Remember. Me.

Well yesterday after my final I was able to relax and even went out to a restaurant to get a few drinks and unwind before planning to do some museums today since I won’t start studying until the weekend. Since it was rainy we figured it was perfect museum weather and went first to the National Gallery. I had heard mixed reviews on the gallery and even though I usually get a little fed up of just walking from painting to painting, I thought it was a pretty nice collection and enjoyed it. Nothing in particular really stood out but it was relaxing and aesthetically pleasing to start off the day.

After that though, we went to the Slave Lodge which I had also heard mixed reviews on leaning toward the negative. I decided I wanted to see it anyway and luckily the group I was with wanted to go too. The museum is in a building built in 1679 that used to be the lodge where slaves were kept, many until they died. It was eventually converted into the Supreme Court building and has since become a museum, a tribute. I thought the permanent exhibit was really interesting, talking about all the slaves who were brought into Cape Town from East Africa, West Africa, Madagascar, Indonesia, India, and more. Although there was Apartheid, during the slave days, the colonizers actually avoided putting the locals into slavery because they were useful for farming and other things so most of the slaves were from other places around the world.

There was a room early on in the exhibit that had a woman reciting a poem and a semi replica of what the boat quarters for the slaves were like. It was this poem that really got to me and also got me thinking about my study abroad experience which I’ll go into later. There was one line that kept getting repeated which was “Remember me. Remember. Me.” Later on in the exhibit, there was the Column of Memory which had backlit rings with names of slaves who had been forced to stay in the lodge. By the column was another quote from the poem that I really liked and wanted to share. “In the light of memory and remembering, through the streams of our senses, reconnecting, recollecting, we find our way home.”

Anyway, also in the museum was a special exhibit on Steve Biko arranged by the Apartheid Museum that was extremely interesting and an exhibit upstairs that had interviews with a bunch of Africans. The Biko exhibit was the most fascinating (to me) of the two because it was quite a big deal for South Africa. Bantu Steve Biko was the honorary president of the Black People's Convention and died at age 30 from brain damage after being badly beaten by guards where he had been imprisoned during Apartheid. The exhibit included many quotes said by Biko who was enough of an inspiration that a building on Upper Campus at UCT is named after him. I really liked the lodge and even though it wasn’t my favorite of all the museums I’ve been too, if people have time to go I would definitely suggest it. Overall, it was a good day even though it was kind of rainy.

So, I have officially hit the single digit countdown to arriving home. It is now only 9 days until I will set foot on American soil for the first time in four and a half months. Now that it’s getting so close to being the end of my time studying abroad, I have been reflecting a lot on my time here and on the entire experience. Each day that passes brings with it some sadness in leaving, a feeling I had expected but not to this magnitude. Before I was leaving for South Africa and everyone asked me how I felt about it, my answer was “excited about going there, sad about leaving here”. And I had assumed that when it came time to go home, I would feel the same way. While my blog posts have talked about all the incredible things I’ve done while I’ve been here, I’m not going to deny that I have been extremely ready to come back. I’ve missed my family, friends, berg, New Jersey, and the states a lot more than I expected to and I spent a lot of time wondering if this was the experience I had signed up for or if was just in way over my head but too deep already to get out of it.

I guess a lot of people would call it homesickness or culture shock but the fact is that it was really just a realization for me of how happy I am with what my life is like back at home. When leaving berg in the fall, I acknowledged (with my friends’ help) that I was going abroad clearly not to get away from anything but to give myself the experience of a lifetime. That became even more evident to me after I arrived and thought, maybe a bit too much, about wanting to be home rather than in Cape Town. I thought often about things at home that were different and how I preferred those things over what South Africa had to offer me. These four plus months have been long and not often easy, but I have begun to realize just how much I’ve learned since I got here, about Africa, about South Africa, about Cape Town, about UCT, but mostly, about myself.

There’s no way I can even attempt to put into words the kind of experience I’ve had here. I do think that everyone should visit South Africa, or somewhere in Africa at the very least, once in their lifetime. It is a country that no words, pictures, or anything really can describe. About three years ago, I made a promise to myself to never let myself thinking about my regrets but to simply take in the good things I have seen and done. Since then, I haven’t always been able to say that I don’t have regrets, but I have felt better about thinking that I would do things differently given the chance because I still try to harness the good in my experiences.

I have been lucky enough to do a bit of traveling (although I do plan to come back to Africa again because there’s so much more I want to see – don’t hyperventilate Mom, it won’t be for a while) and do other really cool things in Cape Town. I have met some amazing people whom I will remember and carry with me, people who have taught me so much about being here and about who they are. There’s no way I will ever get this same opportunity of studying abroad and I am forever grateful that I had this chance. Especially after seeing so much here in a country where there is both first and third world qualities, I feel how lucky I am that I could come to another country for such a long time.

Rather than entirely glorify my stay here, I didn’t want to avoid ever saying how much I questioned being here on a pretty daily basis. Going abroad is most definitely a life changing experience and everyone reacts to being in another country for such an extended period of time differently. But I think that everyone takes away from their study abroad experience a new appreciation of the world and the country they were in, but most importantly (to me at least), a new sense of self. To anyone who asks me about my study abroad experience once I’m back will get an ear-full because I could probably talk for ages, but that is only now having tried to sort through my thoughts.

As we begin to say goodbyes and talk of our last this or last that, I am torn as I never have been before. Returning to driving on the right side of the road, dollars instead of rand, barbeques instead of braais, what’s up instead of howzit, garden room fro yo instead of marcels, and no more cocoa wah-wah cookies is going to be a reverse culture shock even stranger than the culture shock of coming here. Seeing everyone that I care about so much is going to be the most amazing thing though – it’s true that distance makes the heart grow fonder – so expect initial hugs to last more than a few minutes. Still though, I will miss a lot of things about Cape Town that I have gotten used to and truly do enjoy. There are many people that I would love to be able to stay and get to know better but I am definitely thankful for having at least the opportunity to get to know everyone I have even if it was just for a short while.

All that there is left to say, is that it’s Thursday night and the last night where I don’t have to say that it’s the last __(day of the week)__ night. It’s go time.

Hugs and kisses,
Sarah