there's no place like home

It’s the First of July. This means that this is the first day of my first full month of 2009 in America. Haha. Well I guess that’s not too significant but I’ve tried blogging a couple times since I got back but it’s been a whirlwind and each time I was going to write it was a week since I left/got back, 5 months since I left America/arrived in Africa. All those dates had at least some significance and now that I finally get to sit down and write for a bit, today’s date has little significance but I wanted to give it some.

Aaaanyway, enough of my babbling. Let’s see. That last time I wrote, I was still studying for my Thursday final so those days were fairly uneventful. However, after that final (which wasn’t as terrifying as I had expected so I’m crossing my fingers for a decent grade), I realized that it was Thursday afternoon, I was leaving Cape Town in close to 30 hours and had SO much I still wanted to do. After some shopping and running around seeing people, I went out to dinner that night with my house in town before going to Hemisphere which was packed with CIEE people. It reminded me a lot of our first Thursday night in Cape Town and was funny how things went almost full circle. We all danced and partied until it was pretty early and the club started slowing down a lot. After a little trouble with our cab driver, everyone got back to their house/res safely.

Once back at my house, I wasn’t ready for bed so I made the last package of mac and cheese my mom had sent me, showered, and then packed until 6am as my housemates trickled back as well. This might seem strange considering how I was exhausted before we left Hemisphere, but as I started thinking about how I was leaving in less than 24 hours, I started to get extremely anxious and couldn’t sleep. It was a combination of trepidation about the long trip ahead, sadness about leaving, and excitement/nerves of going home after such a long time in another country, particularly one like South Africa. I don’t know if there was any one emotion that prevailed over the others but when I thought about all the changes I would go through in the next day and a half it was so overwhelming. There’s something about “reverse culture shock” that makes it almost harder than any kind of “culture shock”.

I woke up at 10am on Friday because there were a bunch of last minute things I wanted to do and our taxi to the airport was picking us up at 5pm. Probably a bad idea that I kept a mental hourly countdown but it was a bit necessary so I knew I could accomplish all that I wanted to before I had to be back at my house completely packed. First I went into Cape Town to Greenmarket Square for the last time to pick up some final things including (finally) a drum, which I had wanted to get all semester. Of course this made for a very interesting packing experience since I wanted it to go in my carry-on, but I managed somehow to get it through. Then I went into Rondebosch to get some Cocoa Wah-wah cookies, a UCT sweatshirt, and saw lots of people I wanted to say goodbye to. Lastly, I walked for the last time all the up to Upper Campus and since this last week wasn’t the rainy wintery weather of Cape Town but just about as nice as when we first arrived, it was a very nice walk.

Before I knew it, I was dropping off my cell phone, packing up my final things, and in a cab to Cape Town International. There were a bunch of people on this flight from our program which was nice because we were all just hanging out in the terminal together before our flight to London. From there we all split in different directions but since Mel and I booked our tickets together, we still had that flight to Newark where she had only one more flight to catch and where I would greet my family after being away for almost 5 months. I sat with Mel on both flights which was really good for both of us, we both needed to be comforted at times but for completely opposite reasons.

The flight from Cape Town to London for me was (besides a long 12 hours) pretty uneventful. It was late but I couldn’t sleep again so I only dozed with the hope that I would eventually fall asleep and even though that didn’t happen, I wasn’t too tired as we got in to Heathrow. Once through security, a group of us found a place to sit for a while before our flights started leaving again. Ours left first but we all avoided talking about that and just discussed being in Cape Town and America, not thinking about how we were in limbo between places. Suddenly it was time to board and it was just me and Mel like how it had started all those months ago. Just as we were taking off (which is my favorite thing about flying) it occurred to me that the next time I set foot on the ground, I would be home and that thought gave me just a few tears of happiness. Africa was amazing but home is home. A quote from Juno that I really like and certainly took on a new meaning recently is, “I never realize how much I like being home unless I've been somewhere really different for a while.”

Even though the flight from London to Newark was shorter, for some reason it felt longer. I got up to walk around a lot as the butterflies in my stomach wouldn’t let me relax, when we had less than an hour to go I was shaking a bit with the anticipation of finally seeing my parents and my sister. We got closer, went through the clouds, and suddenly I could see Newark in all its grossness and even part of the NYC skyline in the distance. I thought my face would break from smiling so hard, but all I could think was how my family was already there in that terminal waiting for me. After customs, baggage claim (where both my bags went through ::whew:: relief), a quick forced goodbye with Mel, and a couple nice people trying to help me with my bags, my mom was hugging me and then my sister and my dad. Africa suddenly seemed a long long time ago.

Since that tearful reunion, I’ve fallen back into somewhat of a routine here at home. Relearning how to drive on the right side of the road was tricky. I’m still getting used to the dollar, I think about the rand equivalent and it depresses me a bit. I’ve started my summer job after enjoying summer for two weeks but it hasn’t really been summer since it’s been as rainy as Cape Town in the winter. People ask me about Africa a lot and I still have trouble summarizing it in just a short conversation because it’s not that simplistic, it was a very intense few months filled with many learning experiences. I’m actually writing this post not for anyone else but because I used this blog almost like a journal for so long and it felt incomplete.

I hope to one day return to Cape Town and to travel around more of Africa. There’s still so much to see and learn. It seems like a bit of a lame ending to all this but that’s because this was only really the start of my journey and I can’t wait to embrace what my future holds. Going back to berg for my senior year is going to be an adventure and what will follow that I don’t know. I don’t think I’m ready for it yet, but when it comes, I will be.

With love, from America, from Home,
Sarah

Home - 1:20 pm
Cape Town - 7:20 pm