Erica's mixed emotions

Today is April 12th…only 20 more days in Cape Town, South Africa. That doesn’t feel real. I think all of us are feeling an array of emotions unlike anything we’ve ever experienced before—some people are just ready to go home and others are probably going to be so unwilling to leave that they’ll have to be dragged to the airport. I think what’s been so hard for me is being somewhere in between those two emotions—I don’t think I’ve ever felt this torn. It has been 3 ½ months since I’ve seen my family and friends, and I really do miss them more than anything. Some days I think about how comforting it would be to just sit in my kitchen at home with my family or go to breakfast with my Nana or listen to my brother play guitar. In other words, doing normal things with the people I love and miss would be so comforting. However, living here has become normal…Cape Town has become home for me...the people and places here have become familiar, and I am attached to this country in a way I never thought I could feel for a place that wasn’t my home back in Connecticut. 

Yesterday, we had an incredibly fun and hysterical mini-bus taxi ride all the way from our home in Rondebosch to Llandudno Beach, about a 30-minute drive away from where we live. As we drove along the coast, so close to the edge of the cliffs that you could smell the ocean, with loud, house music playing and the windows open, sunshine and wind pouring through, I almost began to cry with joy. I was so happy. Every time I look at the mountains here, they still take my breath away. Every time I see the coastline I’m still mesmerized. I thought that as time went on, I would get used to the beauty of this country and it wouldn’t affect me as much, but I was obviously wrong. Even as I become more and more familiar with my new home, I still look at its beauty as if it were Day 1 in South Africa. That just goes to tell you how incredibly beautiful this country really is. 

A few nights ago, we all went to the World Cup Stadium to see an international challenge. If someone told me a year ago that I would be sitting in the World Cup Stadium in Cape Town, South Africa, I wouldn’t have believed them for a second. I feel like that’s how many of my experiences here have been—unreal, unbelievable, exciting, and life changing. I don’t really know how I’m going to adjust to life back in the United States. I was talking to someone the other day and they said to me, “As much of a culture shock as it was to come here to South Africa, it may be even more of a culture shock to return to life back in the United States.” I think that it’s because of this that I’m so afraid to go back home. I’m scared of feeling disconnected from my own country after attaching myself so strongly to South Africa. I’ve changed, and I don’t plan on changing back. But then where will I fit in when I return? I know that the change is internal—that it doesn’t matter which country I am in because these experiences and the way I’ve changed from them are inside of myself. I’ll carry them with me for the rest of my life. But what if they impact me less when I have to return home and adjust back to life in the United States? Maybe these questions don’t need answers right now, and maybe I’m being too dramatic for my own good. But, to put it simply, I’m scared.

When the time does come for me to get on that plane, I want to leave here at peace with myself and at peace with my journey here in South Africa, knowing that I took from this experience everything that I possibly could have taken and given everything that I could have possibly given. For now, I’m just going to have to be as moment present as possible and enjoy every second I have left in Cape Town. I don’t really plan on resting for the next 3 weeks—there’s still so much to do…