My study abroad program to South Africa was absolutely amazing. From the stunning environment to the beautiful animals, everything led up to the expectations of South Africa.

It began with a long and anxious journey traveling by myself to South Africa, but after two layovers and roughly 25 hours of flying and airports I finally got to South Africa and met together with the study abroad coordinator and the rest of the Michigan State students. That night we spent the night in a local motel and got a quick insight into some of the cultures and beliefs of South Africa. The next morning, we piled ourselves and our luggage into two vans and spent about six hours traveling deep into the Limpopo Province and eventually found ourselves outside the gates of the Makalali Private Game Reserve which we were to call home for the next two weeks.

A typical day for us on the reserve included a bright and early 6 am wake up to the most beautiful sunrise you will ever see in your life while drinking tea or coffee and eating biscuits. We then would split into our three teams and would either go out on the game vehicles doing data collection and tracking animals and their behavior or go out on foot into the African Bush and get as close to the animals and their environments as possible. We would do this until about 11 am and then get back to camp and eat lunch.

In South African culture lunch would just be a light meal to give us enough energy to continue throughout the day. This included different types 2 of sandwiches or curry and rice. After lunch, we would either attend lectures from many of the different field guides who worked at Makalali learning from a vast variety of plant life, biology, and dangerous animals or track animal data from the many cameras placed on the game reserve.

Then at 5 pm, we would go back out on foot or in the game vehicles and go out to watch the most stunning sunsets ever seen and observe the night life of the animals on the game reserve. We would then get back and have dinner which usually was a Braii, or as we would call it, a barbeque. This included many types of meats, potatoes, and rice. After the fabulous dinner, we would sit by the fire and listen to the cackle of hyenas and the roaring of lions around our camp every night.

As an animal science major/pre-vet student, this study abroad program gave me a future insight into many different possibilities in the veterinary medicine field within wildlife or amongst game reserves. Overall, this program was a once in a lifetime opportunity and I would recommend it to any prospective student looking to study alongside animals or travel the world.

Name: Clayton Richmond
Status: Sophomore
Major: Animal Science
Hometown: Rochester Hills, Michigan
Program: Big 5 African Conservation Internship in South Africa