On February 7th, global ambassadors sent eight students and two teachers to South Africa on an exchange trip. While they were there, they stayed with host families, went to school, visited market places, and even went on a safari. They stayed for 12 days, and came back to school on February 19th.

Why did you apply for this trip, and how did it feel to be selected? 

Gerald Mackay- “I applied for a trip to have an opportunity to go overseas. And I felt very happy and kind of surprised that I got picked to go to South Africa.”

Levi Domonkos- “I applied for this trip because I’ve always liked [to] travel, and the options were Singapore and Africa. And I’ve already been to Asia, so I wanted to go to Africa, and I thought this was the perfect opportunity to do so. And then when I got selected, I saw the other names, too, I was obviously very excited that I got in. And then I saw the other kids that got in too, and I knew that this was going to be a good group, because I had some friends and I knew some of the other kids were really nice.”

Anastasia Simonenko- “I applied because I really wanted to just see more of the world, and I wanted to see if I could just get in, I had no expectations, I really didn’t think I was gonna get chosen. And then when I did get chosen, I was freaking out. I thought it was very crazy that I actually got selected for this. So I was very excited and I was nervous at the same time, because I didn’t really prepare that well for actually being chosen because I didn’t expect it.”

When did you leave and what was the travel like?

Gerald Mackay- “We left in early February, and it was very long. There were three separate flights that we had to take, and we had long layovers. We were laid over in Johannesburg and Turkey.”

Levi Domonkos- “We left on February 7 [at] 10pm. We flew to Turkey, had a nine hour layover there, where we couldn’t leave the airport. So it’s kind of like, try not to fall asleep in the airport, and then our flight from Turkey to Johannesburg, and then to Durban. It was a long flight, but it was fun.” 

Anastasia Simonenko- “We left on February 7, and the travel was a little bit tough. We had a very long flight to Turkey, and then we had a long layover in Turkey. And on the way there, we didn’t get to leave the airport. We were stuck in the airport for nine hours, which wasn’t great. It was very tiring, a lot of us were just tired. But once we got there, all the energy went right back up, and we were very excited to be there.”

What are some of the differences between school here and school in South Africa? 

Gerald Mackay- “It’s more open, more like a college where you walk to each one of your classes. And it’s more of like a complex with a bunch of different buildings compared to Dominion, where you’re always inside.”

Levi Domonkos- “The biggest difference [is] probably [that] it’s an all boys school. So it’s just guys at school, and it’s set up more like a college where they walk from building to building and they’re spending a lot of time outside in between classes. They also have two lunches, which is quite neat.”

Anastasia Simonenko- “We attended an all boys school and it was a private school, so they had a lot of different rules. First of all, it was weird being a girl on an all boys campus. And they are a private school, so they wear uniforms, and they have very strict rules. You can’t have your hair a certain length, you can’t walk on the grass if you’re not a senior or a ‘matric,’ what they call it. It was very different. It was definitely the customs or the rules that were very different than they are here.”

What was it like being in another continent?

Gerald Mackay- “It was very interesting, it was more modest over there, and it was interesting to see the differences in culture on the other side of the world.”

Levi Domonkos- “That never came into my mind like that we’re in Africa, it’s just a different continent, maybe due to the fact that we’re staying like Durban, which is a relatively modern city, and it has a lot of resemblance [to] the United States.”

Anastasia Simonenko- “It was really cool. I haven’t traveled outside of the US in a very long time, so it was awesome to see Africa. I’ve never been to Africa, that was very cool, and the culture is very different. So it was beautiful to see it all.”

What were some positive experiences on your trip?

Gerald Mackay- “I met some very nice people, and I also got to see what life there is like, compared to the US.”

Anastasia SImonenko- “I love the people I went with. I had such a good time, we all became friends, and we spent so much time together that we just all became very, very close. And also, again the culture, the culture was very beautiful. It was cool to see the differences in their lifestyles, and we kind of got to see the more lower income areas and the higher income areas and see what they look like compared to ours. The people were just really nice.”

What were some negative experiences on your trip?

Gerald Mackay- “I feel like the parents didn’t really communicate a lot to each other, so it made it a little harder to get things done. But overall, it was very positive.”

Levi Domonkos- “Maybe the weather, sometimes it gets quite hot and humid, especially if you’re not used to it. And then the load shedding, which is when they cut out power, [at] different times of the day, to conserve it, [it] got quite annoying, but towards the end, we got used to it and you just have to work your day around the load shedding.”

Anastasia Simonenko- “Definitely the travel wasn’t great, it was tough. But the actual trip was great, it was jam packed and very fun.”

Did you meet a lot of locals from South Africa?

Levi Domonkos- “Yeah, so not [so] much locals, but we met a lot of kids at the school. And as we were playing cricket games, we met kids from other schools who were just super nice. Also, we talked to a lot of the parents there, and they’re super friendly and just told us about Africa, and we shared stories about the United States too.”

Anastasia Simonenko- “Yes, we did. We stayed with host families, and they hosted us, so we got to know the family, we got to know the kids that hosted us. I made friends with a bunch of seniors my age, and it was very fun.”

Did you do any touristy things other than school?

Gerald Mackay- “So we went to a place called Victoria Street Market, and that was one of the poorer parts of the country. We went on ziplines, and the beach, and we went on a safari. I got to see a lot of animals in the wild that you usually wouldn’t see in America.”

Levi Domonkos- “We went ziplining, we played soccer on the beach [and] we went to a safari for the last few days. We also went out to dinners. The safari was amazing. You can’t compare it to anything else, we were really lucky with the weather, so [it] was beautiful, and the animals that we saw were just magnificent. We saw lions, wildebeests, giraffes, elephants, rhinos, hippos, we saw everything.” 

Anastasia Simonenko- “We did a lot of things. We went to the beach, we went downtown to their center, we went shopping at the marketplace. People like to bargain there. And then we went on a two day safari at the end of our trip, which was an insane experience because we got to see animals in their natural habitat. It was really cool.”

What was your favorite thing you did?

Gerald Mackay- “I would say my favorite thing was probably the safari.”

Levi Domonkos- “Favorite thing I did was probably the safari, because we were at the hotel we were staying in with other guys. It was super fun. It was just amazing, because it’s nothing like I’ve ever done before.”

Anastasia Simonenko- “Oh, that’s hard to pick. I would say probably the safari, I loved all parts of the trip. But the safari I think just tops it just by a little bit, just because it was just [an] over the top, surreal experience.”

What are some differences between life there vs. here?

Gerald Mackay- “Life over there is more about getting up. You have to do stuff. So they start school earlier than us, their after school activities run later, and they have a lot more homework than we do.”

Levi Domonkos- “Life there is way more dependent on their parents because they can’t drive, and we obviously can drive at the age of 16, and they’re the same age as us. So they have to work with their parents more, while here if we want to go do something, we can just hop in the car and drive there.”

Anastasia Simonenko- “I would say we have a lot of different cultural differences here. The United States is kind of just a mix of all different cultures and nationalities. But for me, I lived with a family that was a different culture. So the home life was very, very different. They had different food, they had [a] different culture, they had [a] different religion, they showed me their religion, and it was really, really cool to just indulge in all of that.”

What would you say to students at Dominion about the global trips?

Gerald Mackay- “I would tell them that if you could take advantage of an opportunity to go you probably should.”

Levi Domonkos- “I think if you have the opportunity to sign up, you should sign up and, get involved with global ambassadors, start going to the meetings, so teachers know who you are, so you can have a better chance at getting in. And if you ever have the chance to travel outside of the country, always take it.”

Anastasia Simonenko- “Go for it. I did not think that I was gonna get selected and take your time to just apply because you never know if you will go or not. You never know if they’re going to select you because you just might be the right candidate. And it was the trip of a lifetime, and you should definitely take that opportunity when it’s handed to you. And just soak it all in when you go.