Above the Clouds and Beyond
By Demi van Dijk, third year student, English teacher.

Some insight on my travels to magnificent South Africa. Presently, I am studying to become a teacher and as I want to teach children all over the world, I specify in English. My school (HAN, Nijmegen) gave me the opportunity to do a 5 month minor abroad. Together with some more students, I got the option to teach in a beautiful small village called Genadendal. Quite a remote town surrounded by nature. Horses, cows, dogs and cat walk the streets together with the locals, very calming if you ask me. To live and teach in a unique country like South Africa sounded like music to my ears, and so I went..

Emil Weder high school in Genadendal, our internship

Our internship starts this week and I’m excited to see what the children are like. Genadendal is a small rural town, so the schools are in walking distance. There is one primary school and one high school, where I’ll be teaching/helping. When walking to the school in the morning a stream of children of all ages accompany us and we all walk in the direction of the school. They check us out and kindly greet us. In the staff room we introduce ourselves, say a prayer together (as this is a Christian school town/school) and hear some announcements. We see a few different English teachers and their classes. We also introduce ourselves to the learners. The children aren’t afraid to ask us questions, especially the older ones. They our interested in our culture, relationships and ask about my tattoo (there is a strict conduct of wearing uniforms in the school and piercings and tattoos are not allowed). Some of the learners even make fun off my feet, as my right foot bends in more. That while some of them barely have teeth. In the hallways the boys whistle at me. I all let it slide and try to joke around it. Which works out fine, I believe….

The classes are incredibly big, some even carry 50+ learners, this is probably where we’ll jump in, fetching the weaker learners and work with them in smaller groups. But these first weeks we just observe. Teachers are definitely authoritarian here. They speak to the learners in a very strict manner and when someone does something wrong the teachers yell and give them an entire speech. The lessons are quite hectic and everyone is talking, which is quite logical for such enormous classes. How can someone ever remember all the names of the learners. Schoolbooks are short, so the learners share the books. I wonder if the lot of the learners really learn something from the lesson. Rows of tables and chairs are stuck to each other so the learners aren’t able to move them around. The wooden furniture have writing all over them, very distracting I would think. The learners don’t have the privilege of having a locker so their backpacks are stuffed with books they need to carry around all day. These are some differences I’ve noticed this first week. The other day I feel like a famous person walking the school halls, many of the children are waving and smiling at me. They want to shake my hand, know my name and give me all sorts of compliments. It is quite heartwarming.

When checking the Essays of the 8th Graders (first year in high school) I find that their English and way of storytelling is of high level and quite professional already. Much better than in the Dutch learners I must say, very inspiring as well. Here in South Africa they work with a tropical time table which is most certainly necessary. Even I, sitting at the back of the class observing, almost dozed off around 2 o’clock. Because of the hot weather and watching & listening for 7 hours. Maybe I also need to adjust to getting up this early as we are expected to be in school at 7:30 in the morning. Definitely must go to bed earlier as well!

Read about more of my adventures online:
https://www.polarsteps.com/DemintorsAdventures

My front garden

Genadendal

Classroom

In the morning, learners who do not live in Genadendal come to school, using the schoolbus.

Hallways of the high school