My first impression of Cape Town was that the city center was a beautiful and booming tourist area. I have never been able to travel anywhere in Africa before, so the entire experience is very new to me. Since landing (after 24 hours of flights!), we have been able to explore the city, take a cable car to the top of Table Mountain, visit the Castle of Good Hope, and take a drive through a private game reserve. Throughout all of these amazing experiences, we have also gotten a taste of local life in Cape Town through the hostels we have stayed in. A notable difference between South Africa and the US is load shedding. Loadshedding is when certain areas experience planned power outages to mitigate imbalanced power supply and demand. We have quickly adapted to planning around load shedding, like rushing to take a shower before there isn?t power for the water heater (or ?geyser?) or making sure our phones are charged enough to last through the outage. Loadshedding typically occurs for around two-and-a-half hours once or twice a day. In addition to load shedding, there is also a large emphasis on awareness of the resources you are using. The hostels have separate bins for trash, recycling, and food waste for composting. Many bathrooms have signs asking users to be cautious of the amount of water they use. While sustainability advertising does exist in the US, I haven?t experienced it to the degree that I have while in Cape Town.
Experiencing the culture of a place that is entirely new to me is what I am most hoping to gain out of this program. Even within just the first week, I?ve learned so much more than I could have by just reading and researching the city. For the remainder of our trip, I am looking forward to delving into more of the business side of the program. In an increasingly globalized business environment, it is becoming more and more important to have a global perspective and be able to conduct business in any cultural context. Since I haven?t been able to travel internationally since the pandemic began, I am curious to see how I will feel differently about the experience than how I did when traveling with my family as a kid.