Rachel on leaving her second home

                                                                   Cape Town Coordinator Rev. Vernon Rose and Rachel

I am packing my things to go home as the sun shifts over to the other side of the world in which I will be on my way to tomorrow. I can’t say that I am looking forward to about 24 hours of traveling straight.  I can say that I miss my family and friends.  But I think after the excitement for a day or two, it will wear off.  I will be bored and quite frankly sick of answering the question: “how was South Africa?”  How do you sum up four months in your life?  I have been trying to come up with an adequate response, but I am not sure I ever will.  I am going to miss walking across the commons that I had to do so many times and every time, I complained. I am going to miss the house where I stayed with 11 other people who I now consider my family.  And what I am really going to miss most of all is all of the Capetonians that I met here in which I came to a realization that I will most likely never see again in my life.   They are also my family now.  I will miss the beautiful mountains and the bright blue sea on the sandy beaches of and ice-cold Atlantic Ocean, or a slightly warmer Indian Ocean if I had preferred.  I miss the....I think you get the point.  

I could go on for days of all the things that I will miss.  After learning so much about the history and current situation, I have grown a love-hate relationship for South Africa.  I hate that when I go into the townships, there is no running water in the houses and the people are only allotted so much water per day and meanwhile you go into the center of the city and there are huge fountains spraying water day and night.  I hate that I have learned South Africa is ranked number one for most unequal country IN THE WORLD.  Some days I am frustrated while here, but others I thank everyone for making it possible for me to be here.  I have learned more than I wanted and seen more than I expected.  So when the sun comes back around tomorrow and I can’t procrastinate anymore, I will pack the rest of my things a get onto a plane in hopes that one day I will also come back around. 

No matter how much hate I have for what the current issues are, Cape Town I feel, is now my second home.  I went to a practice game at the world cup stadium a few weekends ago.  And I was sitting in the crowd with South Africans behind me, to the side of me, and the soccer field in front of me.  The whole crowd was decked out in South African flags, t-shirts, and vuvuzelas screaming for South Africa to win.  I was also screaming for them to win, and I felt just as comfortable as if I was at Yankee stadium cheering on New York.  I looked around and realized I might have been too comfortable.  When I go home, and watch the world cup on the television, I will be screaming “BAFANA BAFANA” even though they won’t make it past the first round.  Because that is what you do for your hometown no matter how bad they may be.  And I’ll smile at the TV and no one will understand how I feel or how I felt in South Africa.