Erica nervous that once home her Cape Town memories will fade

Two weeks from today, I will be back home in Connecticut, probably very jet-lagged from the 15-hour plane ride from Johannesburg to New York. I can’t wrap my head around the fact that we have so little time left here. I have very mixed emotions about leaving. On one hand, I’m very excited to be home again, see family and friends, and so on. At the same time, I know I’ll be very sad to leave Cape Town and I can only imagine how much I’ll miss it once I’m back home. I think the one thing I’m nervous about in regard to leaving South Africa is that I don’t want to forget all the wonderful things I’ve learned on this trip or the way that I feel here in Cape Town. That might sound a little sad or pessimistic, but I’m primarily nervous of my Cape Town memories fading. I know that there are lots of things I can to do prevent and/or remedy this, such as keeping a journal, staying in touch with friends, etc. I plan to do all of these things, and recently I’ve been thinking about making a list of all of the lessons I’ve learned from this trip so I don’t forget them.  I think the most important thing for me to do as this trip comes to an end is enjoy the moment as much as I can, and so some serious journaling.

Anyways, this week has been pretty busy for everyone. Since the semester is coming to a close, there are tests to take, essays to write, and of course many of us are trying to check off all of our Cape Town “bucket list” items in the meantime. Yesterday my fellow co-educators and I went to Bloubergstrand beach to watch the sunset. This is a pretty famous spot in Cape Town since there’s a gorgeous view of Devil’s Peak, Table Mountain, and Lion’s head right from the beach.

In other news, Kat and I have been trying to wrap up our work at Prevention in Action since we’re leaving soon; however, there’s still so much work to be done. Our goals for the end of the semester are setting up a bank account for PIA, registering the organization as an official non-profit, and creating a presentation that Mums can use to promote PIA in the future. I think the most important thing for us is to leave Prevention in Action in a spot where Mums is able to pick up where we left off, and to give her tools that can she can use to promote the organization in the hopes of obtaining funding. I’m not completely sure if we’ll be able to accomplish all of this within the five days left we have at our internships, but we’ll certainly try!