Happy New Year!

“You have been formed into tribes and nations so that you may know one another.” Quran

“In order to change things for the better, we need not just smart brains, but warm-heartedness and the values of love, compassion and forgiveness.” 
Dalai Lama

Over the last ten days we have been celebrating Christmas and the New Year with a variety of friends, both old and new. At times the revelling may have been too much, and I felt like I was not getting anything constructive done, but I remind myself that this is necessary time off to follow the rituals which draw the old year to  a close and ring in the new.

We have shared meals with people of all faiths and nationalities.  We have sat around a table where meals have lasted for hours while we discovered how similar we are to American, Nigerian, Italian, Kenyan, Russian, Dutch, Mauritian, Canadian, British and Iranian people, as well as fellow South Africans.

Despite the distances which separate us, the same issues touch us, concern us, mobilise us. I lap it all up; I feel like I am giving the finger to apartheid, racism and many other –isms. I firmly believe that we should be building bridges by getting to know each other. When we step outside of the familiar, outside our comfort zones, we make connections which enrich our lives and shrink the world. We cannot help connecting on a deeper level than we are accustomed to.

One of our passions as a family is travel - precisely because we are forced to step out of the familiar and over the artificial barriers which serve to keep us separate. I like to think that the energy with which we start the New Year is the one that we carry through and so, for 2013 I wish for more understanding, compassion, friendship and connections. Happy New Year.