I never thought I’d see the day
but tomorrow is fast approaching. The thought of this flight is daunting, I am
very tempted to hide from our bus driver and spend the rest of my days living
off-the-grid in Cape Town. Only thoughts of my family and friends in the States
that I’ve missed so much relieve the pain of leaving such an amazing place.
In the last couple weeks here,
I’ve spent much time reflecting on my experiences here by rereading and
comparing the pre-departure units to the discussion boards, blog posts, and
papers that I’ve completed in my time here. In doing so I recognized that I had
accomplished all of the goals I created for myself which made me choose this
unique study abroad program in the first place. The amount of character
development, perspective change, and knowledge gained by this program is unreal
and has fostered me into an exponentially well-rounded and better person. Moreover,
I’ve recently noticed this week of how much more I’ve gained from the
experience. In our final class with Marita I saw great humor in one of
activities as I noticed that all the things I wrote I would miss about Cape
Town were the very same concepts I put down during the pre-departure course as
my most feared challenges in going abroad. During our internship dinner last
night, I recognized that in my rationalizations of going abroad, not once did I
place significance on meeting and fostering new relationships. However, as I
joked, danced, hugged, and reminisced I realized how much I cared for these
people that I had known over the short three-month timespan. Without a doubt,
the people I’ve met (both UConn and Capetonian) are what I’ve come to value
most from my study abroad experience. Saying goodbye to each of our newfound
Tafelsig and Firefighter family members: Sister Castle, Dr. Raciet, Dr. Dawood,
Tracy, Valda, Joe, Bongi, and Power was emotionally taxing. I could not express
how much I appreciated and respected them for their efforts in their community
and their mentoring of us. These people were more than amazing and shaped my
Cape Town experience, I will make every effort to keep in touch with them until
I am able to book another flight and visit them all again.
I’m scared to return home as I do
not know how to summarize my experience here to my friends and family. I don’t
want to solely have surface level conversations of all the extra-curricular
activities I did here, but I also can’t translate all of my emotions attached
to this place into coherent sentences. I wonder if my family and friends will
see me as changed and if so, will they continue to like the person I’ve become.
Whatever the case I now understand the concept of a co-educator and I know that
I have 28 amazing people that I can count on as support systems. I find it
comical that I had such great reserves in coming here – I almost convinced
myself the night before the flight to stay in my routine at UConn – as now, I could
never imagine a world in which I didn’t spend an unbelievable semester in Cape
Town, South Africa.
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| Derek (middle) looking out over the city she'll miss with some of her co-educators |
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