Oh the places we went!
Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You’re off to Great Places!
You’re off and away!
Some took to the skies and some to the road, and the APC team was off to work, to play, to be amazed at the bush, and to know each other more deeply or to connect for the first time.
I took the low road with some of my work friends. We drove into the sunrise happily missing the rush hour traffic. Conversations were drowsy and slow without caffeine or breakfast but soon the sun was up, sunglasses put on (mostly funky ones) and we started scouting for breakfast. We found a Wimpy, an old school South African diner with mostly fried food and semi-fine coffee. Our first sighting of wildlife was a tree full of weavers busily constructing nests which we watched whilst discussing roles of boy birds and girl birds. Never far from analysis, debate and spotting injustice!
On we went sharing stories of home, activism, listening to audio stories and reaching the gates of Kruger Park after driving through amazing countryside and the town of Phalaborwa. I had to stop and watch my work friends who looked so damn cool and in their own skins as we piled out the cars.
You’ll get mixed up
with many strange birds as you go.
We picnicked outside the gates and played Karel’s game of “Mango, mango, mango” which has no end and no winner! A fruit salad of APC staff.
Our memory
Elephants evoke a quietness and awe when you see them close up, which we did. It’s easy to anthropomorphise these giant beings with a quiet gait, languid way of eating and moving. We link them to memory, and I started thinking of the institutional memory of APC. This diverse community of staff and members some new and some old in the organisation but all of them brainy and footsy and activist to the core.
Work started and the revolutionary decision for a device-free meeting caused initial anxiety for a group so steeped in emails, rapid responses and multiple tasks. It was liberating. We were engaged, creative, playful and attentive. And we started happening.
And then things start to happen,
don’t worry. Don’t stew.
Just go right along.
You’ll start happening too.
It’s not the tech
There were moments of worrying and stewing as work plans were hammered out, strategies debated and the year mapped out on long pieces of paper. But the happening that inspired me was the deep listening, the deep care around the lived realities of people, the lack of egos, the collective decisions being made, the smartness of people and the willingness to share skills. People are able to seguey between high-level spaces and small, local workshops with equal attentiveness and care. We bring the ‘real world’ to the policy and are informed by wanting a better world. It’s not the tech, it’s the change we want to see in the world. And we do this with humour.
Sometimes the work is not all fun and rosey and friendly, agreeable connections. We have our moments of confusion and disbelief, irritation and over-commitment. But that is what makes for debate and learning. And….
On you will go
though the weather be foul.
On you will go
though your enemies prowl.
On you will go
though the Hakken-Kraks howl.
Onward up many
a frightening creek,
though your arms may get sore
and your sneakers may leak.
We had down-time from the work and it is what centred us. Early morning game drives, swimming in the pool at sunrise, drinking coffee and watching birds with old and dear friends, lying on our backs at night gazing at stars and laughing and being awed by shooting stars. The spaciousness of nature was the gift.
Those of us on the low road, folded ourselves into cars with snacks, iced water and dregs of coffee and we sweated our way into the bush knowing we would be amazed again at the wildlife. And at the work we had done and do.
And will you succeed?
Yes! You will, indeed!
(98 and 3/4 percent guaranteed.)
APC, WE MOVE MOUNTAINS!
(With thanks and apologies to Dr Seuss “Oh the places you will go”)