The day I realised I had become Zulu

Paul and I in our rural home in Msinga.

My first meeting with Johannesburg and South Africa was in April 1991. I was so taken that I left university to join the anti-apartheid movement. The following year, I met my husband Paul and the rest is, as they say, history.
We got married, I emigrated from Sweden, we had a son and a daughter. Johannesburg was my new home and the Langas my family. Still, during the first ten years or so, I was very "Swedish". Nothing much wrong with that, but in an "outside of Sweden situation", it got tiring to be the one who was on time, knew all the answers, who was always ready to sniff out a problem, and above all to be time efficient no matter what.
I thought that if I´m allowed to take charge of this and that, I can fix it in two hours (rather than in two days). I used to become extremely impatient when everything had to be discussed in length and everybody had to voice their opinions. It took forever and a day.
I was fiercely independent and ready to fight over a principle at any given moment. I thought it was backwards to never get into an argument with an elderly person and never to criticise anybody in public. How would anything ever change if one didn´t set the record straight? I wondered.
Then Africa embraced me and made me a better person - and I will for ever be grateful. Well, it´s still an ongoing process, or a work in progress if you like, but I have come to understand that time isn´t everything. Being human is. And, yes, conflicts can be solved without ugly confrontations. You can reach at least some sort of consensus if you are willing to talk (even if takes time) and show respect (even to your worst opponents). If you´re absolutely stuck, you can always do a "Madiba - Tutu" and argee to disagree.
I find it somewhat embarrasing that it took so long time for me to see the light, even though I don´t know exactly when it happened. But in 2013, 22 years after my first journey to Johannesburg, I was working with a seasoned Swedish journalist. He was under pressure and not very impressed with me. The last time we spoke, he shouted at me for a good five minutes. I didn´t say anything. I couldn´t. I was shell shocked. It wasn´t what he was saying, but the fact that he was shouting at:
1) A mother, and
2) Another man´s wife.
He hung up and I realised that he couldn´t care less. We were not on the same wave length. He was Swedish. And I was Zulu.