Bola Ibidapo – Study Abroad Student in Buenos Aires

Bola Ibidapo is a Fall 2014  Buenos Aires CEA CAPA alum. After she returned from her time abroad, Bola went on to co-found the Too Fly Foundation, a nonprofit that helps underrepresented and under resourced students’ study and travel abroad. Since 2016, Too Fly has helped over 300 students nationwide see the world. 

Below, we speak with Bola about her study abroad experience and how it led to the founding of the Too Fly Foundation, and share some highlights from a recent CEA CAPA-sponsored outreach event the Too Fly Foundation hosted in Georgia. 

Three parts. One was from a practical part as a Spanish minor. I knew wanted to study abroad somewhere Spanish speaking and get immersed in that language. “There’s nothing like learning a language in real time.” While I was initially interested in South Africa, I did some research, and decided on South America. The second part that inspired me was my older sister who studied abroad when I was in middle school. My third reason was my mom and that both of my parents are Nigerian immigrants. They were international students and explored and learned abroad. My mom is always saying, “spread your wings, travel far.” So, I thought, it’s my senior year, so it’s now or never and I’d never get that chance again.

Describe your experience studying abroad in Buenos Aires. 

Buenos Aires is buzzy, people are up late, taking public transportation – it’s a real city. I love the uniqueness of Buenos Aires from a historical standpoint. It’s a different flavor from the rest of the continent. People say it’s “the Paris of South America,” and it’s from the various cultures that inspired the city like race dynamics, and the history behind that. Locals are very prideful people, in a good way. My favorite thing was asada, I’m from Texas so I know barbecue. My time there was interesting for multiple reasons. Living in the city, experiencing a different lifestyle, getting into the interests, dirty and good parts of history which I related to as a Black student in the U.S.

One thing I always say is, my experience is one I was one of two Black students in my overall program. That’s a dynamic in itself. I’m not seeing people that look like me which means I’m not having the same experience as them. It’s still that layer. In Buenos Aires, the dynamic of race is wild there. On a personal level kids would look at me and wave. One time we stumbled upon a multicultural fair ironically, and some people wanted to take pics with me even though I wasn’t part of it, an Afro-Argentine festival specifically for Afro-descents with music and food. We met a bunch of other Black students there. I thought, if we can build this equity gap for travelers, I wonder what that can do for the world. 

It really started off as a simple conversation with my cofounder, Brandon. We bonded over shared experiences. Our conversation went something like, “we don’t just want them to see the world, we want the world to see them.” I graduated in 2015 and moved to Dallas. There were these networking groups and my cofounder shared that he was fundraising for passport awareness month for another entity. We talked about what we loved and the hard parts of studying abroad as one of the only Black students on our programs. I said, “You should have a happy hour and call it Too Fly Happy Hour Fundraising for Passports.” And that’s how Too Fly started – as a fundraiser first in Dallas, then New York, DC, Oklahoma, Los Angeles, and Chicago. It was cool because we wanted to find a way to give back and have a networking event. We gave everyone a name badge and said instead of writing your name, write down a country you want to visit. We were basically raising money for kids to get passports in different cities. Now it’s a very strong grassroots foundation. There were Black professionals we talked to, and they said the first time they took an airplane was in college and we realized we had to add offerings like larger travel grants and more outreach with Flight Academy. We went to high schools and middle schools with high energy pep rally style events to get students to think about travel. A lot of our scholars are the first to have a passport and travel.  

Thank you, Bola!