On this earth there are no lines, therefore borders are only the things we put up in our own minds. Perhaps we do this to try and keep things simple, but the reality is that this is a complex world. We need to embrace the complexities and move on, move forward over the barriers that we have created for ourselves.

I am a short, blond, green-eyed little surfer girl from southern California. I was raised with the Bahá’í Faith. This world religion taught me to look at the global community as my family. I learned that color, religion, nationality and other differences should never become barriers to friendship and love. I was part of a community service performing arts group called the Bahá’í Youth Workshop and with this organization I traveled throughout the world promoting positive solutions to social problems such as racism, oppression of women, drug and alcohol abuse, and prejudices that immerge when one group does not understand another. During my time working with youth in inner cities in America, as well as in Zambia, Mexico, Russia, Nicaragua, Lesotho, and South Africa, I was blessed with making friends of every flavor.

I continued my work with unity building and community service into my college years. I majored in Community Studies at UC Santa Cruz and it was during this time that I did some fieldwork in South Africa working with Bahá’í Social and Economic Development Programs. I helped found two after-school programs in Cape Town suburbs to assist refugee children integrate into South African schools and neighborhoods. It was during this trip that I also joined a similar performing arts group called African Wildfire. This group was founded by Bahá’í University students and participants including a wide variety of students of various colors, religions and nationalities.

It was during my participation with African Wildfire that I met Malibongwe Fudu, a member of the Xhosa tribe, which is one of the larger tribes in South Africa. At the time Malibongwe was studying engineering at the University of Cape Town. He was also a great dancer, but what was most impressive to me was that he treated all with respect and patience. He had a great smile and held himself with a dignity and a calm that I quickly grew to admire.

I lived in Cape Town for six months in 2001 and during that time I lived with an American couple. The wife was of African and Jewish decent, and the husband was white like me. I was honored to be the nanny for a black woman, which was a rare sight both in South Africa, and likely the rest of the world.

I thought that Malibongwe was cute, but he and I were just friends. Now that I think about it, even being friends with a black South African man was unusual when looking at the general habits of the South African people. For so long, interaction between blacks and whites in South Africa was severely monitored, controlled and limited. Only now, in post-apartheid times things, are slowly changing. The government has worked very hard to foster reconciliation and unity in South Africa, but it takes a long time to heal the wounds of racism.

The Thirteenth Amendment outlawed slavery in 1865 here in the United States, but it wasn’t until the Civil Rights Movement 100 years later that America finally started facing its oppressive tendencies and began to take heart-felt action to improve this nation for all its inhabitants. South Africa is now going through the beginning of their healing process. It is long, slow and painful and I am reminded of how challenging it is for people to look at others as just people each time I recall a situation where I would be doing something that white people rarely did over there. I used to ride the taxis with blacks. Whites don’t ride them, “they are not safe,” I would here people say. Another reason they wouldn’t ride them, is that most white people have more resources, cars, money and other benefits that they have enjoyed for a long time. Seeing black South Africans with cars is so exciting, because it means they usually have worked to achieve their share of economic success that they have finally been able to gain access to in the past ten years or so.

When I returned to the States to finish university, Mali and I kept in touch and began to realize how similar our life views, our goals for service, our love for our Faith, and our love to dance matched each other. In the little world between him and I, we never thought twice about telling one another how much we cared for each other. We have never put energy into worrying about what the world of others may think of us as a couple.

Mali tried to come to the United States to visit in 2003 and his visa was denied. He was a newly hired graduate engineer without property and the US Embassy decided that he was in danger of “disappearing” if he came to the States. So I, an American with many more advantages than he had, went back to South Africa in January, 2004 to visit him and meet his family in Port Elizabeth. I was curious to see how the South African community would react to us holding hands. A blond haired lady and a Xhosa man in a relationship is unheard of.

Although everywhere we went we received stares, they weren’t hateful, they were more curious than anything else. After only six days of the visit, he proposed marriage, I said yes, and we are getting married this year. We bought a house in Port Elizabeth and will be living in South Africa as an interracial, international and intercultural couple. With all the challenges that we are expecting to come our way, we are also excited and curious to know what we will go through. Our faith, strength, love, integrity, and patience will be essential elements in creating a happy life full of service and joy.

We already are making plans for hosting community/interfaith prayer gatherings, potlucks, and other unity building activities. I am a teacher and intend on continuing to foster a sense of love and acceptance in each child that I work with.

With all the challenges that come with joining your life with another, there also come opportunities to grow and learn when both partners are dedicated and steadfast. Our hope is that our marriage may act as an example of love across all borders.

“Wherefore, wed Thou in the heaven of Thy mercy These Two birds of the nest of Thy love, and make them the means of attracting perpetual grace: that from the union of these two seas of love a wave of tenderness may surge and cast the pearls of pure and goodly issue on the shore of life.” –‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Bahá’í Prayers.