This summer, James Keefe ’25 and Henry Hagedorn ’25 embarked on their leg of the Belmont Hill-Bishops Diocesan College exchange program. Last fall, as part of the tenth year of this transcontinental partnership, Henry and James hosted Ben Anderson, who marked his stay at Belmont Hill by delivering two incredible Woodbury speeches. Bishops College is an all-boys high school in Cape Town, South Africa, in the suburb of Rondebosch.
James arrived at the end of Bishops’ vacation before the beginning of its term. He enjoyed hanging out with Ben and his friends during this time. James described his highlights as “meeting other people. . . particularly from many different backgrounds and ethnicities,” alongside trying many new foods like biltong, dried and cured meat, and crocodile meat. He also enjoyed playing rugby against the Paarl Boy’s High School, the third-best rugby school in the nation.
Henry, on the other hand, enjoyed a very different experience. Arriving a week after James left, he enjoyed Bishops’ school-organized trip to Robben Island, swimming and kayaking with seals and penguins, and going to the Andersons’ beach house every weekend. In school, he loved his Afrikaans language class and playing rugby; Henry played against Rondebosch Boys’ High School, whose incredible student section has gone viral on social media.
Both Henry and James expressed surprise at the Bishops boys’ good-natured teasing about their accents and their common misconception that every school in the United States has experienced a mass shooting. Additionally, Henry and James were surprised to learn about the common South African occurrence of load-shedding—when the power in entire regions gets turned off for specific amounts of time because South Africa lacks sufficient power stations and generators nationwide. They both described that it was very odd to be in town when the traffic lights do not work, and everybody just has to figure out what to do at every intersection.
When asked if they would recommend the exchange to current Form III students, James said “100%,” and Henry remarked, “It was incredible.”
