We're down to our last few hours in Cape Town, and it's bittersweet.

This week was busy for us. Everyone has been trying to cram every scrap of adventure (and every last scrap of food) in to the time we've had free, trying to keep the reality of home at bay as long as possible. Here's a run down of my week, as much as I remember it:

Sunday: Can't remember what I did during the day (THIS is why I needed to blog, to be able to remember everything! I'm kicking myself for slacking), but that night, a small group of us (including our AMAZING program director, Joanna) went to Rick's Cafe Americain for dinner. It's based off of the cafe in Casablanca. I saw that movie for the first time over Christmas break, so it's pretty fresh in my mind. I loved seeing all the little reminders of the film (the piano, the clock, and so on). It was my favorite restaurant in Cape Town, for sure.

Monday-Tuesday: Can't remember what I did right now, either, but hopefully I can sort out my memories on the plane ride home tomorrow.

Wednesday: Abseiling off of Table Mountain in the morning and our final visit/celebration in Sir Laury's Pass that afternoon. Both were incredible.

Abseiling was scary for me, but it helped me to overcome my fear of heights a considerable amount. Sitting on the mountainside after finishing my descent (buddied with my friend Katie- I couldn't have done it without you!) was the most beautiful, humbling, and invigorating experience of my life. The half hour hike back up to the top was one of my favorite things I did on the entire trip. Caves and rocks to climb over and tiny water falls... We asked Yanga- the guy who catches and unhooks us from our harnesses at the bottom of the 112m descent- where the water on the mountain came from, and he said "From the clouds." I guess I should have known- the top of Table Mountain is above the clouds, most of the time, but is sometimes covered in a cloudy "table cloth"- but it was such a beautiful, simple statement at the time. We sat spread out on the rocks, looking over the harbor, thinking about it for a while.

In Sir Laury's, we had our final celebration in the courtyard of the primary school. People from both Global LEAD and the community performed- dancing, singing, rapping, and just talking. It was great! I danced with a group of a few Global LEADers, two 8 year old girls, and a couple of AWESOME teenage guys from Sir Laury's. I forgot most of the dance, though, so I was kind of just bopping around in the back. (Classic Madeline!) Saying goodbye to little Veronique, the tiny eight or nine year old girl I became close with over Service Week, was tough for me. What do you say to a child in those circumstances you may never see again? I decided to ask her, as I was carrying her towards the bus with me, what her favorite subject in school was. She told me it was English. I told her something like "You're very good with English. Keep it up, and do your best. Please, promise me you'll remember you are wonderful, and that you can do anything. Promise?" We hugged for a long time, and then I got immediately on the bus because I was about to lose my composure, and didn't want Veronique to get upset.

Thursday: Had class, then went sand boarding! I was supposed to go surfing (FINALLY!) but was feeling too sick to go. Unfortunately, I didn't get to make it up a different day. Lucky for me, though, my uncle is awesome and planned a trip to South Carolina for my cousin and I to learn to surf when I get back- so I'll still get to cross that off my summer bucket list, but I'm really, really bummed I didn't get to go while here. Anyway, sand boarding was a cool experience, but I was terrible at it. I figured I'd be decent because I can balance on a longboard, but I just couldn't get myself together. I never once made it all the way down the hill. I was really disappointed, but the view totally made up for my failure: one direction was sand dunes as far as you could see; the other was a very distant view of Table Mountain and the city of Cape Town. I'll never stop cease to be amazed at how diverse the scenery is within small regions in South Africa.

Friday: Final class, then dinner with a small group (including the ever-inspiring Carolyn, a Global LEAD staff member) at The African Cafe. We got to try 14 different dishes from all around Africa, which was a good book end to our African eating experience (as our first meal together was at a traditional South African restaurant).

Saturday: One last trip to the Old Biscuit Mill market in the morning and the final group dinner together. Everyone got dressed up (I wore my Tevas, hey-o!) and ate in one of the suites of the hotel attached to our apartment complex. There were a lot of laughs, a lot of tears, and a lot of hot chocolate pudding for dessert.

At the end of all of this, I feel like I should make some kind of grand, beautiful speech about how the people I've met, the sights I've seen, the adventures I've been on, and so on have had a profound impact on me that will guide much of the rest of my life. And that's all true. But I think the best way to end my time in Africa is this:

"Silence is the perfectest herald of joy. I were but little happy, if I could say how much."

I was listening to Kenneth Branagh's film adaptation of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing while working on some homework the other day and this line stuck out to me more than it ever had in the countless times I've watched that film before.

I think I've talked too much in all my life. It's safe to say most people are guilty of this. I think words can be so beautiful, but can also be, in excess or carelessness, ugly and muddling. ("Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic: capable of both inflicting injury and remedying it,"Albus Dumbledore/J.K. Rowling. I like to collect quotes, if you hadn't picked that up in my previous blogs.) I think this habit of mine has robbed a lot of moments of the silent joy and appreciation they deserved.

I don't want that to happen with this trip, this goodbye. It's too big. Too important. And I've come too far (halfway around the world, in fact) to ruin it now by trying to put "everything" into one blog post with even the most beautiful words I can manage to produce. To try to put the way I feel about this experience into words just won't do justice to the stories, the people, the places, the moments, and the love that have shaped this trip for me.

Thank you to everyone who read my blog even once. I received a lot of feedback from some very unexpected readers, and was really moved by what many of you had to say. I really hope that you, in reading however much of my blog you did, got some kind of something out of it- a laugh, a hope, an idea, or at least something to put you to sleep if you're up reading this as late as I am writing it.

If you need me, I'll be on a plane for the majority of the next 36 or so hours...
With love, Madeline