This post is a bit late. I actually left on Monday, and flew the hour long journey from the teensy George airport to the more substantial Cape Town one. But it's my blog and I can do what I like.
In a word? Magical. I know, what a cliche, but being out under African sunrises, walking side by side with these enormous and awe-inspiring creatures, being plonked into a complex, vibrant community and making friends for life from volunteers and staff alike... well, that tends to lean towards magical. And then there were the weekends: partying with volunteers, walking with cheetahs, visiting bird and monkey sanctuaries, road tripping to Addo and seeing lions a couple of meters away, exploring little fishing towns and markets, eating lots and lots and lots of good food. What can I say? Would recommend.
And then being able to do something, to gather funds from home and buy toys, books, games, CDs, DVDs and more for the local children's shelter, and then to give these things to them and see how they appreciate it. And suspecting that somewhere in you something has sparked, that there isn't a tear-here line between your life and theirs, that you are linked in something good and that - inevitably - you have to honour that. And in the back of your mind, thinking 'what else can I do when I get home?'
Because Africa gets in your soul. It gets in your bloodstream and sends around you a stream of fascination and frustration but most of all love. Love that radiates from the soil and the sky. And as I find myself trying and trying to understand even a fraction of this country, its complexity and its sorrows, I feel my own roots stretching down into African turf. After all, it's my past too. It's ours.
So thank you for one of the best months of my life. Within the best year of my life.
I'll be here in the morning.
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