"Reconciliation starts at home" PART 2

As i mentioned previously i have asked some friends to write pieces on "reconciliation starts at home" and their experience of what that means.

Please read my special friend Sonja's take on this:

Living as a trans-racial family in South-Africa is certainly challenging at times. So many people we meet just don't seem to understand re-conciliation and sadly don't seem to care to work towards it.

Our family is regularly confronted by other people's prejudice and we continue to experienced a fair amount of racism on a regular basis. But we have decided to be positive, to be patient, to challenge stereotypes where need be, to answer awkward questions and not to be quiet in the face of blatant racism. This includes continuously  checking our own hearts and minds. We have to choose to change the way we ourselves think and feel, in order to live as people who have the opportunity to be re-conciliation in this world. Furthermore we are determined not to burden our kids with a legacy of prejudice, segregation and fear.

While shopping one day, my five year old asked: “Mommy why is everyone staring at us?” Once again, I  explained that because we have different skin tones, people might find our family different, interesting or unusual and that might be why they are staring. Mia nodded and happily ran off, but in my heart I felt unsettled … Yes the way we became family is different from many others, adoption vs birth.  But I think we are an amazing example of what makes you family - no one in our family is related by blood or cultural ties - not my husband, myself nor either of our kids.

I believe our love, acceptance and encouragement of each other and our commitment to share our lives with each other makes us a true family, no different from any other loving family. We are not family by birth but by choice.

For me being part of the process to restore our country and it's people is also a choice. It is a choice to deal with our own prejudice and to challenge our “inherited” mindsets. It is a choice to face our own fears. It is a choice to step out of our cultural comfort zones and not to speak in a derogatory way of others. It is a choice to judge others only according to heir own words and actions free from any stereotypes. It is a choice to speak and act with respect towards all. We can choose to live humbly and accept others. We can choose to change and grow as a people. It is a choice to accept the fact that my way is just that - my way, not necessarily the best or only way! It is a choice to put away the past. A choice to love. It is a choice to work towards healing. We can choose to restore. We can choose to reconcile.

One of my favourite experiences as a trans-racial family is when we meet a person/s  who just accept our family without flinching, no second glances. These individuals interact with us in the most accepting way not finding the need to make some kind of  comment like “So are these your kids?” or ask the obvious “So you adopted them?” I love and appreciate these encounters so much as they fill me with hope for a future where the colour of your skin (or that of your child's) is as unimportant as the colour of your eyes or hair! A future where we are all accepted equally. Voetstoots!

I hope for that kind of future!

I choose that kind of future!!!!