Mackenzie Mantlo was scheduled to spend 17 days in New Zealand and Australia last summer when a volcanic eruption in Chile changed her travel plans. 

Instead of splitting time between the two, the Atlee High School junior spent her total time “down under” in Australia.

“The ash from the eruption made it impossible to fly into New Zealand,” Mackenzie said. “We became very spontaneous. We had some things scheduled for Australia, but when the New Zealand part of the trip was cancelled, we just started making stuff up as we went along.”

Mackenzie was part of a People to People group from Richmond. The participants are called “Student Ambassadors,” and there were 38 in her group, plus adult chaperones.

The organization was formed in 1956 by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who believed that direct interaction between ordinary citizens around the world could promote cultural understanding and world peace.

Participants have to be nominated to become a “Student Ambassador,” and a nominee never learns who submitted their name.

“I got a letter one day saying that I had been nominated and inviting me to a meeting,” Mackenzie said. “If you are interested after the meeting, there are forms to fill out and individual interviews before you are accepted.”

Once People to People accepts a nominee, there is a financial obligation to make the trip. While not revealing the final figure, Mackenzie said it was more than $10,000.

“We held fundraisers and sent letters asking for contributions,” she said. “The response was amazing, and we raised over $3,000 of the total needed.”

Once in Australia, every day was a different adventure.  Mackenzie went surfing in the ocean and sand boarding on a dune.

“It was a big mountain of sand,” she said. “We were each given a board made out of plastic and wood. Then we greased the underside with something like surfboard wax. You had to lie down on the board with your arms extended out from the board. You didn’t want your arms or feet to drag in the sand because that could flip you over. It was fun, but it took me three days to get all of the sand out of my hair.”

The group visited a crocodile farm, where ,in addition to seeing the crocs, Mackenzie had her photo taken with a koala bear, petted a kangaroo, and watched wallabies and dingoes.
The 16-year-old also went snorkeling around the Great Barrier Reef.

“We had to take a boat that took about an hour to get to it,” she said. “The reef stands so tall in the water that you don’t really have to scuba dive to see a lot. You can snorkel and see amazing sights. You can’t touch the reef, because, if you do, the place you touched dies and will not regenerate.”

Mackenzie said they met some Australian college students that teased them about their accents and language.

“They thought it was funny when I would say you all, instead of you guys. They would say they were having heaps of fun as opposed to simply saying they were having a lot of fun.”
When it came to music, it was mostly the same as they were accustomed to at home. When it came to fast food, it was another world.

“We had an occasion where we stopped for lunch and you could either go to a McDonald’s or a Kentucky Fried Chicken,” she said.  “The food was about the same as we have here, but the prices were very expensive. To begin with, at an Australian McDonald’s, there isn’t a dollar menu, and hamburgers alone cost $4 to $5.”

“The people who went to Kentucky Fried Chicken came back talking about the fact that the person that waited on them wasn’t sure where Kentucky was. She told them she thought it was a country, but she wasn’t sure where it was.”

Mackenzie and her new friends also spent a day with a group of aborigines, who are people indigenous to the Australia continent.

“They taught us how to throw spears and boomerangs and to play the didgeridoo,” which is a wind instrument.

The group also spent a night at a farm where they experienced some unusual happenings.

“We stayed in these little cabins and there were two people in each room. In the middle of the night, my roommate, who was sleeping on the top bunk, climbed out of bed, walked into the next room and started hitting another girl. She then came back to our room and climbed back in bed. She now says she doesn’t remember doing it and claims she has never sleepwalked in her life.”

As the group was leaving the farm, they were told that type of behavior wasn’t unusual because the farm was haunted.

In the summer of 2012, the local People to People trip will be to China. Because she has already been a “Student Ambassador,” she automatically qualifies for future trips.

“I’m planning to stay home next summer and not go on that trip,” Mackenzie said. “I want to spend more time with my family and friends. The next year will be the last year I can go as a student, and I haven’t decided about that yet.”

Whether she pursues another People to People trip has not been determined, but Mackenzie said she had “heaps of fun” in Australia.

Photo submitted by Mackenzie Mantlo
Mackenzie Mantlo holds a koala bear while visiting a crocodile farm, where, in addition to seeing the crocs, she also petted a kangaroo and watched wallabies and dingoes.