I can't play soccer. I can't sing. I don't know how to herd animals. My Sesotho is still pathetic. I'm still a novice when it comes to teaching English. And therefore, I've spent the last two years feeling awkward, not quite competent in life, nowhere near stylish.
But on Sunday that all changes: I'm going to Durban with my school. Durban means the beach, and as much as any environment on the planet, the beach (any beach) is where I feel at home. When I was in Jeffrey's Bay a few months back I remember feeling like I knew exactly what to do with myself at each time of the day. I felt like I knew what clothes to wear. I knew how to speak to people. And I knew how the things around me worked. The boats, waves, surfboards, sand, fish. I know them. It all brought a sense of relief, a sense of being in my element, where I belonged.
This morning at school assembly, the teachers were telling the students what to bring and what to expect when we go to Durban on Sunday. I gazed over the faces of the students and revelled. Finally, if only for a few days, you are all coming to my neighborhood, I thought. You have all thought I was useless when it comes to everything but English. Now you'll see. We are going to a city. You will get lost, but I'll be fine. We are going to the ocean. You will drown while I bodysurf. We are going to a cosmopolitan place, a place with many languages, where English will work but Sesotho will not. You are going to struggle while I converse. This next week is where I'm at last useful, in fact the most useful guy among us. You will actually want to be me.