The Trousers and The Belt.

A few weeks ago when Rejoice and I were on our way to a drop in center our taxi driver asked her, in Sotho, what I was doing with her. Her reply? She is my belt and I am a pair of trousers, we go everywhere together. It's true, we do. In Kodumela, we share a desk in the front room of the office, we look up funding opportunities, we talk to the managers of all the drop ins, we run errands in town, we laugh a lot, and I think we work well together. I help with teaching her the ins and outs of Google searches and her Gmail inbox, patting her on the back, coming up with ways to describe what Kodumela is doing and what Kodumela would like to do to possible funders, getting excited about good news, encouraging her to keep trying when she hears not so great news, talking about the world, how we see some things the same and some things differently, and being a good friend to her. She helps with supporting ideas I have, calling me at all hours with plans she has for projects, being passionate, caring about all the kids she works for and with, being open to new and different things and...like I told her recently, "saving" me earlier this year. After staying so long in a not so positive situation with my first office, working with Rejoice has put air back in my sails... seriously... these last few months have renewed my faith in my service. We are a team and I love it.
Today we went to town to buy a school uniform for one of the orphans in Madeira Village. After getting all of our business taken care of, I took her to Woolworth's for hot chocolate and chai tea. We talked about our childhoods, we laughed, we high fived, and we talked about work for a long time. When there was a lull in the conversation and we were both kind of staring off, Rejoice said,"People are staring at us." And they were. Blatant staring from more than one table. There were no traces of ill will in any of the expressions, more curiosity than anything, but it made us stop and think. When you looked around, we were the only table with a black person and a white person. Could people tell how close we are? That we're not just colleagues, but we have a deeper appreciation for each other and are very good friends? We then started to realize how many times, over the course of the day, people were a little stunned when they found out we were shopping together... the uniform store, KFC, Roman's Pizza, the furniture store, the Indian Restaurant, the man on the street who asked where I was originally from and what I was doing with "the black lady".
I have to shake my head, sometimes such situations still throw me for a loop.