Taking a bit of Manyana

I had a very quick and unemotional goodbye with my Manyana host family at seven this morning. I was disappointed with my stay and myself, not because anything went particularly wrong, I had quite the uneventful stay in comparison to my other classmates. Rather I was disappointed because I felt that I had failed to make a deep connection with my host family or any members of the Manyana community. Many times I allowed myself to fall to the background during group interactions with new people for different reasons but all can be simply categorized under discomfort. As I clean out my room I thought over how I would appropriately thank and say goodbye to my host mother, although we didn’t bond much, she opened her home and family to me for a month and really cared for me when I got sick. But just as I was thinking think over Mme called me asking where was I because the kombi was at the school and I wasn’t. I rushed through the small village on the cloudiest I’ve experienced in Manyana, quickly giving greetings of Dumela as always getting a few extra strange looks because I was carrying my life on my back, my mother shouted a greeting to me as I passed the clinic, I quickly waved thinking I would return to hug her goodbye. When I made it to the school all the children and women that I interacted with on the daily and my classmates were waiting, upon seeing me quick final goodbyes were said and everyone entered the kombi. I dropped my things and began a second round of what I thought would be unemotional goodbyes however, I was met by Kabo’s (Cameron) host mother who stopped hugged me tightly giving me well wishes holding me close. Her eyes were filled with joy to have met and that was simply enough to valuate the whole month I spent in the village of Manyana. Then we were off! Too bad in the hurried exit (everyone had been anxiously awaiting or exit from Manyana for a few days now) I forgot to give my mme a hug and more importantly the house keys!