25 April 2009 – All Good Things…

Thursday morning we took our final exam in Vincent’s class between 9:30 and noon, and then ran through our first complete version of the trip symposium presentation at 1:00 for Vernon, Vincent, Ben, and Marita. The presentation was about an hour long and included over 400 slides of pictures to help us tell the story of our time and work abroad in South Africa, as well as a bit about the country’s history. The trial run of the symposium was largely successful, and we were happy to have been able to debut the presentation in the company of those who contributed so much to our experience in Cape Town. We concluded our final class in South Africa with three individual presentations that tied into Marita’s “Race, Class, and Gender in the Global Prospective” course, and then departed UCT around 3:30.

Thunder had rumbled all through the presentations, but the downpour had been confined to the hours we were in class, so we walked the 45 minutes back to Loch Rd without getting very wet. Many people took the free-afternoon opportunity to hop a minibus into the city, while others caught up on much-needed sleep. In the evening we worked on posters for the Farewell Dinner the following evening. With just a few meals left at the house, we’ve been working on cleaning out the cupboards, so our lunches and dinners have grown increasingly inventive (read: bizarre). For an hour before bed, I sat doodling at the dining room table, munching on dry pasta, semi-stale crackers, and mixed berry jam as Juli worked on a very crafty thank you poster for Thandokhulu.


Every day that we’ve woken to dismal skies and rain tapping against the window pains, we’ve all remarked on the aptness of the change in weather. We can’t seem to help personifying the climate and finding our own droll explanations for the rain: “Cape Town is already mourning our departure”, “Cape Town is forcibly trying to expel us with unpleasant weather”, “Cape Town knows how to effectively mirror the emotional state of 10 Loch Rd”, and on and on. But honestly, the change from summer heat and sun to the present conditions seemed as abrupt as flipping a light switch. Over the last two weeks we’ve considered it a treat to see even a shred of sunlight break through the dank, overcast blanket that has atmospherically muted the whole of Cape Town. It does seem rather fitting.
(In retrospect, I realize that I’ve devoted an inordinate portion of this blog to the weather, and I can only assume that this has been due to something I mentioned in the first post back in January. The geography of this place – the scale of visible distances, the vastness of the African sky, our inevitable personal connections to the landscape – makes the weather a central force that has affected the tone of every single day.)


On Friday, Michelle and I bundled in long layers and walked to the train station for our last trip to Fish Hoek. We walked dogs along that familiar stretch of road near Masiphumelele Township until almost noon, and then spent almost an hour in the puppy pens before walking back to pick up the minibus. Despite the muddy (and malodorous) state of our clothes, we stopped for a quick lunch at the same café we visited during our first trip to Fish Hoek three months ago (we’ve all been particularly cognizant of the “full-circle” thing), and then took the train back to Rondebosch. Much of the house had spent the morning in Kalk Bay or Town doing last minute souvenir shopping, and people returned in the late afternoon to prepare for the night’s big Farewell/Thank You Dinner at the St. George’s Hotel in Cape Town.

Park’s arrived to pick us up around 6:30, and we drove the dark, eerily foggy trip into the city in relative silence. Everyone was dressed up for the event, which brought our internship supervisors, our professors, and our group of fifteen together for a final dinner. We hung our thank you posters on the walls around the rented hall when we arrived, and greeted our guests hanging around the room’s many fancily decked tables. Between 7PM and 12AM, there were several formal speeches, a buffet meal, lots of mingling and networking, and a fair amount of dancing. A few people did karaoke renditions of classic songs when the DJ could figure out how to get the equipment working, but the last three hours of the event were mostly filled with dancing, talking, and taking pictures with coworkers and friends. There also were a number of tear-inducing goodbyes – particularly those with our professors – before we left the hotel at midnight. A handful of students stayed out in Cape Town, but the rest of us rode home with Parks, sufficiently exhausted after the big night.Saturday and Sunday we will be tying up all the loose ends at 10 Loch Rd and making last minute trips to places in the townships and the city. We’ll be leaving for the airport at 5PM Sunday afternoon.