Alright, we’re packed. All the zippers are zipped. Tickets and passports are in my purse. And we have almost two hours until we get picked up to go to the airport. So what now? Figured I may as well take a moment to blog.

I’m pretty excited about some of the contacts I’ve made. I’ve got a bit of a plan for a personal photography project while I’m there, which I won’t go into detail about here yet, since it might be a total flop and I might end up taking a completely different direction. I’ve also been in touch with Iliso Labantu, a collective of township photographers in Cape Town. I’m bringing my old D70s to donate to them, and it happens that they’re having one of their flash photo weekends while we’re there. So I’m planning to go to that, both to shoot a little bit and to help some of the photographers improve their shooting and editing. I’m so stoked. I’ve always believed that it’s better to enable marginalized people to photograph their communities and lives themselves than to photograph it yourself — not that it’s wrong to photograph marginalized people, of course, but it is problematic — so I’m just delighted to get this opportunity to see that kind of work in action.

I’ve also been in touch with a tribal fusion belly dance troupe, so I’m hoping to catch a performance and maybe a rehearsal.

And of course, we have some wonderful family to visit. And the summer. We’re so deep in winter that it’s really an act of imagination to consider what summer will actually feel like. I know intellectually that during the summer you can walk outside in barefeet but I can’t really remember what that feels like beyond really, really nice.

I’m really looking forward to staying in one city for our whole stay. In the past we’ve travelled around to visit other family, and while I’m sad we won’t see them, I’m relieved to be staying put.

See you on the flip side!