Reception at Tübingen University (21-01-05)

THE RECEPTION
NEUE AULA KLEINER SENAT
Wilhelmstr. 7
18h00 Friday, 21st January 2005

Among the Invited Guests were:
Prof. Dr. E. Schaich, Rector of the University, Karl-Heinz Kammerlohr and Brigitte Hebrank of The Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts, Axel Markert and Wolfgang Mekle of the Internationale Sprachprogramme, Johannes Olivier of the South African Consulate.

This year, we made the guests wait for us to enter the hall. Not because we are “South African time addicts” but because we wanted to greet them in song!! That was certainly a befitting way to start one of the most important evenings of the programme.

The earlier part of the evening was spent on our costumes and excited conversation about what would happen later. A few minutes before 6pm we walked to Neue Aula and hid on the stairs until Marion called us to enter the hall.
I don’t think that it would be wrong to assume that our guests were left speechless by the different South African traditional costumes we wore and the songs we sang. Each song was met with long applause until we sang another, which was followed by the same applause, and so went half of the evening. I think I saw a tear or two in Barbara’s eyes (but we’ll leave that for my memoirs). As we sang, especially when we sang our national anthem (Nkosi Sikelela) I felt extremely proud to be a part of Tübingen Südafrika, and I felt even more proud to be a South African. I sang a few songs I had never heard before, in languages I had never spoken, with fellow South Africans I had met for the first time a very short while before and that made all the difference. The rest of the evening was FUN FUN FUN!!! With everyone dancing and having a really good time.

The evening was a huge success and my sincere goes to the ISP Team for making it a success.

(Report by Diane King, eastern seaboard Association of Tertiary Institutions / Coordinator, Tübingen S.A.)