The dream of the exchange year was about to happen. A slight change of my plans made my experience thousands of times better than what I expected. 

Creative Travel Writing

By Vittoria Caroli | Edited by Sara Segat

I have always liked to travel. Since I was a child, my family and I have visited several cities abroad and this passion for wandering around, together with my two previous fortnight study-experiences in Scotland and the United Kingdom respectively in 2018 and 2019, brought me to make the decision of living the exchange year. Although my adventure started way before the actual departure, and this aspect represents one of the anecdotes of the whole experience, I ended up in a completely different place instead of the one I chose. 

As soon as I convinced myself to give it shot, I participated in the selection of Intercultura, the agency I relied on, I took a psychometric quiz and after a few months I got the incredible news that I won the selections and got a scholarship. Finally, I had to fill out the form of my 10 preferred destinations, yet the only one I was sure about was the first one of the list: United Kingdom, my dream place. The other nine ones ranged from the Netherlands, France, USA, to Norway or Spain. There was no trace of the actual place where I lived for 11 months: Cape Town, South Africa. I ended up in the southernmost point of the world, 12,000 kms away from my family, because two months after I got the UK as my destination, I received an email from Intercultura, telling me that it was not anymore available for the entire year, and they gave me the possibility to choose whether to leave for the UK just for a semester or for South Africa for one year. I needed to come up with a decision in four days, the hardest one I experienced. I had no clue what to do, I saw the world falling apart on me and I saw my dream been taken away; but the last day, that 6^th of April 2021, I decided: South Africa would have hosted me from July 2021 to July 2022, becoming my second home very early. Until that time, I still considered places like that completely unreachable to me, and I would have never thought that this would have been the most beautiful, unique and life-changing experience I could have dreamt of. 

Sincerely, I had various prejudices that were keeping me from being right away convinced of leaving for South Africa; however after a dig into its history I found out that this country represents a hidden gem and has behind its shoulders a particular past that made it conquer the appellative of “cradle of humanity” and of “rainbow nation,” (the latter was coined by the Archbishop Desmond Tutu during the transition from Apartheid to democracy). This country is in fact characterized by an infinite set of undergrounded limestone caves that brought up fundamental witnesses for the study of human evolution and helped create the “Out of Africa” theory, according to which our forefathers came from a common motherland. Regarding the second denomination, over the years, South Africa has become the homeland of different communities, cultures, traditions, religions and ethnicities, other than the fact that its places are distinguished by an extreme colorful palette. 

Now, two years after my year in South Africa, I can say that all those preconceptions do not reflect what South Africa offers and represents. Of course, it has its flaws, or it is not the safest place in the world, but what place really is? South Africa is much more than that, and I had the exceptional luck to witness it with my eyes. South Africa reflects Ubuntu, a Xhosa word that indicates the existential value of interconnection and respect. In fact, it means “I am because you are,” and this is the concept that, according to Desmond Tutu, should drive our lives and emphasize the unity between human beings.   

Coming back to my experience, the day of my departure came, and I did not know what to expect, from the host family to the school or my future friends, reason why I spent the entire 16 hours of my flight trying to picture what my life would have been starting from a few hours later. If you are now wondering what I got; well, I got what I consider the very first gift as soon as I landed. A wonderful host family, composed by a host mom and dad, a peer host sister, a 23-year-old brother and a little Yorkie, which must always be named since he is part of the family as well. I consider them to be the very first gift that South Africa gave me because, from the first moment I stepped into their house, they have never made me feel like any exchange student who would have just spent a year with them without meeting each other ever again. They made me feel appreciated and loved as I was part of their family, and this helped me not to feel those 12,000 km a too big of a deal.  

As I always say, I am pretty convinced Destiny brought us together. 

Talking about the friendships I made there, they are the purest and the most truthful I keep in my heart. I made friends from all over the world. I met most of them in the school I went to and, spending most of the time together, we became so attached that at the end of the experience they begged me not to go back home. On my last day of school, they showed me a video they made that went through all the best memories we lived together, and they gave me a paper with a bunch of thoughts about me and our friendship. What is it if not the most genuine bond I could dream for, only after a year that we knew one another? 

Not to mention all the adventures I lived. By living in such a diverse environment from the one I come from in Italy, I got the wonderful opportunity to be able to pet wild animals like elephants, cheetahs and to play with monkeys. Every time I tell these stories to people who want to know more about it, they never believe me until I show them the pictures, and that is the moment I like the most: looking at their expressions when they see that three elephants hugged me with their trunk or when they understand that I have spent almost an hour in a cage with a cheetah petting him, as if it was an everyday thing to do.  

The common denominator of all the adventures, the friendships and everything the exchange year gave me, was the most genuine smile, full of happiness and lightheartedness to show to the whole world. A smile I wore for the whole duration of the experience.  

Of course, the exchange year is not all peaches and dandelions. It is also characterized by difficulties, sadness, a bit of homesickness, and the fear to not be able to make it through the end. Yet, those elements are an integral part of our lives, and by being so, we must know how to overcome these kinds of situations. The exchange year must be taken as an opportunity to learn that nothing is unresolvable, since it metaphorically holds your hand from the beginning to the end.  

This is the power of an exchange year. No matter the place you end up in, no matter how many difficulties you will find on your path, it makes you experience such things that you would never do back in your home country, and donates you friendships and bonds with people who you would have never known otherwise. Everything you experience becomes an important piece of the puzzle that you are constructing by living every moment at best. More than that, the exchange year is a great opportunity to enrich your cultural baggage by getting to know a new culture, new traditions, new food, new places and by experiencing a new way of studying. Most importantly, it makes you curious, independent and mature. It changes you for the best.  

South Africa offered all this to me. My exchange year represented an extraordinary possibility to start becoming the person I wanted to be. I grew up, I changed, I matured, I became a better version of myself. And yes, I am still at the beginning of the long and hard trip called life, but the exchange year advantaged me by helping me understand what it means to live life to the fullest.