Back home, I've moved into a new apartment with new roommates, one of which had volunteered in Kenya for a month and had similar feelings of helplessness simply going back to her old life. Instead, we agreed, it was like you wanted to tell everyone you interacted with how Africa had changed you. Our trip- a mere 3 weeks, mostly in class- was such a great way to get a new perspective on how I do things in the states- how lucky I am to get to go to school, work near where I live, and have the ability to move around as I wish, including traveling to places like South Africa. Seeing people appreciating the opportunities that I have always had available has given me a fresh perspective on my own life and how I'm taking advantage (or not) of those opportunities- particularly in getting a college education. The trip helped me to feel refreshed and motivated, and it's evident in how engaged I am in the summer course I'm taking.
Speaking of which, I've gotten to engage what we've learned about race over and over since returning. I'm taking Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, and last class we had a big discussion about race and racism in the United States. Perfect for my new found South African knowledge! It was interesting to see people in my class work through discussing race in the states the way I had weeks before. It was interesting to make points that people weren't considering, and to share some of the experiences we had in South Africa regarding race, like how the wealth is distributed there and how people don't discuss race in the States. The ties that I've found to what we discussed in class and what I'm studying in Anthropology have become so numerous that I'm now trying to get major credit for our class in Anthro, something that I hadn't considered doing before the trip. Now I'm finding it easy to make the connections between our study of South Africa's post-Apartheid world and the ethnographies that I'm going to be working on in the coming weeks.
