Brittany Ballantyne, South Africa

My entire life I had never dreamed I would travel here, never mind live here, and now I can’t imagine leaving.

My beloved city of Cape Town, South Africa has been home to me for almost five months now, and the thought of packing my suitcase and heading out to catch a plane back to the United States is surreal.

The calendar doesn’t lie, though, as I sit here and watch the days quickly slip through my fingers. The country I love is flashing by in each cab ride or bus ride I take, soon to come to a halt as I’m dropped off at the airport in June.

brittany ballantyne / Contributed PHoto
Keene State College junior Brittany Ballantyne poses with a child from an orphanage in South Africa where she is studying for the spring semester.

The school work and grades are piling up, leading to our quickly approaching final exams. It is surprisingly getting “colder” as winter (similar to our autumn in Keene) is upon us. Alas, no more bathing suits at the beach!

Unlike most abroad students, I haven’t been able to even see the familiar faces of my friends and family via Skype (unlimited internet is non-existent and data bundles aren’t efficient). I was blessed to enjoy a visit from my mother, and her frustrations with the differences here echoed how I felt upon my arrival.

Since my plane touchdown in January, I’ve become accustomed to the slower lifestyle of South Africa. Slower, meaning in order to get somewhere, expect delays. You can’t expect anything to be on time aside from the trains.

Electricity and “airtime,” or phone minutes, are usually bought at the store on a weekly basis. What was once unimaginable to me has become my routine. Though I’m ecstatic to return home and not deal with these many inconveniences, I’m much sadder about what I’m leaving behind.

Abaphumeleli Safety House, the orphanage that I spend my time at outside of school if I’m not doing school work, has become my favorite place to be. The thought of leaving the children of the orphanage, whom I nearly consider as my own, is heartbreaking.

I feel like I’m abandoning them–as if they need more abandonment. Some of the children were dropped off at the orphanage just days old; unfortunately, some were old enough to remember the day they were left to the care of strangers. As children pile into my lap and rest their heads on my chest, it’s unbelievable to me that someone could give them up.

Of course, the orphanage is a better and safer home for many of them. However, I can’t help but think it’s simply the irresponsibility factor to blame, as the family of the baby lying in my arms stops in for a mere three minutes to talk to the caregivers and takes another minute to say hello to their child.

How could I leave these babies, these children, these teenagers as well? Surely it’s better to do something for a short period of time than nothing at all, but these children deserve more than what I’ve been able to offer. To think of them growing up and myself missing out on those beautifully hectic days of change is a thought I can’t fully grasp.

Yet there they are, tugging my shirt, grabbing my hands and jumping on my back to catch me off-guard, quite literally knocking me out of my daze. They are used to people leaving. Some programs come in to volunteer once a week for an hour, others just a day. They know that people come and go. It’s safe to say that I will have a much harder time leaving them than they will watching me go.

“Pitt-any! Pitt-any,” half of them shout, as my name is a challenge for them to pronounce. They even sing and make up dances to the songs composed solely of my name. They are spastic and use a collaborative effort to force open the gate upon my arrival.

The days I am there to greet them when they arrive from school, they run into the orphanage in their uniforms, dropping their bags to give me hugs. I sit in my University of Cape Town classes, impatiently waiting for the clock to turn so I can head out of the busy, built up city back to the township where the orphanage is located.

I truly believe meeting these children and young adults was my purpose in South Africa.

Though I set out to be a journalist here, I also became wrapped up in these children’s lives. I came to South Africa at an interesting point of change in my life, and I couldn’t be more thankful this nation was the place that embraced me and those shifts.

In many ways, I have changed as a person since I first wrote for The Equinox in February, when I explained I no longer look at life through a first-world lense.

Not only has this place shown me a different point of view through the lifestyle differences, but it has also made me more independent with a thicker layer of skin. The city of Cape Town and surrounding townships have shown me that this world is a tough place with even tougher people.

If you let fear consume you, it will either destroy you or you will not fully live your life. As Keene State College English professor Anne-Marie Mallon once said to me, “This is the world and you can either hide from it and deny it, or you can learn from it.”

I can only hope for my feet to land on this African soil once more, to continue the fight for these underprivileged, miraculous children and teenagers.

I can only hope to stand just feet away from giraffes, zebras, cheetahs, elephants and rhinos once more. My biggest hope, though, is that somehow “my babies,” as I call the orphanage children, and teenagers (I wouldn’t dare call them babies) live a safe life at the very least.

It would be selfish of me to hope they remember me for the rest of their lives, but I will undoubtedly remember them in years to come, when I tell my own children about my favorite little people from South Africa.

The shape of South Africa has already formed in my heart, and I will carry pieces of this country wherever my footsteps take me in life.