We called it #SyracusetoSouthAfrica on social media—but it was like we never left home.

Our team traveled to Makhanda, South Africa, and spent two weeks there over the Christmas–New Year’s 2018 holiday on a storytelling mission to pursue a cornerstone belief we hold at the Newhouse School at Syracuse University. It’s simple: No matter how far you travel—8,000 miles in this case—you’ll find people everywhere are more alike than different.

Indeed, Makhanda on South Africa’s Eastern Cape did feel like home to us, as we told stories around a broad theme of “expression,” covering all corners of culture: egazini, fashion, sports, faith and more. We tell the stories of Makhanda in 3D, virtual reality, photos, text and video, from rappers’ home studio, to the blustery soccer fields where locals claimed a championship, to the somber rooms of Egazini (Place of Blood), the outpost that memorializes an 1819 battle Xhosa warriors lost to the English, and the beatings that marked final days of apartheid.

So how is Makhanda “like home?” It’s diverse and welcoming, and home to a university much like S.U. Were it not for that welcoming nature, we’d never been able to tell the stories we do.

Thank you, Makhanda.