German Cultural Festival in Mombasa

Hallo Welt,
leider total verspätet berichte ich euch über das German Cultural Festival, an dem Resa und ich ein paar unserer Schüler haben teilnehmen lassen.
Der folgende Bericht wurde von Resa verfasst, ich habe es leider nicht geschafft, einen eigenen zu schreiben. Allerdings ist er auf Englisch, da sie ihn unserer Schulleiterin vorgelegt hat, sorry. ;)

First of all, Miss Jana and I expected way too much for us and the students! We thought it is a great opportunity to get the kids out of their village, to do something different, to have interaction with other students and to see that German is indeed useful to learn.
The first problem we faced was how to get 12 students and 2 teachers from Kangalu Secondary School to town. Nobody told us before that this might be a problem in late afternoon. When we finally arrived anyways, we got a first impression on how the kids would behave during the following days: they were all over the place! If one of us was talking, it was hard to get them all to listen. The bus journey at night was no problem and we were the first to arrive early in the morning on the 20th of May at Shimo La Tewa High School. Linah, the German teacher and coordinator for the festival at the school welcomed us warm and kindly. First we walked our way around because we were not able to get to the accommodations yet. We were a little shocked when we saw the state of the school: it was a mess and looked more like a garbage place than a school! Anyways, we settled down at a remote place and told the students for the 10th time what the rules are and to obey them and most importantly to obey us and the other teachers!
Late in the morning on the same day, we went to the beach and later to Haller Park. The students had a lot of fun and enjoyed it very much!
The problems were just to come later in the evening at school: as soon as it got dark, this school seemed to turn into a madhouse. The first problem to face was that the girls were just a few meters away from the boys. Also there seemed to be no supervision at all (one teacher checked once the night). The boys of Shimo la Tewa were behaving very badly and it was later said that they were indeed “chasing” the girls! This is why we also wondered why the Goethe Institute did not choose a mixed school for accommodation, since these students would have been used to girls and boys staying together. Since we could not spend the night with our students at school, they called us a lot in vain and we felt very sorry for them. It seems to us that the Goethe Institute should check the schools a little better in advance.
The next thing was the food: dinner was handed at 10 and the kids complained to us in vain via cell phone. Also special diets were not carried out. Therefore one of our girls never ate, because she couldn't eat the meet. Too bad that we paid for something that we did not receive!

At the day of the festival, we all felt a little lost at first. As a village mixed non-boarding school, we felt like we didn't belong there? Instructions, preparations or simply the rules were not given to us. We felt our kids didn't know what to do or where to go.
Also we were told by the school that everything would be ready for the presentations. So chairs and tables would be there. That was not the case and no one told us to get it ourselves from somewhere. So we were in quiet a hurry to fix this mess. Also it was said that the stage for the theater play is going to be a classroom, but suddenly there was a big stage ready! Things like that should be announced in advance, so for us to prepare properly.
Also the timetable for the festival was totally messed up. Since everything was delayed about 2 hours, nobody really knew what to do and where to go. Again, there was no communication at all.

When it was all over, we took the kids to the beach again on Sunday since we did not want to do Ford Jesus and a guided city tour with 12 students. We probably would have lost them! In the evening we headed back to Kangalu - nobody got lost, wouhuuu! :D

Klingt jetzt vielleicht etwas negativ, aber ich denke wir konnten unseren Schülern eine tolle Abwechslungs und ein kleines Abenteuer bereiten. Damit noch mal ein großes Danke an alle, die uns den Trip möglich gemacht haben!!!