Finding Community in Pretoria, South Africa

In 2015, Georgetown University, in partnership with USAID and the South African Department of Basic Education (DBE) carried out the Early Grade Reading Study (EGRS) in 230 Quintile 1–3 schools (indicating the low socio-economic status of the communities) in the Ngaka Modiri Molema and Dr Kenneth Kaunda districts of the North West Province. The study provided compelling evidence on the efficacy of structured lesson plans and coaching support to improve Setswana reading outcomes. Subsequent follow-ups at Grades 4 and 7 confirmed that there were persistent positive effects on literacy.

In 2025, I interned as a field research assistant to design the pilot and data collection for the EGRS Long Term Follow-Up study. The purpose of this long-term follow-up is to assess whether the impacts of the intervention endure until the end of high school. Myself and the project team identified 2,110 learners who were part of the original study and are now in Grade 11 or lower high school grades, for reassessment in Gauteng and the North West provinces of South Africa.

In my day to day work at the DBE, I worked on developing survey instruments including interviews, questionnaires, and exams for students, analyzing piloting data, and putting together logistics for the study which took place in September. I have continued to work with the DBE team since returning to the U.S. in August, helping with high frequency checks, data cleaning and analysis, and preparing for a comprehensive study on students who dropped out of school before the long-term follow up took place.

Finding Community Halfway Across the World

When I was preparing to leave DC for my internship in Pretoria, South Africa, with the South African Department of Basic Education, my biggest and most persistent worries were that, going alone to a foreign country where I knew not a single person, I would be very lonely and bored. I had never lived alone before, and I was dreading spending my summer so isolated from everyone I knew.

Little did I know, however, that I would end up finding so many wonderful communities of like-minded people halfway around the world to connect with, spend time with, and explore my new city and country alongside. From my wonderful coworkers in the Research Coordination, Monitoring, and Evaluation Office, to the hiking club I found online, to the free 5K I would run and volunteer with every Saturday, I found friendly faces everywhere I went.

My biggest culture shock in coming to Pretoria was in fact this very friendliness. Much like the Midwestern United States, every conversation, no matter how average or short, begins with “Hello, how are you?” and people scold you if you forget to pleasantly greet them before diving into business. This is true not only for your coworkers, but for store clerks, taxi drivers, and everyone else you meet. Having spent the last few years of my life in DC, I have to say that getting into the habit of greeting people took some conscious effort; all I want to do is dive right in and get to the point!

However, it is that deeply ingrained culture of friendliness that has made Pretoria such a wonderful place for me to live. Despite being a foreigner who is only in South Africa for three months, people are warm and welcoming, inviting me to their homes, on outings, and to generally share in the joys of life.

The first community I connected with here were my coworkers. Our office is quite small, with only 12 people including myself. Over lunches, coffee breaks, and between meetings, I began to get to know my coworkers very quickly. 

After a couple of weeks, I was getting invitations to dinners, going to plays with my coworkers, and generally feeling at home. Our age gap was no barrier and they are among the people I will miss most upon leaving.

Even at work, we manage to have fun. In one week of June we had no less than three birthday celebrations (which seems statistically unlikely, but hey), decorating desks, eating cake, and generally bringing a celebratory flair to the office.

During fieldwork, my coworkers and I have also made efforts to have fun, and they have been wonderful hosts to me in their country. While driving back from a school a couple of hours from Pretoria, my coworker, Lebo, suggested we take a pit-stop in Soweto (South-Western Township), where she had lived for almost a decade. We parked at her aunt’s house and went walking around, seeing the Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu Houses, Hector Pieterson Square, and much more. After we left there, we continued on a driving tour then went to pick up her two young kids from school. They were so excited for the surprise of seeing their mother early on a Friday afternoon! 

Aside from work, I have also been able to create great connections with members of the wider Pretoria community. On my first Saturday here, I braved the cold and woke up at the crack of dawn to go to the local Parkrun which takes place in Pretoria’s Botanical Gardens. Every Saturday at 8 AM, hundreds of people gather for this free, timed 5K. At the end of my run, I introduced myself to the volunteers and offered to stay behind to help with the event clean-up. We took to one another immediately (despite many of them being older than my parents), and they invited me to join them for coffee after the event.

Every weekend since, I have woken up to go to Parkrun, run the route, volunteered in some capacity (whether as a walker along the route, with cleanup, or in token sorting), and joined the other volunteers for coffee. I have also gone on many other excursions with the volunteers I have grown most close to. 

One of them, Xuan, is an eighteen year old who just finished high school, and is leaving for the U.S. where she will be an au paire for a year. She and I spent a lovely afternoon having a picnic at the Union Building Gardens, where there is an enormous statue of Nelson Mandela. We had a wonderful time discussing cultural differences, our favorite shows, and the state of modern music. When she left for the U.S., I joined her and her family and friends at her house and wished her farewell with a braai (a South African barbeque). Once she left, I joined her mother frequently at her church in Pretoria’s suburbs for Sunday morning services.

Two of the other volunteers, Peter and Ann, were among the first to welcome me. They take on a lot of the heavy-lifting for organizing the run each week, and it seems they do a lot of other work in their community as well. One weekend in early July, I departed from the run with them to go to their adopted nature reserve where they help to eradicate invasive plants and lead local groups on nature walks. It was lovely to see another side of Pretoria with people I have grown close with.

Another group I have found community with here in Pretoria is the Centurion Hiking Club. A few weeks into my time in Pretoria, I joined them for a local hike just a few kilometers from my apartment. At first, I didn’t know what to think of the group. The first hike I joined was an easy, social hike, and it was a group of mostly retired Afrikaans couples. I still had a great time getting out into nature and talking to new people, so I took the leap and decided to go on a bigger and more out-of-the-way hike with them a couple of weeks later.

And I am so glad that I did! My time with the Centurion Hiking Club has been among my most rewarding social exploits. The two leading guides are a married couple with two children about my own age. They have often offered to help drive me to the further hikes (I do not have a car here), and they have been incredibly welcoming, inviting me along to other events. 

I have also been able to meet lots of other interesting people on my hikes with this group. In a great surprise, I even did one hike with a woman I had met at a work event a couple of weeks prior. She and I had a great time talking about our passion for our work, and sharing some of our favorite recipes while we hiked. Turns out Pretoria is a pretty small city, I suppose! We ended up meeting for a coffee chat during my last weeks in the city where she introduced me to her colleagues at Room to Read South Africa. 

All of these wonderful connections, whether through work, through Parkrun, or through hiking, have been incredibly meaningful and have made my time here in South Africa truly special. Even though everyone I meet knows I will be leaving the country after only three months, they are still eager to get to know me, and I am having a wonderful time getting to know them more as well. Some days, I reflect and laugh at the fact that I haven’t heard an American accent like my own in days. I will return to the U.S. shocked when no one refers to traffic lights as robots, throws in random words from Sepedi or IsiXulu, or says ‘Eeesh’ to express general frustration.

Ultimately, I have truly come to love South Africa and to rely on all the people whom I have met here.