‘foreign guy’. In 2003 we went to a music concert by Michael W Smith. He is also an advocate for Compassion International and used his gigs as a platform to promote this children’s charity. When I saw the promotional video, I was hooked, this was another one of those transformation moments when I knew that this is the kind of work that I need to do. However, I was on my way to becoming an accountant, and I did not see it wise to give that up just yet.
In 2004 I qualified as an accountant, and I decided to go to London because our church from Stellenbosch recently planted a church there and there were plenty of jobs in the financial sector. I felt straight at home in London because of a familiar church family and fellow Saffas (the nickname that the English gave us South Africans). My earnings in London was excellent, and I was able to buy property in South Africa and London during that time. The reason why I focussed on earnings was because I still wanted to have a family. My aim was to be married by the time I’m thirty, so financial security was rather crucial for that. However, I also started to study development management because I still had the conviction of doing aid work. Some education in a relevant field was vital if I were to make a career from that. Shifting from finance to humanitarian work would be a big jump, especially in salary. I tried to change my work as an accountant so that I do more work for charities rather than companies. However, that didn’t work out, and I found myself in the middle working for the government. An interview with an investment bank confirmed for me that a career in finance was not for me.
I remember getting out of the tube station at Canary Warf and seeing all these young guys with the expensive suits, iPods in the ear and slick hair. The interviewer explained to me first what I can earn (with bonuses) in a year, then told that this is a work-hard-play-hard environment. People sometimes come in at 6am and leave at 8pm, and you don’t go home until your job for the day is done, no exceptions. For some reason, he did not explain to me what my role will entail at the investment bank. So I insisted that he specify what I will do. The job was super monotonous and boring, I would be a tiny cog in a big machine getting pigeon-holed. I walked out of there, knowing that this is not what I want to do or become, no matter the salary.
Becoming a humanitarian
On my thirtieth birthday, I ordered pizza and watched Mission Impossible alone at home. This was before everyone was on Facebook, so know-one except for my family knew that it was my birthday, and I was glad for that. I was turning thirty and did not even get close to achieving a big life goal that I had. I don’t think I’m too picky. I know what my mother looked like when she was young, so there’s that benchmark, and then I tend to be drawn to the INFJ types, which is perhaps where my problem lies. Not only are they a rare personality type, but they are statistically also more likely to remain single. I’ve realised that it’s oh so easy to put your foot wrong with INFJ’s and almost impossible to get it right after you’ve made a wrong move. Perhaps Mission Impossible was exactly the movie I needed to motivate me.
I decided to take the jump and applied for a position as Finance Manager in Afghanistan for a humanitarian organisation called Medair. They explained to me that it’s not that simple. I needed to pass a reorientation course in Switzerland first (which I had to pay for) before I would be eligible to be selected for this position. That was fine, I still had some leave days left and went to do the course in Switzerland. It really felt like coming home, everyone on the course had a story of how they ended up there, and everyone had a sense of purpose and a desire to make a difference. I joined Medair in 2008 and have been working with them, Tearfund UK, some local NGOs in South Africa since then. I recently joined another Swiss organisation called Terre des Hommes which focuses on child protection and development. It took about 17 years to be involved in children’s aid, but here I am at last.
So what?
Being a humanitarian can be very exciting and fulfilling but also emotionally draining and lonely. I’m not a super-human or a saint and have many shortcomings and fears just like everyone else. Others might identify with my story and be encouraged to share their stories as well. Moving around can make you feel very disconnected to everyone, that’s perhaps the price of doing this kind of work. Sharing your life, even if it has to be in written form, might just help to build connections and keep some sort of contact with people far away.
If you’ve read up to here then you probably know much more about me than I do about you, so please drop me a line with a link to your blog (if you have one) or just say hi. This was just a background. I will share specific stories in the weeks and months to come.