I still remember the fear I felt getting on that first flight alone, crossing an ocean into a city I’d only seen in photos. I didn’t know yet that six weeks in Cape Town would give me something I wasn’t looking for. Not just mountains meeting ocean, not just a list of places checked off, but a group of people I’d come to love like family.
It’s strange how it happens. You arrive as thirteen students thrown together for a program, and somewhere between the trips and the ordinary nights in between, you become something else entirely. I think that’s what I’ll carry with me longest, not any single landmark, but the dinners. Sitting around a table together, night after night, catching up on nothing in particular, laughing until it hurt, with Jonathan and Paul right there with us the whole time. It became a kind of ritual, one I didn’t realize I’d miss until it was already ending.
If I had to choose one moment that holds everything this trip became, it would be onesie night, Safa playing “The Climb,” and every one of us lifting our phone lights for her without a second thought. It wasn’t a big moment on paper. But sitting there, I understood exactly what had happened to us over six weeks: we’d become the kind of people who show up for each other, without needing to be asked.
That’s the real thing I’m taking home. Not the fact that I lived in a hotel for a month in one of the most beautiful places in the world, though I’ll happily bring that up for years. It’s the people. It’s Jonathan and Paul, who made this program feel like more than coursework. It’s the staff at Protea, who put up with us and made a hotel feel like home. And it’s each of the students, who I know I won’t lose touch with, because bonds like this one don’t end just because a program does.
So thank you, Cape Town. Thank you for the mountains and the ocean, but mostly for the people I found in you. This isn’t really goodbye; it’s just until next time.
VAGH 2026, signing out.