home sweet home?

Hello everyone :)

I'm happily back in Holland; the weather is dutch but the cheese makes up for it. It's very strange to be back and I miss South Africa (I now know why sa expatriates talk about their country so much!), but life moves on and that's a good thing too.

Coming back to Europe was definitely a culture shock, everything is so nice here! The clothes people wear, the trains, the trainstations, the gum mozaic on the tiles of the train stations, the fact that people spit their gum out onto the tiles of trainstations. Ok maybe that last thing isn't so nice, but it's strange that someone would do that (that I've done that!). Meh, I'm being idealistic.

I was always so amazed at how grateful the kids in Durban were for the things they got, it seemed so different from my own attitude to life. But then again maybe their reaction isn't that different to middleclassmaterialist one, since they're happy for little things, which to them seem like big things, just as we're happy for things that seem big to us. At one point when I was teaching at Stella I realised I was being part of the problem by always commenting on the clothing the kids wore - partially because they would point out their new shoes/shirt/skirt to me, but also because I was nervous for the first few weeks and struggling with remembering names. I then realised how silly that was, since I what I was really saying was that it's the clothes you have that make you special. A few times I caught someone looking ashamed of the shirt they were wearing or the shoes they weren't, which hammered that point home too.

South Africa was very cool (at times literally so), and I only have three regrets. 1) that I didn't go on a Very Early Morning run with Sean's sister 2) that I wasted time regretting not going on said run (5.30 is far too early, even if you do sight a Kingfisher and jog through the jungle) 3) maybe that I didn't blog enough. But then again, there was something to comment on every 10 minutes or so, and my friendship with Emma wouldn't be where it is had I blogged-to-da-maximum. That internet cafe guy, on the other hand...

I was going to upload pictures today but my technological skills are LEDC as ever and besides I've lost the little camera connector thingy. But I'll be back with pictures soon :).

All the best (and it may be in front of you...)

xxHeidi

ps. Canal Walk in Cape Town claims to be "the biggest in Africa". Watch out Gateway...