65. What took me so long to finish this?

So why do my blog posts jump from June 28 to August 28? Why did it take me more than two months to blog about the coolest day of my life (the day with rhinos)? Why was I able to find the time while studying abroad and doing crazy things to write about every little detail of my experience but it took me two months to finish it. Two months to open my blog again. Two months to revisit this experience.

My intention was to finish my blog posts the week I returned, before I started work. Many of them had actually been written by hand in my journal during my last few days in South Africa or my many hours on the plane during the trip home. I didn't open my blog for two months. I didn't look at it. I didn't write.

Sure, I talked about it a lot. Everyone asked how it was. Everyone wanted to know what South Africa was like what I did. I got exhausted answering the question "How was it? "Did you like it?" It was too hard to simplify in an answer. I didn't want to launch into the real full story to people. So I became complacent in answering "It was awesome. I did a lot of cool things. Got to meet a lot of really cool people. It's really different there." Sometimes, of course, I'd give more detail. I figured out a spiel that encompassed my bungee jumping, working with rhinos, getting chased by an ostrich, going on safari, volunteering in Kayamandi, visiting public health clinics and hospitals, doing a homestay, meeting a sangoma, eating a mopani worm, taking classes in Stellenbosch, hiking Lion's Head in Cape Town, and usually getting my purse stolen... Those I guess were the things that stuck out in my mind, that were easy to explain.

But of course there's so much more to it than that. There's so much more than this blog could ever encompass and even my journal.

I'll be honest, being home has been rough. Readjusting to life here has been tough. Processing is a difficult process. One I was too afraid to do at first. One I didn't take the time or effort to do. Because I launched into hanging out with family, traveling around America (I've been to Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming and Colorado on a road trip with family; DC, Maryland and Virginia to visit my awesome high school friends; Des Moines for the Iowa State Fair; Evanston to see NU friends; I'm going to California to visit relatives and see Northwestern football), taking a job, getting into shape at the gym, shadowing a vet and applying to vet school. As usual, I pushed myself too hard. And one very important thing was left out - letting myself process South Africa, readjust, talk and think about my experiences there. And in the hustle and bustle that became my summer life, I didn't take any time to write about my experiences like I had done while I was there with this blog. And that was a bad decision. I mean, I obviously wrote all my vet school application essays and many of them involved South Africa, but it definitely wasn't the same thing.

I can already tell that so many more things about my trip have hit me than hit me on that airplane as it took off and I wrote in my journal in Johannesburg almost two months ago. I've changed and grown a lot. And I know that this is a journey and a process that has just begun. Ironically, I journaled all about my journey...and the biggest stages of the growth have all occurred since I quit blogging, since I got home. I wish I had stuck with it for the first week, but I can't go back and change any of that. So yeah, this is why it took me so long to finish.

On Wednesday, August 28th, I opened my journal because I was finally writing my final summary for my undergraduate research grant that I did this summer on rhino conservation methods after conducting a huge literature review and having my conclusions, I wanted to go read about my field observations in my journal to incorporate those into my summary. Well, naturally, I got to reading it and just sat down and read and read. I found the blog posts I had written by hand and told myself "Marie, it's time to get some closure on this experience, to further the processing. It's time to finish the blog." I don't know if I'll print it all out and put in a binder. If I'll show it to friends and/or family. If I'll share it with people in my life whom I try to tell about South Africa. If I'll sit and read it sometimes when I'm missing South Africa and wondering what I actually felt at the moment in time when I was there. It all happened so fast. It flew by. Maybe I'll never open this webpage again. Maybe just knowing that it's done and complete in cyberspace will be the closure I need on this experience. Maybe it'll inspire me to continue writing/journaling for myself. Maybe it'll help me finally be home.

So, here it is. My final farewell. This has been the greatest experience ever. I've loved it. I've hated it. I've wanted it to end. I've wanted it to never end. I've grown. I've made mistakes. I've laughed. And yes, I've cried. I've smiled. I've hurt. I've felt empowered to change the world. I've felt hope. I've felt hopeless. I've realized more and more who I am and what my role in the world is. In the good times and bad, I've learned. And that's what it really was supposed to be about in the beginning, wasn't it? Study abroad. Well the study doesn't just happen in foreign classrooms and textbooks. It happens in the classroom yes, but also in the dorm room, the streets, the daycare center I volunteered at, the bush, the helicopter, the safari vehicle, the diamond mine, hanging 216 meters below a bridge suspended by nothing but a bungee cord, bouncing around the bed of a pick-up truck trying to stabilize a drugged sable bull and not get pronged by his horns; it happens half way up Lion's Head mountain on a difficult hike, in the grocery store, in the crime reporting booth of a police station, in the pew of a church, in the waiting room at a doctor's office, on the Indian Ocean beach while chasing a sky lantern at night, in the sangoma's hut in a rural village without electricity or water...essentially everywhere you go. Sometimes you're aware it's happening. Sometimes you have no idea.

 Sometimes a few months later you randomly remember an incident and realize it affected you. You're standing in a livestock expo at the Iowa State Fair and see an ostrich and you panic and run. Forgetting that he's in a cage. You've been back in the States for almost two months and you're standing in a crowded room and look around you and all of a sudden realize that instead of being the only white person there, there isn't a single non-white person there...and it weirds you out. You're in the grocery store and see something you had missed, you notice the brand names all sound familiar, and you have the sudden sensation that your world is so tiny, that the world outside is huge. Your car AC is broken so you roll down the windows on the freeway and don't even mind the hair blowing all over your face because you've been driving down roads without any windshield at these speeds for hours at a time. You hear yourself start every other sentence with "When I was in South Africa..." and realize that 1) that's obnoxious and 2) you learned a lot and 3) you have too much to say and 4) wow! I had so many experiences and 5) I guess I really miss it a lot. You realize you haven't thought about South Africa in a day or two and it's weird but you realize that life goes on. You realize that something else (I swear that purse must have had a million items in it!) was in that stolen purse that fateful May day in Cape Town. You realize you don't have something and it's inconvenient...and then you remember having nothing in South Africa and that it's really ok. You feel squished and then suddenly you remember the kids in one of the creches in Kayamandi. You look in the fridge and say there's nothing good in here, and then you think...you could be eating pap for every meal of your life. You're driving through a neighborhood and stop at a red light and all of a sudden you see Kayamandi in your head. You try to picture this neighborhood in South Africa and you can't. You think almost as an outsider and picture this little street as America. You realize how fortunate and blessed you are. You randomly check the News24 website just to make sure you haven't missed something super important. And you periodically check to see if Nelson Mandela is still alive. And yes, although they wanted to pull the plug on him two months ago, he lived to see his 95th birthday and a month beyond...he is still alive as of now. Just more proof that the world can always surprise you. I was certain he would die before I left the country. Two months later, he's alive and stable. When things look bleak, don't despair. When the going is tough, when it is almost impossible to take another breath, things can turn around, you can pull through.

Someday this experience will be years behind me. But I can always have the memories and the growth. I can continue to let it change me into a stronger, better person. Maybe someday I'll go back. Maybe I won't. But I do know that South Africa will always be close to my heart. It has changed me. It is a part of who I am.