Welcome Home!

            After a lot of traveling over the past few days, I’m safe and sound in my second home of Gansbaai, writing this blog post from the White Shark Projects’ volunteer house! Since I haven’t made a blog post in a few days, here’s a little recap of the past few days of traveling! Thursday morning a little after seven, I headed out of my hostel in Amsterdam with everything I had on my back. After about fifteen minutes of walking, I made it to the nearest train station. The trams in Amsterdam actually don’t go all the way to the airport, and the bus would take 45 minutes, so I decided to spend the four euros for a train ticket. I got to the airport a little before eight am, got my bag checked and passport stamped, then boarded the eleven hour flight down to Cape Town. Leaving my first European city was a little bittersweet, but I have no doubt I’ll be back- and at the end of the flight would be Cape Town, my favorite city in the world!

            Since I’m used to sixteen-hour flights getting to Africa, this eleven hour one actually felt very tolerable. It was 9:15 at night in Cape Town when I landed, and as soon as I could I connected to the airport’s wifi and messaged Lizzy, one of the other returning volunteers. She and Beth had gotten in that afternoon and were staying at the same hostel as me, along with our other returning friend Cake. Lizzy said that they were hanging out in the hostel bar and I said I’d join them when I got there.    

            White Shark Projects had booked the four of us, along with a new volunteer named Harry, into the same room at the hostel, and as soon as I dropped my bags I went and met the others. It was so great to see everybody again! We sat and talked at the hostel bar for about half an hour, by which point we were all pretty exhausted. Lizzy told me that Jerome would be taking us into Gansbaai the next day, but we wouldn’t be leaving until about 4 in the afternoon. So, after sleeping in a bit, Lizzy, Beth, Cake, Harry and I walked down to the waterfront area to get a meal and enjoy the city of Cape Town while we had time. Harry, who’s from the UK, had never been here before, so we decided to show him around the city that we were so familiar with. We did a combination of eating and just walking around taking pictures for most of the afternoon, before heading back to the hostel a little before four to meet Jerome. I’d missed Jerome so much since I’d last seen him, and it was really great to see, hug, and catch up with him.

            We were heading out of Cape Town at rush hour, so it took us a total of probably about four hours to get back home to the volunteer house. There were some other volunteers that had also arrived yesterday that we met- I think there are twelve of us total. We were all very happy to hear from Jerome that the five of us- me, Lizzy, Beth, Cake, and Harry- are staying at the lower house again. It’s the same house that we stayed at last year, and it just feels a lot more homey than the one we stayed at in 2015.

            This morning we were having breakfast before heading up to the other house, and Mandla, one of the other WSP crew members, stopped by to say hi. We all LOVE Mandla, and we were so happy to see him and talk for a little while. After that, at about ten, we headed up to the top house to meet up with the other volunteers and have the classic induction talk from Tom. Like the others, it was really nice to see him again, and many hugs were exchanged. The four of us were very familiar with the WSP rules, process, and everything else that goes into the induction talk, but it didn’t hurt to hear it again. After that we all went on a little trip to the grocery store to prepare for the braai that we’re having this evening. When we got home, I put my stuff away, grabbed a trash bag, and went out to do a solo beach clean. Beach cleans were one of my favorite things to do the last time I was here, and I couldn’t wait to get out and do one again.  I’m currently sitting out in the backyard here at the vol house next to the fire, listening to the other volunteers play Ring of Fire, one of the classic drinking games, and watching Tom prepare the food for the braai. The sea has been pretty rough today, and is due to be the same tomorrow, so we have a trip down to Cape Agulhas planned. Cape Agulhas is the southernmost tip of Africa- about an hour and a half south of here- and is also recognized as the spot where the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean meet. I’ve been there three times, but I really love it and definitely don’t mind going again. Hopefully on Monday we can go out to sea.

            That’s all the news I have for now. It’s so nice to be back here in our second home of Gansbaai- it honestly feels like we never left. This post’s food for thought: “We leave something of ourselves behind when we leave a place, we stay there, even though we go away. And there are things in us that we can find again only by going back there.”- Pascal Mercier