Halfway There

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My first year at Waterford Kamhlaba is done. I'm writing this on the plane home. I've always loved the last leg of a journey back to my city - catching small glimpses of home in strangers. MEC backpacks, unironic flannels, hiking boots and ugly jumpers and silver jewelry. It's comforting, it eases me into the feeling of Vancouver before I'm properly back and have to engage in the often frenetic pace of the city.

The last term at school has been tough and I've been desperately homesick. For the last week of school, our IB2s were gone. I've been slowly settling into the idea of being an IB2 myself. I've been talking to new IB1s, hoping my advice is somewhat useful, hoping I manage to live up to my brave, brilliant, compassionate, insane IB2s, and hoping that the IB1s are as excited about coming to WK as I am to meet them. I've been packing and finishing last projects, (TOK presentations were a bitch, y'all) and having last dinners with friends and promising to bring everyone maple candy.

It's too big a task to reflect on the whole year. I think this whole blog serves as a reflection, bit by bit, but I did want to list some random things I've been grateful for. I've kept a list the whole year. Sometimes I had something new for the list every day. Sometimes a few weeks would pass. I forgot about it for about three months once. They're small things, and I'm not listing all of them.

Tiny ballerinas at Bushfire - dancing their hearts out for a cheering crowd.
Cold drinks on a rooftop in Jozi - all of us posing and taking so many silly photos.
My friend being excited over liqui-gel advils because they're not a thing in her country - utterly delighted that such a thing exists, smiling the smile that lets you see all her teeth.
Kids teaching me SiSwati words - ant! Goat! Car! Smoke!
Getting stuck in a tree helping a friend pick avocados for his bio IA.
Serafina movie night with the performing arts kids in Ladybrand.
My IB2 and I making pancakes on a Sunday morning, drinking coffee with maple syrup, listening to the Barenaked Ladies in our pyjamas, feeling like home halfway around the world.
All the Global Politics students making a cuddle pile on Friday afternoons in the academic square before class - napping on the grass in the sun.
Drinking maté on a rock one warm evening and watching the stars with my friends. 
My friend bringing a hotplate and pasta to cook to my room while I was sick and had to work and hadn't eaten in two days.

I'm going to spend this break working and resting and sleeping and eating and reading. I'll spend time in the mountains, and time looking at the water. I'll hug my parents and visit my friends and visit my favourite hipster cafés. And in January, I'll fly halfway back around the world to my second home, and do this whole thing again.

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