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It’s funny how as we age there are certain memories that become hazy – almost as if they were a dream, while others burn so brightly that if we live to be a hundred years old we will be able to recall them as if they had happened just yesterday. My year spent in South Africa as an exchange student has a bit of both mixed in, but now thirty years in the rearview mirror I can safely say that it was a life changing experience and ignited a passion for travel within me which has never been extinguished. It began when I was just 15 years old when a high school friend of mine involved in the Interact club (the kids version of Rotary) was going around inquiring whether anyone would be interested in applying for the exchange program and on a whim I said yes. Looking at the list of available countries I immediately gravitated towards South Africa for reasons that were admittedly not at all noble. Coming from the Northeast US as I did, I was drawn to their warm weather and the fact that English was considered a first language. I was also not blind to the fact that my competition was 2-3 years older than I was and I felt that my best shot of being accepted into the program was to offer myself up to where no one else would likely want to go. At that time there was lot of upheaval in the RSA with riots in the Soweto townships attracting international press, however as I saw it that only increased the likelihood of my being accepted as my competition would be scared off. Turned out to be a correct assumption on my part as I was accepted and then sent on my way for a year abroad. Upon arrival in South Africa I admit that I went in with a certain mindset of what to expect as all I knew is what I was taught in school. The whites ran the country in spite of representing only about 15% of the overall population while the blacks somehow tolerated this - although less and less so from what I could see in the news. I was wrong about SO many things. I was never taught about the ideological differences that existed within both the white and black populations, but I learned quickly that it was the Afrikaners who instituted the policy of Apartheid while the British segment of the white population was far more progressive in their beliefs. I also learned that the black population was divided among over a dozen tribes and that none of them particularly liked anyone who wasn’t from their own tribe. They disliked each other so much that they would sooner (and did) trust the white man more than they did someone of their own skin color but from a different tribe. It was in South Africa where I learned how the politics of divide and conquer actually work and how sadly effective it is. I learned something else too however – that it is never too late for change. Five months before I arrived in South Africa Nelson Mandela was let out of his prison on Robben Island by an Afrikaan President F.W. De Klerk, who as it turned out was shockingly progressive and I could feel the winds of change in the air. I have never since felt anything like it. I am too young to remember the civil rights movement in the United States, but I would imagine that South Africa circa 1991 was very much like that. Apartheid had been in place since 1948 and the Afrikaners were not keen to see it come to an end, but something inside of me in spite of my lack of experience in the world just felt that it would. Maybe at the time it would have been considered nothing more than the naivety of youth, but I was elated to see that in only a few years time that thanks to the cooperation of both De Klerk and Mandela those policies did come to an end and they each won a well deserved Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts.