It’s Thanksgiving in the States but of course, not here in South Africa.

And it really brought home the reality of my life - I’m living with each foot in two different worlds; here physically, in my ancestral world and digitally in the world I spent most of my life in, the US.

It’s difficult to compare the two and even more difficult, sometimes, not to! When I’m here, I miss being there; when I’m there, I miss being here but have always called South Africa home.

Being 10 hours ahead of the West Coast, it’s already Thanksgiving day here as I write this and I think about what I can be thankful for. In no particular order, just stream of consciousness writing - here goes.

I’m really grateful for friends and family spanning the globe. Early morning here I know I’ll get messages and chats from west coast friends; a little later, calls from local friends and New Zealand; then when evening rolls around, it’s West Coast conversation time again! And for this I’m so grateful for having the ability, the methods and the means to stay connected, even though although mostly digital. When I first left here as a teenager, it took literally months for a letter to get from wherever I was to here and hours to book a phone call through an exchange to try to phone home. Or if I was lucky, find a ham operator who could patch a radio call from the boat in to Mum.

And now? I get annoyed when the connection online is a bit iffy!

Sometimes, I feel the connections with distant friends tending to get more tenuous as we all move on with our lives. But I know how important it is to maintain the connections. Without them, life is very lonely. I have first hand experience of that, which I have no wish to repeat!

As I hear more and more about the scourge sweeping the US (and by that I mean the pandemic, the other scourge is thankfully on his way out the door) I am grateful to be here in this country.

And not just because our COVID-19 rates aren’t like the US, but because besides making new friends and reconnecting with old ones, I can actually afford to live here and have a life, which is something I wasn’t able to do back there. I’m one of the fortunate ones to be able to have this. In the States, I don’t know how people in my financial situation survive. I know how hard it was back there, with no permanent home, always wondering where I could just “be” for a few days, housesitting to have a roof over my head, and always having to rely of the kindness of friends. (Which was perhaps a lesson in itself!)

Here, I have my own little place at a rate I can handle, funds enough to have little “adventures” as I promised myself before lockdown, and in a climate I love (even though we’ve recently had days and days of rain). But the rain has filled the dams which…….

The pandemic issue of course is a big factor. Here we went through an horrendous lockdown initially, which was considered one of the most draconian in the world. Whether it was those measures or whether there is an endemic immunity to diseases or an immunity that has built up from generations of epidemics and outbreaks of various infectious diseases, no one has figured it out yet. Yes, there are hotspots in areas, but on the whole, it seems to be, not necessarily under control, but at least not raging.

And for that I am very grateful. It is allowing the country of almost 60 million to come back to life and allowing people to get back to work and hopefully, be able to feed their families.

On that note, I’m really thankful for having this opportunity to work with Woza Moya. It feels really good to be contributing to doing something worthwhile, even though working on their website isn’t a really exciting part of volunteering. I know how much it’s helping sales, which translates to work for the crafters and food on their tables. Yes, it’s sometimes tedious work, but then I think of the times I’ve been into “the valley” and seen how the people live, what they survive on. And then I am even more grateful for what I have. And so I click away and add more beautiful hand-crafted items to the Woza Moya shop.

As I sit here at my laptop, it’s early morning, the temperature is a barefoot comfortable. Ping the kitty has been to visit; the birds are very busy welcoming the day and I’m keeping my ears open for sounds of the naughty monkeys heading my way.

My phone just pinged with a message from Georgia in San Diego. She’ll be heading to bed soon, with Thanksgiving still ahead for that part of the world.

And I was just “interrupted” by a call from Zoze in New Zealand and while chatting, had to rush to close the sliding door and windows - yes, the monkeys arrived!

So I have a lot to be grateful and thankful for.