Thank you, Africa!

It feels a million miles away that I left for Namibia or starting the trip around Southern Africa back in Cape Town – well that’s roughly 7500km away. I can’t believe that my time on this beautiful continent has come to an end.

My little Julia has been singing a song to me that will be stuck in my head forever. It goes like this:

Early in the morning, at 5 o’clock,
my mother told me about Africa,
about the children of Africa. 

It pretty much sums up all the great experiences I had with kids all over Africa on this trip. And I will never forget their smiles and happy faces. Don’t worry Desi, I didn’t kidnap one  – was really tempted though 😉

Spending four months in Africa truly was one of the best decisions in my life and a once in a lifetime experience. I will treasure it forever!

So I want to take the opportunity to thank everyone who encouraged me to do it! I know that some of you thought I was just having a brain fart when first telling you about it 😉

Thanks to everyone at work who made taking sabbatical leave possible! I couldn’t have done it without you!

I wanna thank my Mom who took care of my finances and mail during this time! A special thanks for paying our table at Oktoberfest!!! That’s something to look forward to! And thanks for running errands for me and for giving Christoph stuff along for the trip! Sorry though for putting you through this, but I think you managed pretty well! 😉 You’re the world’s best Mom!!!

Bro, I am so happy that we did part of the trip together and were able to spend some quality time together! And even without fighting! Who would have thought 😉

Also thanks to everyone I met on this 6 weeks trip for making it so much fun and enjoyable! #1!

Thanks to my neighbor, Christof, who looked after my flat! I am looking forward to sleeping in my own bed again – camping started getting to me – and not having to live out of a backpack anymore.

Elke, thanks for always being just a text message away! You were a great help and so much more than an “agency” who placed me in a project! Thanks so much for introducing MCP to me and believing in me being able to cope!

And of course MPANDU NENE to MCP and especially to meme! This was just the beginning: Harambee!

To all my friends in Mayana: I had such a great time with you! MPANDU NENE! We’ll see each other again!

And because I basically just transited through Tanzania to catch my flight in Dar and since Elke and Christoph have been raving about Tanzania, I’ll have to come back to make it count. I still have most of my vacation days from this year to spend 😉 For sure I have caught the Africa bug!

I am not sure what coming home and going back to work will be like. Although I have been thinking about it a lot lately – mixed feelings to be honest. It probably will be a hard landing on European reality – maybe more like a crash. And I guess it will take some time to readjust into daily German life and it might be tough to cope with a reverse cultural shock. But I know that I have great people by my side who will help me to get through.

And reintegration is completed once you get annoyed again with trains being delayed 😉