Mark Braboy
Associate Editor
Traveling across the world through Jackson State University’s Study Abroad program can be a very enlightening and a once in a lifetime experience for students. But for one young lady, her experience changed her outlook on the world as she knew it.
Amber Brown, a senior business marketing major from East St. Louis. Ill., spent the fall semester of 2014 in Cape Town, South Africa doing an intern abroad. During her time interning for the South African marketing firm HGG Financial Group, she lived in a house with 12 other young women from around the world where she was the only person of color.
To Brown, it was a dream come true for her to travel to Africa because for as long as she could remember she wanted to experience the continent for herself.
“I don’t remember the first time I wanted to go to Africa, but I always knew I wanted to travel and I wanted somewhere in Africa to be the first place I traveled to. Just being an African-American woman and all the things I see both negative and positive through media and stuff like that, I always wanted to go and see for myself what exactly it was like,” said Brown.
During her time in South Africa, Brown had to learn how to adapt to the culture of the country as she experienced things that were entirely different that being in the United States such as how South Africans drive and open doors on the opposite side. She also experienced what it was like to be alone in another country.
“Well, the first thing I had to get used to being completely alone. I’m an out of state student so even when I came to Jackson State I was technically alone, but I came to a university with other like minded African-Americans who had the same goal in mind. When I went to South Africa, I didn’t know anyone at all and I didn’t have that covering I had at Jackson State,” said Brown.
Brown and her group performed various acts of service in South Africa for people in need. On her own, she assisted non-profit organizations through HGG with their marketing and promotions and traveled to different communities to make the people aware of their available resources to those in need.
Throughout her travels across South Africa, Brown saw and experienced both the beautiful parts of the country as well as the other parts that have been ravaged by poverty. Over time, she developed a unique personal connection to the South Africans and spent most of her time in the townships, the poorer communities in Cape Town.
Her connection to the people was further developed after her and the young people of the townships bonded. After they shared their different experiences with each other, she was amazed by how much of a true community they were and how many of them kept a positive attitude about their lives despite lacking necessary resources.
“This township was full of thousands of people who didn’t have anything. However, if one person didn’t have it then everyone shared with each other until they didn’t have anymore,” said Brown.
Since she has returned from South Africa, Brown credits her experiences of living with very little and simply living off the environment as something that made her into a better person.
“Out everything I learned in South Africa, I returned to America with gratefulness because of what I witnessed. There are people who have so little who are so happy. They don’t complain about every little thing. I always heard of people saying “Americans are spoiled” and I witnessed it when I was there. Me being alone, I had to learn as they say when in Rome, do as the Romans do. So I incorporated that into my lifestyle,” said Brown.
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