When I first
learned a little more than a year ago that I was going to be studying abroad in
Cape Town, South Africa, I was ecstatic. Even before I knew much about the
country, ideas flew immediately into my head; I would swim with dolphins, cage
dive with sharks, ride an elephant to class everyday, etc. All of the totally
amazing things about a country like South Africa overwhelmed my mind and I immediately
adopted an attitude that no matter how unhappy I was here and now, when I
eventually got to South Africa, everything would be well. Everything in my life
would be at peace and I would finally find an internal sort of happiness. I
suppose I just created a vision of Cape Town being this place that would
fulfill every idea I ever had about study abroad, and would cancel out every
negative thing that ever happened to me in college beforehand. Cape Town became
the answer, and living my everyday life just became a means to an end.
I don’t want to
speak poorly about South Africa when I still barely know it; from my two days
here so far I have been impressed by the absolute beauty of this country, it’s
like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. I’m so impressed by the cool
cultural things I’ve seen and by all of the incredible things this city has to
offer. But what I will say is that Cape Town so far has not lived up to my
expectations.
Perhaps that’s
too powerful a statement for a student on day two of a five-month long study
abroad journey, but I strongly believe that my first two days have been very
eye-opening about what type of experience this time living abroad is actually going
to be.
My flight to
South Africa was somewhat uneventful. Aside from some of the worst turbulence I’ve
ever experienced, the fifteen hours actually flew by pretty quickly and before
I knew it the plane had landed and my journey had begun. But I didn’t feel any
different when I stepped off the plane. Not that I expected to be changed just
by the fact that I had been on a flight that long and was emerging in an
entirely different day on an entirely different side of the world. But I did
expect to feel something. And it
turns out the something I really felt was the need to constantly convince
myself that I was actually in Africa, that I actually physically was in this place
I honestly knew almost nothing about.
In all the
anxiety of the plane ride and the weirdness of not immediately feeling changed
by my abroad experience, I found myself feeling a little overwhelmed and sad on
my first day in Cape Town. Not to mention that I forgot one of my favorite
jackets on the airplane (one that is totally irreplaceable) but that is a
different story. The main point is that after finally arriving from the longest
journey of my life, the only thing I really truly wanted was what I had spent
so long trying to get away from: home. I was excited to be in the place I had
been thinking about for so long, but in the moments as I unpacked all I felt
was anxiety, and the desire to be with what I knew again.
Two days in and
things have gotten a bit better. I’ve spent a little more time with the South Africa
I always wanted to, spending time at the beach and talking to people I never
expected to interact with. I’m definitely still dealing with the anxieties, but
I’m easing into things a bit more. And I’m still fighting to find my jacket,
which certainly hasn’t helped things.
I don’t know
what I’ll be saying a day, a week, or a month from now, but today I can say
that I think I’ve learned a pretty powerful lesson about South Africa, and about
all countries in a general sense: they are just other countries. Sure they all
have their social norms and there are things that cause culture shock and there
are certain things people just cannot understand about a place unless they have
grown up there, but at the end of the day South Africa is just another place
where people live. It’s just another place where I’m living right now. Soon I
will be used to this place the way that I’ve grown to be used to other places I’ve
called home. And in these two days so far I’ve learned that I do miss home, I
miss it more than I ever thought I would. And through that lesson I’ve also
learned that I don’t think my biggest fear about my experience studying abroad
in Cape Town should be getting on the plane to go home.
