Epilogue

 Despite the length of the journey, our travels home were much smoother than those going to Africa. Flights were on time, luggage arrived, and there was a welcome lack of vomiting or in-flight medical emergencies. Although we really hated to leave South Africa, the nearer we got to home, the more eager we were to reach it. 

It is always odd, though, that after a major trip or adventure, the familiarity of home seems, somehow, unfamiliar for a time. Home was our given, our everyday reality. But we come back changed. Home is the same; it is we who are different than we were when we left. The world is both bigger and smaller; we have met people, cultures and customs that make us see our own in a different light. We have done and achieved things that were beyond our wildest dreams. What remains is to enrich our lives, and our interactions with others, with the revelations of our adventure. 

So in a way, our adventure, although seemingly over, is just beginning. Students go back to summer jobs, then forge their paths forward into college. They take their knowledge, skills, and sense of themselves as amazing, competent individuals, with them. I hope that this experience serves as a springboard to help them launch into an adulthood that is all that they could hope for, and more. 

See you next year!

Sunrise over Jabulani, which means “joy” in the local language