RiTara Williams
RiTara Williams
South Africa 2014 - 2015
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My name is RiTara Williams and I will be working at an internship in Cape Town, South Africa. I will be working with African Impact and The Happy Africa Foundation. Read More About RiTara →

The Blessings of Friendship

Life has been a bit more real since moving to Fish Hoek. Not living in a volunteer house means that you have to be more intentional about connections with people outside of work. I wrote about the pros and cons a few posts ago but I am still not completely sold. I am okay with cooking and clean for myself but I miss meeting new people so much.

Since I have been missing human interaction I have been more intentional about the relationships I do have here. I have been spending more time with the people I love and care about. My boyfriend (of one year and 10 months) is still in police training so I don’t see him much but we have been more intentional about talking and connecting with him. My brother from another mother recently asked me to be the God mother of his new baby boy so we have been spending more time together lately. This past weekend I had the most amazing Sunday with his whole family for my God son Ajay’s dedication service.

I always get nervous about social events but I was really nervous to spend time with my brother’s family (especially since I know that my boyfriend is amazing in social events and he wouldn’t be there). But the day went extremely well especially considering his family speaks Afrikaans and sometimes forget that I have no idea what is going on when they speak in Afrikaans. I have also been able to recently meet up with a few friends of an old Lumos Scholarship and had a nice time at a dinner party in my old neighborhood here. Living in a secluded area is helping me to feed my relationship with the people who care about me most.

I have also been intentional about not feeding into fake and toxic relationships. I have never been good at hiding my true feelings about someone so none of what I do should ever be surprising. I am not someone to hold on to fake friendship or be in bad situations long. One of my friends once said that my biggest flaw is how direct I am with people.

But when it comes to work relationships you will never know what I am thinking because I will keep it professional. Unless we are actually friends in real life, family or you’re my boyfriend, there is no reason for me to tell you my personal issues with someone. I was put into a hard situation at the end of the year with someone I used to live/work with and I  started to let go of my character but it took someone I’m close to to talk me off the edge. I was ‘lectured’ by someone close to the situation but it only did more harm than good because of the way it all played out. I concluded that our differences in mind-sets and culture played a big part in the falling apart of the whole ordeal.

That’s why it is so important for me to keep my loved ones close. Even though everybody I am close to here is from a different culture and lifestyle as mine, they know my heart therefore they understand why I do what I do.

I thank God for not only sending me  people that take the time to get to know me but family!

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During Ajay’s dedication ceremony. The only thing missing is my boyfriend Franky.

 

 

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Ajay was sick because he has started teething. He was not happy.

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