My time in South Africa is
quickly coming to a close (less than a week now) and I just don’t know how to
deal with it. On the one hand I am SO excited to see my family and eat some of
my mom’s food. But on the other I will
be leaving Table Mountain. It’s going to be weird to wake up and not be in the
presence of something so great. When I
get home I will be excited for a few days but I know I will quickly fall back
into the same routine and I’ll start missing Cape Town. I don’t know how to deal with this because
I’ve made Cape Town my home for the last 3 months. I have a routine here. I
wake up and walk to the train station to go to work. I buy groceries every
Monday afternoon. I have class every Tuesdays and Thursdays. I go to the beach
on the weekends. I have a life here. To
be pulled out of it is almost tragic in a way because even when I come back I
will never have THIS life in Cape Town again.
I will never live at this same house in Rondebosch or work at CTRC or
have amazing co-educators 5 feet from my bedroom.
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| Snigdha & Sarah |
So I’m going to soak up every
second I have left as part of this UConn program because this is a once in a
lifetime chance and I’m so glad to have taken it. Right now I’m sitting in my bedroom next to
Sarah who is typing away on her laptop and we’re talking about how difficult it
is to describe our experiences back home to our friends and family. There are certain people in my life who I
know will just never understand the past 3 months of my life. They will see it as a superficial adventure
‘vacation’ getaway trip to South Africa that consists of partying and nothing
more. They will never understand how
much I have changed as a person due to my work at the refugee centre or my
outlooks on public health now or the fact that I have met some of the most
amazing resilient people whom I will probably never come across again at other
walks of my life. I was describing to
Sarah how it reminds me of a Greek tragedy that some people will not understand
and will never be able to understand this trip.
I have made connections with people who live in the townships who are
the happiest people I know and they give me hope. I have seen refugees go through persecution
in such a life destructing way I do not know how they have picked themselves up
and moved on. How they didn’t just
die. The issues of race and feminism
that I have learned about and witnessed firsthand will never ever be understood
by some of my friends back home. The
privilege goes far too deep. I could
tell them about privilege and sexism and racism all I want but they will never
have lived in the legacy of Nelson Mandela’s 20 year old democracy for 3
months. I am so grateful to have the
opportunity to have South Africa teach me so much. I was an uneducated fool before stepping onto
the plane. That sounds harsh to myself
but that’s literally how I see myself in the past. I didn’t know anything: and I had had 13
years of education. The real tragedy is
that I almost didn’t come on this trip.
I would have gone my entire life without having been exposed to
institutions of racism or feminine inferiority or the aftermath of war. I’m a different person now: thank you South
Africa.
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