Christen in Cape Town: The Last Week in South Africa

It is Friday, June 12 as I write this. I will be spending the day packing and maybe revisiting the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens this afternoon. It is another sunny, dry and unseasonably warm day here in winter in Cape Town. I hear it hasn’t been this nice in Minnesota’s summer. I leave tomorrow at 10:55 PM. As much as I am counting down the minutes to get home to my family, I am likely to be very sad to leave this beautiful place. I’ve shed a lot of tears here but I have also had lots of laughs and smiles.

I was asking Emily Smith the other day what her highlight was and she kept adding on to the list. Neither one of us could come up with just one thing that will speak to our Cape Town experience.

This last week we have spent time in the classroom (lest you forget this was a “job” I came to do!) and I continue to be impressed with how much these 20-something year olds can take in and process and make meaning of. I don’t think their thoughts are fully formed yet (I know mine aren’t) but I do believe they are inspired. People told us that this trip would “change your life” and we’ve debated that a bit. Are we changed? Can we tell yet? Or did Cape Town just awaken some things in us that were already there: compassion, leadership, adventure? Time will tell.

I leave you with pictures of our last week. We shopped and bargained in Greenmarket Square, toured Robben Island (former prison that held many political prisoners, including Nelson Mandela), went up Table Mountain and watched a beautiful sunset, walked the beach and waded in the ice cold Atlantic. As I write three of them have gone shark diving!

We also revisited Guguletu and took some pictures of the progress being made on the renovations at Priscilla’s house. That might have been the most beautiful thing of all!

I’ll probably post one more blog when I get home. Thank you for reading. Thank you for taking care of my family while I was here. Thank you for taking interest in this wonderful place. I hope maybe it has sparked something in you as it has in me.

The photos are of our day at Muizenberg beach - lots of snails making trails in the morning. Sunset on top of Table Mountain, Cape Town at dusk from the top of the mountain, the "table cloth" over the mountain, all of us on top of the mountain, and the mountain pictured from Robben Island.