Dear Irene

Remember the feeling of butterflies in your stomach when you knew for certain that you would be coming to Rhodes University the following year? That feeling was not caused by nervousness or excitement but rather panic as you were leaving behind your ‘Cape Town lifestyle’. You thought nothing back home would ever be the same again.
The dread you felt about leaving your friends and family behind sprouted because you were afraid of change. You even started to worry about never seeing the strange and silly things your parents would do, even though you always hated it.
Do you recall the time Dad was being overly silly in the Longbeach shopping mall? You thought things could not possibly get worse after being woken up to the sound of Springbok Nude Girls blasting from the lounge one Saturday morning. Well things definitely got worse as the day progressed in parental madness. While doing the monthly grocery shopping at Pick ‘n Pay some ancient 80s song started playing over the speakers. Mom was busy choosing which deodorant to buy when shockingly all of a sudden Dad started dancing in the most absurd way possible, index finger pointing to the ground and totally off beat! He did not seem to care who was watching him and what they might be thinking. You felt like the world was about to end. Remember thinking, "RUN Irene, no wait, I can’t do that! Sherbet balls imagine I met these people one day, what will they think of me? This is an absolute shambles!"
Looking back now on that particular episode and many others makes us realise how lucky we are to have fun parents. It makes us appreciate them more when we are away from them.
We wish someone advised us that things would not change that drastically when coming to University. Mom and Dad are just as silly as they were before and friends still treat us exactly the same. It’s like we never left. We have now learnt to appreciate these people more.
Your new biggest Springbok Nude Girl’s fan,
Irene xxx