I arrived in Cape Town late at night, and was welcomed to an empty apartment when I crashed from 2 days of non-stop traveling. The next day I made countless new friends, and by the next week I had started my internship at a small tertiary institution 15 minutes out of town. Over the next three months I would learn more and grow more than I had thought possible. At my internship I mentored entrepreneurs from the surrounding communities in various business concepts like marketing and finance. I also created a user-friendly financial administration template and quote/invoice template using Excel, and was able to teach entrepreneurs how to use these templates to keep track of their company’s finances. At my internship I cultivated relationships with my coworkers and the people we mentored, and those friendships have continued to this day. My internship was the most meaningful work I’ve ever done and I looked forward to every day I spent working there. Outside of work a different adventure was planned every weekend. Whether it was taking a cab to Long Street, having drinks in Camps Bay, experiencing the Khayelitsha and Langa townships, planning a road trip to go bungy jumping, walking to the stadium to see a World Cup game, bartering for souvenirs at Greenmarket square, eating baguettes and Belgium waffles at the Neighbourgoods Market, getting up at 5AM to go cage diving with great white sharks, being chased by squirrels at the Company’s Gardens, watching the sunset at Chapman’s Peak, dodging baboons at the Cape of Good Hope, hiking Table Mountain (and taking the cable car down when you’re too tired to hike more), talking to locals on the train to Muizenberg, figuring out which minibus taxi will take you to Bellville, enjoying boerewors at countless braais, cleaning every Pick n Pay in Cape Town out of canned clams to make clam chowder, checking out the many museums near the apartment, learning how to pronounce words in Xhosa (clicking and all), learning to greet your coworkers in Afrikaans, seeing Nelson Mandela’s cell on Robben Island, enjoying giant avocados for 3 Rand, or simply going down to Mugged and talking with Eugene over a beer or coffee, every day was sure to be a new experience. I looked for an internship in South Africa to have a taste of what it would be like to work in a developing country. I’m preparing to leave for Western Africa soon for the Peace Corps, and my internship in Cape Town gave me great experience for my future volunteer position as a business advisor. Thank you Connect-123 and Eimear for giving me the experience of a lifetime, I can’t wait to come back to South Africa someday!