Michelle saying good-bye...but hopefully not for long

This past weekend was out last in Cape Town. It was a daunting thought, and I, even the planner, had been thinking of things that I wanted to do for that last weekend. A bike tour through South Africa’s famous wine country, perhaps? Or a final trip to Kalk Bay for its amazing sea food? Instead, Brittany and Brett found a guest house in Khayelitsha that needed volunteers to help finish building its school and lecture rooms. I decided that I would much rather stay at this guest house, really see Khayelitsha like we, and most white tourists, and even white South Africans never do, and give back to this country that has given me so much these past four months. 

As Rachel has said below, unfortunately there wasn’t a lot of work for us to do because it was the weekend, but I still wanted to reflect on how I felt in this place, and also the people that we met. 

Because there wasn’t a lot of work to do, Rachel called Sizwe, a friend we met at the Human Rights Conference a few weeks ago. He came to the guest house, and even offered to take us out for the night in Khaylitsha. I was a little wary of going out to a bar or shebeen, but knew that if we did go with Sizwe, he would make sure that we were in a safe place. We didn’t end up going out, but the next day he took us to a drum competition near Site B. It was obviously a community event, and I felt almost like I was intruding coming to this place where parents and grandparents were watching their kids perform. It was also kind of nice, because it reminded me of the various recitals that my parents attended when I was a kid.

It was a powerful experience spending a night in a township, and I had an even more powerful and amazing experience on Sunday. Leah and Sarah had invited some kids from their classes at Thondokulu on a hike up Table Mountain, and I, wanting to hike it one more time, tagged along. I didn’t know any of the kids, and had just assumed that the kids would do their own thing, and talk in Xhosa amongst themselves and Sarah, Leah and I would just hang out. Almost the exact opposite happened. The kids were so funny, and peppered me with questions about the States, how I liked South Africa, and my internship. One of the girls, Sphosethu, seriously doubted her ability to make it up the mountain, and even told me her mother didn’t believe that she could do it. I promised her that we were going to make it to the top together, as we shared stories about our childhoods, and our goals and dreams for the future. She wants to be a Broadway actress, and shared her beautiful voice with us both up and down the mountain. Her smile when we got to the top was brilliant, and it made me so happy to be there when she accomplished something that no one in her support system, even herself, thought she could do. I have a feeling that many of the things that Sphosethu accomplishes are like this.

Spending time with these kids was so much fun, and it almost made me jealous that some of my housemates got to work with them all semester. These feelings were fleeting, as I completed my last day at Gender DynamiX today. I wasn’t expecting to feel so down about leaving, but as I said goodbye to some of the friends I have made, Charl, Caroline, Tebogo, I started to miss them already. GDX got a huge grant to do a medical conference to help doctors become more well-versed in doing successful gender reassignment surgeries in December, and my heart aches with knowing that I won’t be there to help put it together, and watch how GDX grows.

 It’s already been hard to try to start saying goodbye to this city, but hopefully it won’t be for too long.