The most unforgetable trip to Germany (Jan. 03)

On January,5th 2003 I was accompanied by my family and wishing me good luck for a trip to Germany to participate in a programme. I flew from Umtata to Johannesburg Internationale Airport where I met other students coming from different institutions. We flew as a group of 20 students and one leader (Teboho) from esATI. For the first 9 hours we flew over Africa, equators, Sahara desert, the Mediterranean Sea and islands. We landed in Athens (Greece). We took another flight for 3 hours to Frankfurt over the snow-capped mountains. We took a bus to Tübingen for 2 ½ hours.
After a rest we had a meeting and dinner. The next day we walked the 25 minutes to IBZ centre where we spent the whole day. We had a nice breakfast and we were given warm clothes that were collected by such a darling Barbara Owen. She provided us with useful kits to equip us during our stay. Those included diaries, pens, glue, books for notes, bus tickets and e-mail access cards and also T-Shirts and bags. After those gifts we had a lunch cooked by ourselves. After the big lunch we took a long walk. We enjoyed the trips with Marion and Stephan to castles, museums, bars, hiking , films and even walking on the snow although it was very cold. The classes such as on Germany’s geography, history, religion and German I,II,III were all perfect and interesting.
I would like to take this opportunity with all of my heart to thank my lecturer Prof. Eberhard Dullin fro his classes at Unitra, Prof. Luswazi for her support, University of Transkei for financial support, the one and only Darling Barbara Owen for everything, Marion and Stephan for their time they spent with us visiting places, Teboho Thejane (the project manager from esATI), DaimlerChrysler, DAAD, Hewlett-Packard for their support and all the sponsors that made it possible for us to visit Germany. Also thanks to Elisabeth Diesner for her German Folk songs (Polka) and dances.

(Dlangamandla Bathwale, University of Transkei)