Coming Home

Ben is writing this blog post from Empire Cafe in Muizenberg, one of our preferred hangouts. It is a beautiful day and we walked along the sea wall from St. James, checking out the sea life and surfers doing their thing, knowing that they would be there long after we left. It is a bittersweet day. Kids and parents all feel sad that the adventure is coming to a close, but excited to be returning home.

Yesterday at the District 6 Museum, we learned about a group of homing pigeons. As you may know, District 6 was a section of Cape Town that was destroyed (literally bulldozed) in 1966 as a result of a decision by the apartheid regime that the section of town would be redesignated for whites only. Residents were forcibly removed to other parts of the city. One resident brought his homing pigeons with him. Months later, he thought it was safe to release them. They disappeared. The next day he had a hunch. He went to the plot in District 6 where is home once was and there were the pigeons wondering where the house had gone. Home is a place, but it's not necessarily a building. And home has a powerful draw. So, here we come, tomorrow, departing Cape Town at 13:40 local time, heading home, again, for the first time.

Sophia at the front door of our home for the past three months - 37 Saint James Terrace.

Another version of home, this one portable.

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