I’m in South Africa for a brief visit and I’m enjoying your gorgeous country. 

Resilience and friendliness and hope within the hearts of the people I’ve met apparently far exceeds the surrounding community and national stressors.

I’m frequently reminded in casual conversations that America — I live in the USA — is widely idealized by South Africans. “North America” includes the USA, Mexico, and Canada.

Load-shedding* is obviously a challenge to all South Africans.

I’m amazed at how people appear to adjust to it, embrace it, arrange their lives and programmes around it and simply go on. 

Given such a necessity in the USA there’d be outrage and people would take to the streets and refuse to accommodate the inconvenience. 

They’d feel picked on and singled and express it without reserve.

The USA is generally highly efficient. Things work.  Attention is usually somewhat immediate when things don’t — but, we are far from a perfect nation. 

Selfishness abounds. 

Entitlement persists. 

Political turmoil is rampant and is often hate driven. 

Crime is a significant problem and many inner city areas are veritable war zones.

Yes, you’ll hear of South African immigrants in the USA who brag about leaving their houses unlocked and have no home security system and so forth, but, they have joined the privileged.  

Lots of areas of our country are deeply troubled and we could do with a lot more of your friendly and humble attitude all round.

* Power (electrical) shedding — electricity shuts down for up to 4 hours a day in stages across the nation. There’s an app that informs the population when power will be off and reconnected in your area. This means traffic lights are off and some malls and banks have to shut downSome establishments have installed generators and so they are unaffected by load shedding.

Caring for another, a neighbor, a friend, during an illness or while grieving a loss is an art.

Caring too much — overdoing caring — damages both the recipient of the “care” and he or she who offers it.

Caring offhandedly or indifferently is no care at all.

Then, it’s a tricky business trying to care for one who needs no care or thinks he or she needs no care.

Striking a balance of caring for another without compromising oneself is a delicate art form.

But, it’s possible.

It can be learned and practiced and perfected. Then, when errors are made, the errors can teach valuable lessons so they are unlikely to be repeated.

Among the first errors is the belief that caring for another is easy, requires little or no thought, training, or preparation. Another is agreeing or deciding too quickly.

Long term care for another, costs. It’s an enormous investment of time and love and commitment requiring that other facets of the carer’s life will require reassessment. Long term care for one will mean others in the carer’s broader circle of relationships will also require readjustments.

Self-care comes first or the “care” offered will probably begin well but spiral down to acts of begrudged favors and feel both for the carer and recipient like a really bad marriage.