Many college graduates may take some time off to travel between getting their diploma and getting on with the rest of their lives.

But not many travel to Africa and the Middle East with 50 of their friends putting on concerts at every stop.

That’s what Patrick Fitz, 23, a 2010 Butler High School graduate and the son of Ann and Frank Fitz of Butler, did earlier this summer after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in May with a double major in economics and English.

He was a bass singer in the university’s glee club, made up of a 35-member male choir, a 10-piece band and five-member technical crew.

Fitz was with the glee club when it left on a nearly two-week tour of Africa and the Middle East.

“I graduated with the May 19th senior class. We left for Philadelphia International Airport early Tuesday, the next day,” said Fitz.

“We organize our own tour. The university provides assistance. Student health services give us the various inoculations needed for traveling abroad,” he said.

“There is pretty minimal involvement on the part of the university,” said Erik Nordgren, the musical director of the group who went on the trip.

“It’s really up to a small amount of students that put in a tremendous amount of work” planning the trip, said Nordgren.

“About half the trip is paid for by the members, and the other half by the group with money raised through various performances throughout the year,” Fitz said.

This year, the club’s performances and destinations were influenced by the fact a University of Pennsylvania alumnus works for Qatar Airlines, said Nordgren.

Fitz said the club first touched down in Doha, the capital city of Qatar, after a 13-hour flight.

The club gave a performance at Qatar Academy, a private school for middle/high school students.

“That afternoon, we had a desert adventure, driving Land Rovers in the sand dunes south of the city. It was the border between Qatar and Saudi Arabia. There wasn’t much to see. It was just a settlement with some small houses,” Fitz said.

Friday the club gave an evening concert at the academy for the school’s parents, and then on Saturday flew from Doha to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and then on to a second airport.

“We landed at a rural airport between Moshi and Arusha,” said Fitz.

The club first traveled to the city of Moshi where it gave a fundraising concert that night at the International School of Moshi, where many of the children of foreigners living in the city are educated.

“It was a rousing success,” said Fitz of the concert. “The 250 people were quite entertained, mostly because Moshi is pretty far out of the way. They don’t get to see live music. And college students were sort of a novelty to them.”

Fitz said staying in Moshi gave some club members their first taste of culture shock.

“Moshi was a wake-up call for those in the group who hadn’t traveled extensively,” he said. “The streets were unpaved, there were no traffic laws and there were lots of motorcycles and passenger vans.

“We did go out at night and it was very dark. There were no street lamps,” he said.

Fitz said the next day the glee club split into groups traveling to the outskirts of Moshi where they played music at schools.

After visiting a rural school for the mentally disabled, Fitz said his group visited a second school where they taught a kindergarten class to “sing ‘Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes’ in Swahili.”

When the club reassembled, he said, “We hiked part of Mount Kilimanjaro. We climbed 2,000 to 3,000 feet. That was more strenuous a hike than anticipated.”

“We walked several hours uphill, the last hour in the dark because their conceptions of time aren’t what we are used to. They are lax about meeting deadlines,” he said.

“It was cloudy and foggy. We didn’t get to see the mountain on the hike,” said Fitz.

After staying at a lodge on Kilimanjaro and hiking back down the next day, the glee club traveled to Arusha, where the club members went on safari in Tarangire National Park.

“We traveled in a Toyota Land Cruiser specially fitted with a roof that when it lifted off, you could stand on the seat and look out,” Fitz said.

“The park is known for its elephants. We got up close several times. They were almost grazing the SUVs,” he said.

The next day the club flew to Dubai, one of the United Arab Emirates.

“It’s an enormous city with all new construction. Everywhere you looked, there were cranes,” he said, adding “Dubai is much more amenable to Westerners than Qatar. You wouldn’t know you were in the Middle East. There were bars. They don’t drink, but at least they are willing to look the other way.”

They performed a concert at the American School in Dubai.

Completed in 2010, Fitz said, “It was the nicest high school I have ever seen. The athletic fields were perfectly green in the desert.”

While in Dubai, Fitz said, “I swam in the Persian Gulf. The water was warm about 80 degrees and very salty. There was not a cloud in the sky and it was 105. I got quite the sunburn but it was worth it.”

After a second concert the next day, the glee club members visited a resort and Dubai’s malls and water parks, which Fitz described as “opulent” and the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world at 2,700 feet. Fitz said the observation deck on the 125th floor (the building has 160) gave an 360-degree view of Dubai.

The glee club returned to the United States June 1.

Living at home for now and working at Magnetics in Allegheny County, Fitz said he hopes to take the LSAT in December and enter law school.

But the trip he is sure will remain a lifelong memory.

“We were halfway around the world doing something we will never have the opportunity to do again with these people,” said Fitz.