BR --> SA

At the moment, I am quite literally dizzy with exhaustion, given my draining transatlantic travels and the incessant, immediate “go, go, go” attitude of our South Africa country coordinator. So, this will be a rather shorter post, but hopefully I cover enough in the next few paragraphs to encompass my current excitement, disappointment, confusion, and longing.

On Monday, I woke up late and lounged around the hotel until lunchtime, at which point I dropped off ten more postcards at the nearby post office (be on the lookout!!!). We gathered for a quick intro session on South Africa and then hopped on a bus to head to the airport.

While it felt ridiculous that we were leaving four whole hours before our plane's departure, we ended up having only twenty minutes to scarf down a quick dinner before boarding. Upon finding our seats, we realized that our program had been interspersed with the professional South African men's soccer team. It was exciting, I suppose, but they kept messing with me when I was trying to read my book, so that wasn't too fun. Our in-flight entertainment system was completely broken on this flight, so we made a bit of a ruckus due to our boredom. We were yelled at multiple times by our flight attendants (and I mean yelled), and at one point they turned on the seatbelt sign due to "turbulence" but I'm pretty sure it was just because they wanted us to stop congregating with one another.

I only got about 2-3 hours of sleep on this "red-eye" and was utterly delirious coming into Johannesburg. Due to South Africa's customs system, we had to go through customs, collect our baggage, re-check our bags, and go through security once again to make our connecting flight to Cape Town. It was a little bit too close for comfort, and I was pretty positive we were going to miss it, but I got another stamp and we got on the plane, so things worked out.

We landed in Cape Town around noon and proceeded to another bus that would take us to a look-out point over the city. While on the ride from the Sao Paulo airport to the city center, I remember being absolutely overjoyed, practically euphoric, at all of the sights and newness. I didn't really feel that this afternoon, and it worried me for a few reasons.

1) I've been looking forward to visiting South Africa for years. It has always been one of my top travel destinations, and I expected to feel some sense of fulfillment upon reaching this country I've dreamed about for so long.

2) It's a new country!!! I love to travel!!! Why am I not stoked out of my mind???!

And perhaps most disconcerting of all,

3) Shouldn't I feel some sense of returning home? According to some DNA tests taken by my family recently, I am almost a quarter West African. I thought that touching down in the continent that served as home to a quarter of my ancestors would feel comforting or revelationary. But I just feel tired and confused and lost. It doesn't seem familiar in the way that New Orleans did when I went there a few years ago, and I sort of expected it would.

BUT, I'm trying to cut myself some slack. So, rebuttals to my three anxieties.

1) I have only been lucid in Cape Town daylight for about two hours. Plus, I've always dreamed of going on a safari or something, not necessarily staying in a city. So, I have to give myself some time to explore and grow to appreciate this other part of South Africa.

2) I'm exhausted. I have been travelling for about fourteen straight hours, and I have been living out of a suitcase for almost three months now. (Actually, including Costa Rica, it'll be three straight months in three days.) This is my last country before home, and as excited as I am to be in this incredible, thought-provoking, wonderful place, it's hard to be ecstatic when in the back of my mind I"m counting down the hours to my flight to JFK. 

3) Perhaps it was foolish of me to even think this in the first place. But I've struggled with my identity so much on this program and in life, and I've felt rejected by people that I consider peers, and perhaps I was just hoping that the land itself would accept me in a way that would mitigate all of the turned backs and disbelieving glares. Maybe I was attempting to misplace a burden on a continent that I instead will have to deal with personally and internally. And maybe it's like going to Toronto when you have Aztec ancestors and expecting to feel connected to the location. I guess I won't really know until I get to know South Africa and until I get the opportunity to travel to West Africa.

So, as I'm dealing with all of this psychological and emotional trauma, our director is chattering away, taking us up to a mountain to go on a short "walk" and listen to a half-hour talk about the city in the windy, dreary weather. We were absolutely not having it, to be honest.

But not to worry!!! We got TWO WHOLE HOURS to rest before our hour-long safety talk and twenty-minute dinner that was--wait for it--Indian food.

I can't even talk about it.

In every other country, we've been given at least a day to recover from jetlag and culture shock, and in some cases, three days go by before our first class. But not here. We have NINE HOURS of class tomorrow before moving into our first homestay. 

I feel like I'm gonna vomit. No, actually. I'm so tired that it's turned into nausea and I think I may pass out. Hopefully I don't roll off my top bunk...

Anyway. I'm looking forward to getting to know the city, and I'm hoping that my feelings of disappointment and lethargy are simply symptoms of my insane need to get to sleep.

If I go to sleep at this minute, Ill get about nine hours--so, I'm gonna conk out. 

Good night friends.

With love, from South Africa,

Aubs

PS--I will have extremely limited WiFi here most likely, so posts may have to come in weekly clumps of three to four posts!!