Thursday 5 June 2014

Home is where the heart is

But where is my heart then? Not sure...

A couple of days ago, I arrived back in Belgium. Even though this is already the third time I came home from MUWCI, it still feels strange.
One of a sudden, you're just there: you walk out of the terminal and there your family is and then you're in the car, on those silent and clean and green roads, and then you're at home again, eating your favourite food and after a few hours, when the excitement faded away, it seems as if you've never left. The 'cool' kids at school still feel too cool to acknowledge your existence and the headmaster thinks you're still a student at his school. After five amazing minutes of running towards your friends again and hugging and smiling, the endless conversations about guys, parents and other annoying people start again and you still try to avoid the secretaries while wandering through the schoolhalls during classes. While biking home from school, just like you did all those years, you ignore the red traffic light and walk the last part, because man, it was an exhausting day, too exhausting to bike uphill.
The only difference is that you are the only one who doesn't have to go to school and who doesn't have to study for exams. So after you helped your brother with his history homework and finally emptied that suitcase and played the piano for half an hour, you get bored. You're sitting home alone while everyone is at school or at work and you start thinking... thinking of MUWCI, missing MUWCI.
Missing tea at 2, 3, 4, 5, 8 and 10 pm, missing your roommates and the sound of the fan (because damn, the silence here creeps you out), missing the sun (covered in three sweaters and a scarf, even though it is 20 degrees, 'such a nice weather today', says everyone), missing the hill and its people and its everything. And you start saying to yourself: if I don't figure out something to do soon, I'm going to get crazy.

But then, you have a message on facebook from your Finish friend ('Hey, I'm bored, can I come visit you?') and your Polish friend tells you she'll probably come over sometime and your plans to go to a festival with a bunch of friends from MUWCI and home become more and more concrete and in two weeks, you'll see your secondyear again at the UWC Belgium cocktail.

You realize that MUWCI doesn't end, never ends. That wherever you are, MUWCI is there, because you are MUWCI. A smile on your face appears again, you're happy to be home, home is where the heart is, MUWCI is where the heart is, home is where MUWCI is, MUWCI is home, home is here, here is MUWCI, MUWCI is everywhere, home is everywhere, you're home, welcome home again, we've missed you, have a beer, have some chocolate, you're home.

Right now I'm gonna go back to being bored, to sending snapchats to my friends all over the world and watching TV, because, well, I can. Have a beer, have some chocolate, you're home. Welcome home.