“Amazing … amazing … absolutely amazing,” is how Professor Kathy Drohan, of the Sports/Entertainment/ Event Management (SEE) program, describes her first JWU Study Abroad trip to South Africa. In June, she joined 23 students from three JWU campuses and Denver hospitality instructor, Sean Daly, for a program it took four years to develop. The three-week journey combined academics, community service, sightseeing and group dynamics. Students took three complete classes, earning 13.5 credits and a concentration in an exciting area — Adventure, Sport- and Nature-Based Tourism. For participants, the program was life-altering. For SEE students on the trip, the country was their classroom — a textbook case of a nation going global. South Africa’s notoriety came from apartheid, a government-instituted system of legal racial hierarchy that lasted for most of the 20th century. In the mid ’90s, the country resurged under its first non-racially elected president, Nelson Mandela. Despite rapid progress, the nation still has social, political and economic problems. Drohan’s primary focus was on the present. Tourism is new in the country and sport is a huge part of South Africa’s pastime and culture, she says. “I wanted our students to see the beauty of the country, but also to be able to see the birth of tourism with a new government — how tourism can put a country on the map.” The community service segment of the program occurred over five days at the Rocklands Centre. Students took on the role of counselors for a sports leadership camp. Seventy-five South African young adults between the ages of 15 and 21 were selected for their leadership skills. Campers reflected the nation’s diversity. Whites, blacks, “colored,” from different schools and townships, they spoke Xhosa, Afrikaans or English. Even post-apartheid, it is rare for such crossover in Cape Town. For both the college students and the campers, the culture shock was overwhelming. While campers were adjusting to peers, so too were the university students from different campuses with different life experiences. “Our biggest challenge was to create group cohesion,” Daly says. Both groups came together around sport. South Africa is about to host the world’s biggest sporting event: the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Football (soccer) teams from more than 30 countries will converge upon this nation that’s about twice the size of Texas, boasting 11 official languages. A tour of the construction site for the stadium offered a glimpse of the enormity of the event. Education came from many directions: a trek up Table Mountain, a tour through the Cape of Good Hope, a trip to the False Bay coast and its thousands of penguins, and a stop at the village of Simon’s Town, rich in wildlife, surrounded by mountains and seascapes. For junior Colleen Marasco, the journey brought awareness. In her required reflection paper she wrote, “My time in South Africa has not been life changing, it has been life encouraging. I’m encouraged by the teenagers from the townships; they maintain a steadfast hope ... despite their adverse home and economic situation.”