Out Of Africa!

 As time trudges on Africa becomes more of a dream.  Details are beginning to fade and I am left alone with my experiences.  I am  not going to say I don't miss it because I do, but I also miss California, and Colorado, and Haiti.  This trip did not make me hate my home, if anything it has me appreciate it more (home=Hawaii&America) but it has taught me things about myself and about the world.  I realized the possibility of the impossible while spending 5 months in Africa, and now I am comforted by the knowledge that I will be back someday.  This will be the last official post of my South Africa Experience, so I figured that nothing would work better than my last entry in my personal journal.

I am a wanderer! I do not believe this is something I have always been, but I have developed into and finally now realize this self-attribute.  I am a wanderer who thrives on exploration and the discovery of the new.  This is evident in many aspects of my life, most obviously in travel specifically to places I have never been before, but it is also evident in my relationships with people.  I am not one to stick to a certain group of people for a long time.  I love to meet new people, to observe new groups,  and to find my place in it all.  I believe that is one of the biggest things I learned in Africa and also one of the biggest reason I loved Africa so much.  It was my new adventure, my new beginning, and for a few short months my new home. 
Home is an idea that many people my age begin to question the meaning of or even redefine as it applies to themselves.  Home for me has changed, it is no longer on an island or in a house, it isn't where I grew up or even where my family lives.  Home has become the place where I am.  This idea stemmed from a philosophy that I had created for myself and that my experiences in Africa have unarguably established.  The philosophy that one can find beauty in whatever place they are, from the streets of LA to the shores of Cape Town, from a small island in the South Pacific to a poor African township called Haniville... and because of this ever present beauty I can find comfort, and in this comfort i can feel at home.  Therefore home is wherever I can find beauty.  Home is Africa, home is Los Angeles, it is Molokai and it is places that I have never been before, home is where friends are or where family is... Home is here!