24 April 2016--for full blog visit: https://emilytakescapetown.blogspot.com/

Blog Post 1: Learning From and Accepting the Difference Between Expectations and Reality

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.