#NoRegrets after PE visit for Rosehill resident
'But if I hadn’t come to PE, then I would never have gotten to experience this perfect pocket of our country.'
ROSEHILL resident, Kelisha Hariparsad, matriculated six years ago with seven distinctions. Armed with seven distinctions, she thought she would study medicine in a sky-scraping metropolitan city – instead she found herself in Mthatha.
She writes monthly for the Northglen News about her experiences in the rural town.
HAVE you ever tried to resist a situation, then once it was over, wonder what all the fuss had been about? Or in the case of our generation – post a social media pic of it, accompanied by #NoRegrets.
The first time I wanted to dig in my heels was last year when the university decided to shoo us off to Port Elizabeth and make us another hospital’s problem for a few months. The second time was this month when were once again sent to PE, to study at a psychiatric facility here.
Not the biggest deal, I agree, but it was far, was my excuse. I would literally rather sit aimlessly on a chair than walk the two metres to the television remote, let alone make the six hour trip to PE.
But if I hadn’t come to PE, then I would never have gotten to experience this perfect pocket of our country. I thought there couldn’t possibly be a place more relaxed than Durban. But this is like Durban on steroids! In my entire 135 days experience of this place I have not met a single rude person. Even my pathetically mild road rage seemed to baffle the people here.
It was also a new experience for me to live in a communal residence. While the shower drain did indeed get clogged with a dubious mixture of everyone’s hair, and my dessert cups most certainly got nicked from the fridge a few times… I don’t believe I missed my flat in Mthatha all that much. There is unity amongst people who live together.
Like that time last year when the hospital bus did not come to fetch us – so we decided to go to the beach instead. Or the night we were convinced we were going to fail the exam in three days, so someone suggested we go party in Summerstrand since we were doomed anyway. Definitely a #NoRegrets moment there.
It will be sad to return to my lonely block of flats with its child-rearing occupants and their pet birds after this glorious experience. Some things really do happen for a reason – especially if that reason is to show us that not everything unfamiliar is a terrible idea.
