Too White for Words.

Actions aren’t seen. Until it’s too late?

When she walks they watch. When she talks they listen. When she does, they wonder… Why?

It is an uncommon thing for there to be pale skin among the brown or black people. Unless you’re ‘doing good’. Or neutering the animals. Or telling them what to do. Or taking photos. Most of which the community doesn’t benefit from.

This ‘wit vrou’ was different. No photos! Not of her either. Quietly happily meanders through the village as if she knows where she is.

But doesn’t have a clue. As if she sees a world of beauty none other than her can see.

The lilting greetings of the children’s sweet calls ‘Mor‘e’ Tannie ….. ‘ All knowing her by name. She was overwhelmed with the shear number of bright lights shining through the lives of woes they never knew different from. Their consistent happiness, making joy of the day’s sun, of the night’s rain raised her spirits with every step she took. Making the arduous task of the hard walks on the tarred road a blessed experience.

Walking through the village, greeting the people. Blinded by the reflective light of the mostly clear sky’s brightness against the startling metal reflectiveness of the many corrugated metal shacks, the dusty sidewalks and blackness of the tarred roads lends to the unbecoming features of the reflective rubbish strewn wildly wherever she walked. Everywhere she walked.

Disturbing her senses in too many directions, it fractured much of her ordered mind, mindset and modalities of living.

Her choices limited to adjusting, amending, acknowledging and accepting all that is. For what it is. For how it is. For why it is so.

Sometimes you Want to blend into the crowd!

It’s not English unless it’s spoken as in England? Or is ‘White’ enough? The ‘Wit Vrou’ was English English (or so they assumed/thought as she’d lived in England, she must be England-ish), and grew whiter by the day as her opinions, thoughts and even skin became starker in whiteness, and in the differences to the reality of what is, for the community, as they believe it to be.

‘Excuse Me! Ma’am… can I help you?’ … ‘Are you looking for someone?’

He called out in a lovely English accent, contrasting his darkness and the judgement we place that all English are pale, like her, only more see through. Hidden by the shade of the awning roof, half lit in the darkness by the dancing flames of the fire before him, she stepped closer to the voice, sure she’d heard it before, afraid of being rude. The moment she approached, she laughed wgeb she realised they were just curious as to ‘What is this White Woman doing in a colored village?’

• * The Thing about a Colored village is that it’s all family. Outsiders are not invited in, for any reason, to hang around, into homes or allowed to become ingrained into their lives, lifestyles.
• Except for the odd man. Literally 3 white men live among the 1000 or so Colored ‘ingemengde familie’ (interwoven family)
• No white woman ever lived among the people.

This was not something she considered even important before she went into the village for the first time as a transient visitor, on the hunt for nature’s best local medicinal herbs and remedies known to man, blended, grown or foraged for by the wisdom keepers.

Her medicinal needs being that of a private nature, she relied on the discretion of the wisdom keepers she sought guidance from, as they relied on her discretion in honoring their need for absolute privacy.

This mutual respect, she expected to continue when she entered the village on a semi-permanent basis, sleeping, eating and meandering among the people daily… for what felt like a very long time. For them all.

Sometimes it felt as though she were always there. That she’d never really arrived, nor would ever really truly leave. An imprint she left, indelible and yet intagible, as she floated, sometimes even whistled, her way around this bonded community of brown skinned beauty.

Quisical looks and motions of ‘you don’t belong’, ‘are you lost?’ intermingled with the more regular happy, caring greetings of more and more of the locals whom grew quickly used to the smiling pale face, and confident walk of the wondering woman.

Always at ease with being there, she knew she’d made an imprint the year before. Her visits became more regular, although sporadic (so as not to raise expectation) weekly, if she could. Her walks through the village we always met with new smiles and troubles. Some would ask for help. Others she would find on her path, quietly not wanting for more than a smile, acknowledgment and, maybe a little quiet conversation to change the day. Those, she stopped to give her hand of healing, apply a little mental and emotional energy to helping in the simplest of ways. Sometimes she was able to fix the physical things in their world, the material things those that have take for granted, like a small rug on the cement floor to stop the cold from seeping into the elders bones. Or a lock with keys for the front door of a home filled with women and small children.

At this time, a year forward, she couldn’t recall the depth or details of the occasions she’d had the opportunities that she had taken, to assist those before her, that needed her. She was, however reminded each time she walked, guided purely by the intuitive persuasion she felt to go this way, or turn that corner or just walk, wait or listen. She didn’t question the process or the path she was led down. Each day just ‘knowing’ that today would be profound in every detail as all humans walked down a new paradigm in every way, each moment her feet patted the ground it was the first time in humanity’s history of history’s that this line in time has occurred.

That concept alone was inordinately impossible to describe to most of the people she encountered on a global scale, let alone those who lived an enclosed life. Ensconced in the daily issues of small village life and survival in the city. Big concepts largely irrelevant to the Now of the situation.

Impossible to fathom the travels of a lone ‘wit vrou’ in a world where the assumption is that all white people stick together. Impossible to fathom why such a ‘wit vrou’ with so much knowledge would be here, in these deprived circumstances.

INTRIGUED?
WHAT WAS THE ‘VIT VROU’ DOING IN A COLORED VILLAGE?

Find out the reasons, read the details of life in an alien world, learn about life from an alternate perspective in a reality you can only imagine from movies. See the reasons people become homeless, how impossible it becomes to realign to ‘normal’ and the process of staying ‘up’ in a very down world. Be inspired by the generosity, kindness and compassion of the poorest to the poorer, and the return that is delivered in the return of the karmic sphere.

The story of the Wit Vrou among the indigenous people. Why she was there, what she did and how it changed the community. And her.

• * Any (as at publish date: 0.00) earnings generated from the writing of these stories is shared equitably with those mentioned and pooled into a fund for the direct benefit of the community at large. #Pi Moral Economic Ecosystem: equity earnings, purpose + profit modality, social impact policy **
• To learn more about the journey into a land of foreign locals and the fundamental changes that organically transpired, sign up here (link to Patreon)
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Bonnie Crofford

Social Impact Innovator ; Creator of #Pi Moral Economic Ecosystem ; Brand, Business and Marketing Strategist.

Enthusiastic edibles and medicinals grower &cook. I place absolute faith in nature as the first and only port of call for health, wellness and wellbeing on planet earth. Nothing new needs to be made. We merely need to use what’s here, in the simplest possible way, to best benefit from the magnificence of the miracles that await us. As each of these was created specifically for this reason. To heal.

The factual benefits of Nature is evident in the nurture of the wisdom of the ages of the ancient peoples for example the Chinese. The local African indigenous all owning their own indigenous, local wisdoms, hanging on for dear life to the last of the surviving species of plants, keeping them hidden, in the mountains and away from the destructive forces of the law makers. Who continuously manipulate the Uses of nature’s nurturing benefits to suit the profiteering of a man made alternative posing as the real thing. Pharmaceuticals.

The losses of the indigenous people is immense. Almost immeasurable as their lives, livelihoods and lifestyles are destroyed, demonised into a community of generations thrown into and kept in abject deprivation. Even by their own people. A political agenda they do not fit into, still ostracized by the greater society until society can find a way to profiteer (without benefit to the local community) of the knowledge of the wisdom keepers. And the obvious benefits to human health which can no longer be hidden now the internet has superceded the ‘control’ mechanisms they attempted to put into place.