The title post photo is of the day Jon and I spent in the long-term storage facility in Sterling, VA, claiming and identifying three years of our lives, which were packed away in 12 giant crates, stacked like the last scene of the movie, The Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Sadly, our adventure in South Africa has officially ended. We have settled in Reston, Virginia after a trans-Atlantic move, which included: having to travel without our kitty cat and collecting him at a later date from Customs; spending the summer in a corporate apartment while we navigated the crazy real estate rental market in the DC area; having Jonathan live with us for his summer internship in DC when we haven't all lived together for three years (woohoo!); and trying to re-adjust to life driving in the right-hand lane in the left-side seat of the car.
However, life is slowly returning to normal - I am back teaching at Williamsburg Middle School in Arlington, VA, where I worked for one semester before moving to SA. I was incredibly fortunate to be re-hired in such an excellent school system and wonderful school. Jonathan is back for his second year of law school at William and Mary. Jon is back to his directorship of global accounts and has already returned to Africa twice since moving back. His first trip back in August found him stranded a day or so after the Nairobi, Kenya airport burned to the ground the day he was scheduled to fly in from Jo'burg. He made the trip back this week and reported that he cleared Immigration and Customs in tents erected on the site of the old burned-out terminal.
I say that life has returned to normal but honestly, my "normal" has been forever changed by an incredible 30 months in the Republic of South Africa. I am not eloquent enough to explain further but I hope all my previous posts hint at my meaning.
There is a huge part of me that will always belong to South Africa and its people, its animals, its beauty, its history, and its future. Even now, into September, South Africa still feels more like home to me than the US does, and I think I speak for Jon when I say that we would both have stayed longer if we could have.
People say you can never go home. But home isn't a place. It's a feeling. A feeling that comes from being a part of a community, a culture, a family. Right now - our address might be Reston, Virginia, but our home is still in South Africa.
All our best, Jon and Jody
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