Home is Where the Heart is
Although I don’t understand how it’s
possible, my three and a half months in Cape Town are over and I’m back home in
the United States. Walking off the plane in January into the African sun feels
like a lifetime ago or yesterday depending on the day. I both was and wasn’t
ready to return home to America. I wasn’t ready to end living with my fellow
students and coming home to them everyday, and I wasn’t ready to give up seeing
Table Mountain daily. However, I had basically put my life back home on hold
and I was ready to resume it. During my time in Cape Town my journey was to
better understand my country, a new culture, and myself. Now my task is to
incorporate everything I learned in Cape Town into my life back home. I’m ready
to tackle this new challenge!
Most of the other students took the
same flight back home, but I took another airline company that resulted in a
layover in Dubai (and a couple of unnecessary travel hours). As I was standing in the Dubai airport at
2:00am, I looked around at all the different faces around me. Everyone had a
different background, looked differently, and had a different story. During my
time in Cape Town, I was surrounded by diversity and in the airport I realized
I wouldn’t be surrounded by so much diversity back home. I live in a small
suburban New England town with a racial makeup composed mainly of white people.
I never really realized how little interaction I had had with other races until
I got to Cape Town. After learning to appreciate diversity so greatly, I was
entering a place with very little. In order to combat this I’m going to try my
hardest to seek out diversity at UConn and to join organizations that allow me
to get to know people from different backgrounds. I’m thankful for my Dubai
airport realization, and to understand how important diversity is.
It’s quite weird for me to think
that the Cape Town chapter of my life has been written and is over. I’m sure
I’ll return sometime, but there are still many other places I hope to explore
and discover first. I’ve always noticed things that have bothered me back home,
whether it is how some people treat women or the lack of recycling bins.
However coming back home I now have a whole new set of things that bother me
(or maybe I should say I notice more things I wish to help change). Nothing has
really changed since I’ve been gone (except the size of my mastiff puppy, that
has changed drastically). My room is the same, my street is the same, and my town
is the same. However, I’m not the same and neither are my friends. Last week I
drove up to Storrs to see some familiar faces before everyone goes their
separate ways for the summer. Although none of my friends went on a
life-changing trip to Africa, they had all had their own realizations and
growth in Storrs. I had always thought that everything would be the same when I
came home (and a lot of things are) but the most important things aren’t, the
people I care about. Its awesome that we’ve all grown and I can’t wait to share
what I learned in South Africa and for them to share with me what they have
learned.
I’m glad to be back and to be able
to move onto my next adventure. Although my next adventure isn’t as adventurous
as studying in South Africa, I’m excited to begin taking summer classes and start
my summer marketing internship. So far I haven’t had too much trouble getting
back into the swing of things back home. The pace of South Africa is quite
different from the pace of the United States. I’m in the process of finding a
good in between of the paces. I want to have the work pace of the U.S. and also
be able to stop to smell the roses. Honestly, I think this is going to be one
of the greatest challenges because at UConn I’m used to running around
everywhere because I tend to bite off more than I can chew. Despite the
challenges that lay ahead I’m very grateful for my experience in Cape Town, and
I’ll be sure to carry the lessons everywhere I go.
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