Maddy knows she will return to Cape Town one day

I’ve been home for exactly a week now and I must say it’s taken me the whole week to adjust back to life home in Connecticut. Coming home, I didn’t feel ready yet. I was excited to see friends and family but at the same time, I didn’t want to leave Cape Town. I didn’t want to act like I didn’t want to be home and offend any of my loved ones so I did my best to adjust back to normal life. That was the hardest part for me. Life in Cape Town was just so not normal. We were always doing something adventurous and exciting and I wasn’t ready for that to end. I came home and started working 2 days later. It was helpful forcing me to get used to the time change but at the same time I didn’t want to go back to average life knowing the only thing I had going on was work. I’ve planned some fun things I can now look forward to this summer that has made being home better. Now that I have been home a week, I’ve realized it’s been nice to be back but I would still jump back on a plane in a heartbeat to relive our study abroad experience. It’s also so nice having people back home with me that also lived through the experiences with me. I’ve talked to some of my other co-educators every day since being back and I’m so glad Cape Town brought us together and we now have each other as best friends back home as well.

A lot of things remind me of Cape Town whether they be similar or different from things at home. It been nice being able to drive again and not having to rely on other transportation. However, the other day I was driving through my town and it felt so weird that there was no one out walking around. I loved going to my internship and having hundreds of kids out walking to school in their uniforms. I also miss living with 17 other amazing people, my internship, always seeing Table Mountain everywhere you go, and other little things that make Cape Town what it is such as the mini bus taxis and people trying to sell you things at stop lights. I am now definitely more aware of things going on around me when it comes to race and gender and other social issues occurring. I am now interested and want to stay updated on the current events happening and am glad this is part of who I am now. It’s sad that our experience is over but I am so fortunate to have had such an amazing time that I will remember forever. I know I will return to Cape Town one day and also have the travel bug to visit other places and have my eyes opened to more and more things. 

Maddy's final extended week

Maddy, Sara, & Kait in BoKaap

After a week of a lot of change and transition, which included suddenly moving out of our house and into a hotel for the last week of program, the program ending, and having to say goodbye to everyone, I was so happy with my decision to extend my trip an extra week and get to really enjoy and take in my last week in Cape Town. Saying goodbye to the rest of my co-educators who were not staying is when it hit me that our study abroad experience has officially came to an end. It makes me so sad knowing it’s over because it was truly some of the best four months of my life. I was able to do and see things I would have never imagined doing just because of this program. Even if I simply went on vacation, I would not have learned and felt half of the things we got to because I wouldn’t have been exposed to many of the things that made the most impact on me.

My last week in Cape Town was amazing. Kait, Sara, Ethan, and I planned a busy schedule to fill our last week. Even with an extra week to do things, we found ourselves not being able to fit in everything. It was a such a good week that it made leaving even harder. I don’t know if I would have ever been ready to leave Cape Town. Saying goodbye to people made it even harder. People I have met here have made such an impact on me in such a short amount of time and saying goodbye to them without knowing if I actually will I ever see them again made leaving very hard. I am however so thankful that I had such an amazing experience that it made leaving so hard. I am looking forward to seeing how I will adjust to being back home. I hope that I will see how different my outlook is on the world now and use this in my life at home.  

 

Farewell to Cape Town

Maddy enjoyed spending time with kids playing and watching soccer

Since getting back from Joburg, I’ve had an additional week off from my internship because of term break at the school. Though being busy with some stuff that I had to do such as catching up on homework and getting shirts for the Fire Fighters tournament for the weekend, I had a lot of free time on my hands to reflect. First off, I realized that during the week when everyone is in their routine of internships, I want to be at mine too. It was nice having the week off in Joburg, yet when we came back to Cape Town, I was ready to get back to my own internship.

During class this week we had a conversation about our transition back to the U.S. and what and how we are going to tell people about our experiences here. I realized that I have SO much to say and could go days talking about everything about Cape Town. However, Marita pointed out a good point that people may ask, but not everyone is looking for a detailed response or necessarily care about everything we have to say, and that’s okay, but it’s a good thing to acknowledge. I liked how Marita recommended that when people ask us how it is we say, “It was great, I saw and did so much, what would you like to know about?” I also realized that two of the hardest transitions I will have back to life in the U.S. are not wanting to hear people complain. Some of the stuff people complain about, including myself, are so not worth a complaint and I often find myself catching my complaints. However, listening to others who complain about things that really don’t matter is going to be different for me because here people are so happy with what they have when at home people complain about what they don’t have and I feel like I just see it in a bigger picture now. The other thing that will be hard to adjust to is people always being on their phones. I’ve always been a “no phones at the dinner table” type of person and always try to not be on my phone and enjoy the company around me. Being here and not even being able to use a phone unless I have Wi-Fi has really made me adjust to only using my phone before bed and in the morning. I know I will go back to using it all the time when I’m home but enjoying the things around me without distractions is so nice and I want to continue this.

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After a week of not much going on, I had a very busy weekend with helping the Khayelitsha Fire Fighters host their first annual tournament. In typical African fashion, we showed up early Friday morning to start setting up for the tournament and they still have many things that we would have thought would have done days in advance to do before the games started. Oscar, they guy who was basically running the show was so awesome and had everything very organized, he just didn’t have any help. He was so thankful that we were there and we did a lot that first day helping him out whether it was registration of the teams, managing the entrance fees, doing the schedules of the games, and logging the scores of the completed games. The next two days were more relaxed because registration was over so we could watch some of the Fire fighter’s games as well as make almost 100 sandwiches for the senior and junior teams as well as the other volunteers. It was a senior tournament but many of the little juniors were there each day to watch. That gave us more time to sit and play with them because we usually only see them at practice. It was awesome to see them become comfortable around us and Sunday when we were leaving they thought it was our last time before going back to the U.S. so you could see how sad they were and wanted to make sure they were able to say goodbye. When we told them we would still be at practice at least one more time they lightened up and went back to playing knowing they would see us again.

Sara, Ethan, Maddy, Kaitlyn, Bongi, Claire, Power

Spending time with the kids was definitely the best part. The rest of the tournament was a little physically and emotionally draining. The coaches depend on us to do a lot for the team that we realistically can’t always do, so we had to learn to start saying no. Additionally, though we were there all weekend, people didn’t seem to get used to a group of white girls walking around and constantly just wanted to take pictures with us and then just walk away. It got exhausting walking by people everywhere we went and have people start talking in Xhosa to each other and laughing, clearly talking about us but we had no idea what they were saying. This has happened countless times to us before in many situations but having it occur constantly for 3 days straight was a lot. This was another reason why I wanted to hang around the kids, they don’t care what you look like, if you are willing to play with them and give them your attention, they will love having you there. Overall I think the tournament went great for it being their first one and it definitely brought me closer to the Fire Fighters. 

Maddy had a great week but excited to return to Cape Town

This past week we went on excursion to Johannesburg and National Kruger Park. Our time in Joburg for the first part of the week went by so fast. We went to many museums and historical sites. It was nice being able to see actual sites of events that we learned about in class. One of my favorite historical sites we visited was the jail at Constitution Hill. I’ve been told about how poor the living conditions were for people in these jails but what I was picturing was nowhere near how terrible it actually was. I kept having to remind myself that this jail also was up and running all the way up until the 1980’s and the cruelty, overcrowding, and poor sanitation was relevant all the way through its closing. I can’t imagine 60-80 people squeezed into the rooms we were standing in and told to live there. It was interesting learning about how gangs formed within in the rooms with the leaders controlling all of the others with the little they had. It also made sense to me that people joined the gangs because without joining they basically couldn’t survive in the cell. I also didn’t realize how intense the law was at the time. I knew that if blacks and coloreds didn’t carry around their pass books with them then they were punished, but to see the jail that they were sent to made me realize how insanely unreasonable the punishment was just because the white government was in control and did whatever they wanted without taking any human rights into account.

Another one of my favorite days was going to the Boys and Girls Club in Soweto. I knew all week that I would love this day because it makes me so happy interacting with the kids who are so excited you are there. At all times of the day I’m pretty sure everyone of us had at least 3 kids hanging from us as we were trying to play with all of them. I was definitely tired out by the end of that day but it was so worth it. I was amazed at how many children are a part of the club and assume they are there most days as a safe place to be kid. The global CEO of Tupperware ended up visiting the same day as us because he sponsors the club. It was actually so cool seeing him come visit with his wife and others to see how amazing of a place he is helping make happen.

On Friday morning, we left to go to Kruger National Park. Though, I have already been on two game drives since being here, I knew Kruger would be a completely different experience. The other drives were at reservations and conservations that though I was able to see everything I wanted, you could tell that the animals were placed there. Kruger is completely wild and it was amazing just looking out and seeing the park literally never ending as far as you could see. I was able to go on 3 drives during our time there, a sunset drive, a sunrise drive, and a late-night drive. There were periods of time where we would not see any animals and start giving up on seeing anything, but then suddenly an animal would emerge towards us and we could watch it in its natural habitat in the wild. Some of my favorite animal sightings were the male lions that at first we saw laying down with their paws over each other and then later that night saw them walking to the road we were driving on. We were able to follow right next to them. Just watching them walk was so mesmerizing. Some of the other animals I loved watching were the giraffes and hyenas. 

Porch on chalet at Satara Rest Camp in Kruger National Park

When we weren’t on the game drives, it was nice to be able to hang out. We are used to living in the city so it was a good change of pace to be in the middle of nowhere. There was also no Wi-Fi the whole time we were there so we weren’t able to use our phones which was nice to be disconnected. One of my favorite parts of the weekend was just sitting on the porch of my hut with Claire. We were doing a little homework and looking through pictures from the day while listening to music. It was so relaxing and we took a second to point out we are never going to be in this position again, as a student on our excursion at this national park. It made me realize how content sitting there made me, and how crazy this whole experience is. We are experiencing so many things while here that I would never have dreamed of and yet it’s my real life. Overall I had a great week but am also excited to return back to Cape Town.