Breanna Auringer

Breanna Auringer is an Ambassador who studied abroad in South Africa.

Briefly describe a specific cultural experience you had on your trip that made a lasting impression.

We had been volunteering at the Resurrection AIDS Haven for a few weeks, working and playing with the children there. It was easy to forget that nearly 90% of these children were diagnosed with HIV. One day I ran to pick up one of the children (Sinalo, whom I was particularly attached to) and noticed him wince when I touched him on the sides. I put him down, lifted up his shirt and saw the worst case of shingles running alongside his back and sides. He was only two-and-a-half years old. It hit me for the first time since we started volunteering that Sinalo and the rest of the HIV-positive children were sick and weren't going to get better anytime soon. The issues with HIV/AIDS were exacerbated at the time due to issues in the political sector. Some of the children weren’t receiving the right medications at the time either.

Why did you choose the program in which you participated?

I initially chose South Africa because the program offered a community service learning project, specifically HIV/AIDS orientated, an issue I am particularly interested in. I also chose the program because it offered something 'different' in the sense that South Africa has been out of the apartheid for only a little over a decade. The volatile political scene, painful history but curiously bright future painted a very interesting study abroad picture for me.

Describe your overall study abroad experience.

South Africa has changed my life in ways you don’t know are possible until you actually go to South Africa and experience South Africa; there is no way to put into words how impacted you become and how your perspective changes on life.

How has the trip affected you? How are you different for having completed the experience?

I can’t even begin to explain how my experiences in South Africa have changed me. Instead of feeling an immense and profound difference in myself as I stepped off the plane, I have gradually felt the immovable change in me as I begin life again at home. Random incidences have brought me back to South Africa, slowly creating a realization in me on how massive South Africa has impacted me. I now see the world through a wider, different, more tolerable lens.

What advice do you have for future Study Abroad Students?

My main advice is to go into a new country with an open mind and heart. Take in all you can while you are there; you will never have an experience like this again.
Try something new!
Do what the locals do; they obviously know the place better than you! More importantly, TALK with the locals.