Bigger than me

We start out alone in the womb. So I think. Nine months solo. Excluded from the outside. Maybe we hear things maybe we don't. Then we are born. We escape the womb to come into the world. But really the world we come to at first is the world of our closest family members. Our mothers, fathers, siblings maybe, and a few other relatives. To the rest of the world, we are unknown really. If anything we are nonexistent. Then we begin to grow and our world expands by first meeting our extended family members and making our first set of friends, fellow toddlers who I believe don't think much about our existence. If they think at all.

But our world expands slowly when we go to kindergarten. We meet our first teacher and our first classmates. There we meet others who might not at all have known us before this moment. So our understanding of the world grows a little. We begin to realize that the world is bigger than our family. To be honest, I don't remember much about this stage of my life. So 5 year old me holds a clearer picture than I do. A more extensive description of what it was like to come in contact with unknown people. Then I went to grade school. And my world extended even more. I met my second teacher and my second set of classmates. I made sense of it. I didn't know these people and now I did. They too were living beings like me. They were also making sense of their own lives and they were the center of their thoughts just like I was. The main occupant of my mind, the center of my imagination.

Then off I went to high school and my world expanded even more. In construct to primary school, here I met people from backgrounds different from mine. For the first time, I began to understand that different financial backgrounds existed. Different upbringings and family structures existed. So really my world expanded a lot. I had a lot more teachers each teaching different subjects. They all came with their experiences, knowledge, and wisdom eager to teach us and mold us into useful and responsible teenagers. And before I knew it I was beginning to understand more and more that there was a world bigger than my family, my primary school, and my community. 

My world exploded when I left for Japan. 85 nationalities in my class alone. Teachers from different parts of the world. Differences. Differences in culture, identity, religion, differences in economic backgrounds (on a larger scheme this time). Differences in beliefs, differences in learning, and differences in ideas. My mind trying to make sense of all this newness was on alert. I constantly had to tell people where I am from and what it was like. My ascent wasn't even understood. I had to repeat myself each time I spoke.

I had to be conscious about what I said. Something I considered okay could hurt someone else. I learned that I had biases. I had prejudices about people and places. I also learned about my black and African identity and how people other viewed me. The stereotypes that people had about black people and Africans. For the first time, so much weight was added to the color of my skin. I had to learn what it means to be black outside Africa, outside Zambia really. And well I had to also learn how people viewed Africa so that I would know when someone said something inappropriate and for me to represent myself and my country well. More than anything my understanding of the world or lack, therefore, was brought to the surface. There was a lot to learn, and a lot to unlearn too. A lot to be discussed. A lot to be looked at. And 2 years was never enough. It could have never been. So I did what I could. Before I knew it in those same two years I was no longer a teenager.

Then came college. The in-between of many things and I am still figuring it out because really I can now say the world is much much bigger than me.

If it's your first time here welcome to Space of thoughts, I hope we learn from each other and grow together. For those who have been here before, it's such a pleasure to have you again.

Please do reach out to me in the comments or write to me directly using the email lcararise@gmail.com