Last week marked the fourth anniversary of my arrival in Cape Town for my semester abroad. Like every monumental event, sometimes it seems like yesterday, and sometimes it seems like a lifetime ago. I couldn't resist marking this life milestone on this blog because Cape Town is the reason this blog and my subsequent passion for blogging came about in the first place.
Those six months were full of adventure, challenge, and eye-opening, mind-blowing realizations about the world we orbit and myself. I was, for the first time in my life, a racial minority, and living in a country that was learning how to be a democracy. For the first time in my life I lived in a place that was unsafe, and learned how to live a fulfilling life with some limitations. I planned my study schedule around power outages. I befriended people it would have been impossible for me to meet had I stayed in Walnut Creek or the walls of American University’s campus. Most importantly, I landed in Cape Town on the morning of January 30th as a mature but scared kid. I left as a young adult.
There are few periods in my life that I would choose to repeat. Not because they were bad, but just because life seems to keep getting better. But, if given the chance, I would always redo that experience; complete with the opera-signing roommate who informed me she didn’t like Americans to the moments of immense loneliness. Even those days, where I felt so unhappy, I would keep because they made me especially appreciative of the highs.
When most people go to a new place, they bring home souvenirs in the form of postcards or magnets as reminders of where they’ve been. And I would be a liar to say I didn’t shop, but my prized collections are the memory and influence of people I met along the way. South Africa is a place that will never leave me because of the people I laughed with and fought with and cried with and who made me feel like I was at home.
While I do know that it isn’t possible for me to relive that experience (even when I visited last year it was a completely different wonderful experience), I have been fortunate to keep relationships from there growing. One of my current roommates and my former roommate, as well as some of my other best friends are Americans I met in Cape Town. We talk regularly and they are the people I go to when I need someone to celebrate with or to carry me forward. In the past, I’ve written about Sunday dinners, and this group is made entirely up of friends from Cape Town.
This week I thought about what it meant to be four years away from a life-changing experience and place. I remember feeling so lost upon returning home; going to South Africa had been a goal of mine for my entire life and at age 21, my goal was done. So, I have spent the last four years searching for places that could move me in the same way. I have found them in India’s holy cities, the music halls of New Orleans, the markets of Jerusalem, and even in the dimmed cafes of Washington, D.C. But no place has ever touched me like the vulnerability and openness of Africa’s southern-most tip. It’s hard to articulate why, it’s just a feeling of connectedness, I guess. I know some people search their entire lives for that feeling, and I’m eternally grateful to have found it, and know that it’s always there waiting for me, whenever I'm ready to go back.
