Christmas in South-Africa
It is summer in South-Africa. ‘Finally, better weather is coming’, Elisa de Vries says. She finds it a bit strange though, because she never experienced a visit to the beach during Christmas before.
Theewaterskloof
Although she finds life here great, the third-year student from the Teacher Training College Groenewoud isn’t here on holidays, but for her minor internationalisation.
The HAN has its own development project in the municipality Theewaterskloof in South-Africa, and there, in the city Grabouw, Elisa works with children of agricultural labourers at a farmschool for three days. Last year she followed parts of the minor Special Needs, and the knowledge she received she can use here. At school, the children with arrears just sit and dangle a bit. Elisa, therefore, gives extra support to those children, especially reading lessons. She has mastered the South-African language quite well. ‘Baie dankie’ you could hear her say, thank you very much. It is a bit difficult that my reports also often contain African terms.’
Hope
Elisa works in the Village of Hope once a week, a house for ten children till the age of 9. These are poor children, who often are abandoned or HIV-infected. Elisa accompanies Ruben, a boy aged 9. The house is dependant on gifts and charity. ‘It is so nice to see how a real home is created here for the children.’
Christmas
Elisa lives in some sort of student residence of the HAN, with two girls who do the same study and three others from Social Studies. ‘It is very nice here, we do a lot together and we can all speak our minds.’ During Christmas, most of the girls are away, only Elisa and Ilse are left over in the house. ‘Because it is such nice weather here, we hardly have the feeling it will be Christmas soon,’ she says. ‘On Christmas Eve we are invited to eat turkey with the teachers of my school. First we will be collected that evening to visit the church. On Christmas Day I’m going to the Village of Hope. We bought presents for the children. After a ‘braai’ with the children we will go to the beach. It’s five minutes from here.’
Just a normal New Years Eve
'On New Years Eve we wanted to go to a great party in Cape Town, but when we heared that the entry costed us fifty euros, we’d rather make other plans. We have almost spend all our money by now. We are going to Cape Town, without a big party. With the whole group and a few parents. Nothing special, we are going to Longstreet to celebrate the new year there. ‘But it remains strange, those feast days. It was the same with ‘Sinterklaas’. I received several presents and poems by post.
Elisa has a weblog, check it out here.
