An Amazing Time in Michaelhouse, South Africa, with Chris Habermann

We started the trip with the worst part, the flight. We started in BNA, flew to Washington D.C., made a pitstop in Dakar, Senegal, and then finally made it to Johannesburg. After over a day of travel and hardly any sleep, Vince and I were exhausted as we wandered through the Johannesburg airport. At the baggage pick-up, we met our host brother, Gianluca Truda, and his mother, Teresa, who greeted us with warm welcomes and big hugs.

Even though I wanted to fall asleep, I stayed awake in the car to see the city as we went past. The parts I could see in the dark were amazing, but it was hard getting used to driving on the left side of the road. The strangest thing that I noticed on the car ride to their house was that every building had fencing around it. This fencing wasn't your typical picket fence, but was at least 10-feet high with electrified barbwire on top. 

We started off the next day by going to Lion and Rhino Nature Reserve. At the Reserve you were able to drive around in your own car, following a bumpy path that weaved and zig-zagged throughout the area. On the trail we saw dozens of incredible animals, such as lions, water buffalo, zebras, and isboks. The part that struck me as the most amazing was that all of these creatures were native to the area.

The lionesses were hard to find because they were able to blend
in so well with the environment, but once you found
them you couldn't believe that you didn't see them earlier. 

Next we went to Maropeng, the Cradle of Humankind. Maropeng is a museum that displays the evolution of man with on-site fossils, movies, rides, and many fun and interactive exhibits. Along with the exhibits, Maropeng is known for its unique design. The museum is built into a hill and runs underground until it opens up to a beautiful view of the valley below.

On the left is Teresa Truda, our host mother.

On the next day we went to visit Soweto, the biggest Township in Johannesburg and the site of Nelson Mandela's childhood home. The amount of poverty here was truly eye-opening. There were slums as far as the eye could see. Many of the shacks didn't even have electricity; they had to steal it from street lamps that were sometimes hundreds of yards away. As you got closer to 8115 Vilakazi St., Nelson Mandela's house, the houses got nicer and nicer, becoming an upbeat and vibrant area.

The shanties seemed to go on forever.

The next day Gianluca, Vince, and I flew off to Durbin to meet up with our other host brother, Campbell Green. We stayed at his uncle's penthouse suite, which was on top of a building right on the beach. The area was beautiful and the Indian Ocean was surprisingly warm, even though it was winter down there. We spent most of our time in Durbin on the beach or in the mall. The coolest part, however, was that Durbin has monkeys like Nashville has squirrels.

A monkey eating a sandwich it found in the trash.

After two days in Durbin, we made the two hour drive to Michaelhouse. The campus was beautiful! After finding our dorms, Vince and I met all of the other students in MacKenzie, our house. We were put in the A-Block (Senior) dorms, meaning that we were the big-shots on campus. All of the A-Blockers had their own cacks, an E-Blocker (7th Grader) who basically did whatever his cop (the A-Blocker) asked of him. During break, we would sit in the copshop (the Senior Room) watching the Olympics while our cacks made us snackwiches (grilled cheese sandwiches), drinks, and whatever else we asked for.

The front of Michaelhouse.

We did our sport on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons and had matches on the weekend. I picked canoeing as my sport, which was probably a bad choice in the winter since their canoeing was like Olympic Kayaking. The boats were very unsteady, and I flipped almost every other stroke into the freezing cold water.

My dorm, extremely messy after only a few days.

We took our classes with the B-Blockers (11th Graders) and had tons of fun. They had six classes that they would do the whole year like us, but their schedule would be different each day. My favorite class was probably History with Mr. Thomson. The kids in our classes got dates for Vince and me for the B-Block formal, which was like their version of prom, but with the 11th Grade only. The dance was tons of fun, but one of the exchange students from New Zealand stood up his date on accident because he went to the D-Block (8th Grade) dance by mistake.

A picture of the main quad. 

One of the weekends, Mr. Thomson took the exchange students and his C-Block class on a history field trip to the actual site of the Battle of Rorke's Drift, made popular by the movie Zulu. We did plenty of hikes there, following the path of fleeing British soldiers, and played some fire-ball hockey (field hockey played with a flaming wade of socks soaked in gasoline and held together by metal-mesh).

The hospital from the Battle of Rorke's Drift.

Before we left, Vince and I got one of the greatest possible gifts from South Africa, SNOW! Two days before we left it snowed for the first time at Michaelhouse in the past seven years. All of the students skipped class so that they could play. We had huge snowball fights and built giant snowmen. When we left for the airport two days latter, we were caught in traffic caused by hundreds of people driving to the mountains near Michaelhouse to see snow, since that was the place where it stuck.

Michaelhouse students having fun in the snow.

I would like to thank the Warner Family, Mr. Gioia, and MBA for making this opportunity possible for me. I had a blast in South Africa and an experience that I will never forget. I learned so much about the country and the culture and made tons of friends. I would also like to thank the Truda and Green families for hosting me and any Michaelhouse boys who read this. I had a once-in-a-lifetime experience at Michaelhouse and cannot express my gratitude well enough. To anyone wondering about which exchange to apply for, I highly recommend Michaelhouse. It is a beautiful school filled with wonderful people in a breath-taking country.