far far away
South Africa
First, it was her adventurously curious soul that brought Jenna Finch away from home, from US
to South Africa and live oversees. Then, it was love that made her stay longer that initially planned...
I originally landed in South Africa as a university
student on a six month study abroad program. I was
working as a student assistant at my university’s study
abroad center in the United States and while I was
in the process of deciding where I wanted to spend
a semester abroad, our director went on a site visit to
Stellenbosch University in South Africa. She came back
raving about her experience, t alking about beautiful
vineyards and extensive service learning opportunities.
I was sold.
I’ve now officially been living here for over five
years. The first two were spent in Stellenbosch and the
past three in Johannesburg. Until this year, I was working
for a consultancy, but since January I’ve been studying
towards a Master’s degree in industrial-organizational
psychology. If all goes as planned, I’ll be finished in
November! In my spare time, I’m also a travel blogger.
There are a few things I wish I knew before moving
here: 1. How to drive manual. That transition was
quite difficult initially. 2. That the winters here are
cold. I assumed that the sun would always be shining
in Africa and packed accordingly. That first winter
I nearly died in my sandals and short-sleeves! 3. That
I wouldn’t want to leave! My poor parents would
have never allowed me to come if they knew that six
months was going to turn into five years!
My greatest initial shock was probably the power
outages. When I first moved here, South Africa was
undergoing something called a ‘load shedding’ and
the power would be out during certain pre-scheduled times throughout the day. It was a challenge
at first, but very quickly one just learns to work around
it. I was also shocked by how European Cape Town
and the surrounding areas were. I couldn’t get over
all of the quaint cafes and coffee shops. A visit
to the Cape still takes my breath away! And of
course, coming from the United States it was very
difficult to adjust to the vast amounts of poverty
and striking differences between rich and poor.
Surprisingly, California, my home state, and
South Africa have a lot of similarities in terms
of climate and lifestyle. The most striking difference
is probably in terms of demographic. South Africa
is one of the most diverse countries in the world, with
eleven official languages. It took a while to adjust to
all the different cultures and traditions. In the beginning, there were a lot of ‘lost in translation’ moments.
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