Megan's lessons learned and realization this is only the beginning

 

 

I am in disbelief that I am even writing this post. I am sitting in the house that has become my home for the past 3 months, with co-educators that have become family, in a city that I have fallen in love with. Tomorrow, I will board a plane and leave this all behind me to return back to Connecticut.

     

Honestly, that terrifies me. I am terrified to leave myself in Cape Town; to leave the curiosity, adventurousness, confidence, enlightenment and growth that have characterized my time here, and have changed me. I am scared for what will happen when I try to explain to those at home what I really experienced here, outside the skydiving and safaris. I am scared that I won’t be able to accurately describe the internal metamorphosis that I feel in myself every day, and to eventually lose that feeling in my inability to express it. I am terrified to go home, and to turn back into the person who never came to Cape Town.

     

I also feel inexplicable gratitude. I was insanely lucky enough to be in the small part of the world population that is able to go to college, able to go abroad, and able to come to Cape Town. Through the care and work of Marita, Vernon, and Vincent among others, I was able to meet amazing people and learn the complicated history while living here. I was able to intern at an amazing organization that taught me so much about democracy in political campaigns and grassroots organizing. I was able to work with the adorable children at my activist project at the Athlone YMCA, as well as during our homestay in Ocean View and at the Boys and Girls Club in Soweto. Cape Town has given so much in the short time I have called it home.

      

It is difficult to reflect on my whole stay here and sum it up in a short blog post, so here are some of the main thoughts I have leaving Cape Town (excerpts from my journal):

1. Ostrich is way better than beef.
2. Do more things alone. Explore alone. You have the freedom to do whatever you want, think whatever you want, or anything else you feel like doing. It is important. True independence is addicting and fulfilling.
3. Minibus taxis are a great system and I might buy a van and just start yelling out of it at UConn.
4. Volunteering is so important. I never realized this at home and it should really be a priority of everyone’s. Doing something once a week can help make peoples lives so much easier and happier.
5. Surfing is amazing, and not just for blonde, weirdly active hippies.
6. Talk to everyone. Smile at everyone. There is no basis why we are taught skepticism as a reflex when it comes to new people. Most are good. Get to know them.
7. Being an overly trendy-indie (most of the time white) person is the worst thing you can be. Do not become obsessed with big velvet hats, or smoothing bowls, or quinoa and coconut water or excessive amounts of vintage clothing. IT IS NOT COOL.
8. Keep relationships. Prioritize them, and nurture them. They are one of the only possessions you will ever have in life.
9. Espresso is definitely better in a vanilla shake.
10. Emotions are important, and fulfilling. It doesn’t make you more respectable or mature to lack them.
11. Yoga is great, even if yogis can be weird.
12. Don’t make this your last adventure. This is not where I stop learning; this is not where I stop exploring; this is not where I stop growing. This is the beginning.