Today is day 79 out of 90. My time in Cape Town is almost over.
I have an amazing support system here: every night I debrief my aunt on the day’s events, who I talked to, how I feel about my progress, what’s next on my never-ending To-Do list; at every interview or photo shoot I have at least one of my assistants with me, I bounce ideas off Naima and Mayra, they pick up the slack on days when I am dragging, and are generally just great company (especially on those long weekly drives to Paarl and back).
As my departure date edges closer and closer, I seem to spend more time daydreaming about packing up all these wonderful people and selfishly relocating them to Kathmandu for the next two months. I know from previous experience that internet in Nepal can be shoddy at best; with frequent power cuts, it can be difficult to secure a strong enough signal for email, let alone Skype. The 7,888 miles between Cape Town and New York seem much less in this age of digital connectivity, and I know that the weekly phone calls I have taken for granted here in South Africa will be sorely missed when I am in Nepal.
But there are also immense benefits to being forcibly unplugged. The itching desire to write about my day, in my journal, for my blog, seems to diminish with each second I spend talking about it to other people. As if I have a limited word bank for each experience, I am withdrawing funds with every spoken exchange and leaving less left over for the written word.
As my mind begins to switch gears, notes about packing, passport photos, and travel documents start to take over my daily lists. I cannot help but notice those creeping doubts in the corner, rearing their ugly heads: did I talk to enough people? Do I have enough information? Did I take enough photos? Did I do all that I could do?
I have interviewed just under forty women over the past two months. I have shot thirty rolls of film. I have written ten blog posts. I won’t know if this is enough for many months, until I am back home, developing the photographs, transcribing the interviews, watching the footage. For now, I can only try to take a long honest look at my work here, and attempt to genuinely answer if I used my time as well as I could have.