This week was an exciting week for me. My parents along with my auntie and uncle
were coming to visit me on Saturday and I could not wait for this week to come
to an end so I could get to see them.
Although I was excited for Saturday, my week was full of fun. This week in placement I got to teach the
children how to say hello and goodbye in Irish.
The children were really excited to learn something completely different
and for the rest of the day I just heard them saying Dia Dhuit (Hello) and Slán
(Goodbye). I also got the opportunity
during gym time to show the children how to play ‘Stuck in Mud’. It amazes me to see how interested the
children are in every aspect of my culture and they want me to show them more
games that the children in Ireland would play.
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| Hello in Irish |
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| The one game I did well in |
So after two long
hard days at placement our Erasmus group decided to treat ourselves to a
bowling night out. The bowling alley
was amazing and I was shocked to see so many people in it on a Tuesday night. I later realised that the main part of the
bowling alley was for professional bowlers and that we would be in another area
to play our game. Our area had a bar,
disco lights, a smoke machine and a big screen playing music and this just made
the night even better. Some people got
very competitive during the games (I won’t name and shame) but it was a great way
to relax after placement.
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| Bowling group |
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| Tour to the West booklet |
This week we still had our Dutch Culture and Society classes
and our tutoring lessons. In our Dutch
culture class we were informed about the “Tour to the West” that we would be
taking part in. In
a few weeks’ time we will be travelling to the west of the Netherlands with our
Erasmus group to visit different cities.
It lasts for three days and it will be a great way of getting to see a
part of the Netherlands that we may have not been able to visit. Although we
have a plan of what we are supposed to do on this trip MatadorNetwork (2006) refers to Martin Buber's statement that that
“all journeys have secret destination of which the traveller is unaware” and
this makes the trip even more exciting. In tutoring this week we got to
learn about the different educational systems all over the world. This was very interesting to learn about and
see the different pathways that children can take from primary school to university
level. I found out that in places such as Finland, Spain
and Turkey that children start school at the age of 6 and that in some schools
in Austria that children can finish school at the age of 14. It was also a great experience to compare the
Northern Ireland educational system with the Irish educational system and
compare our views about what we thought was both good and bad about the
systems.
So the day I had been patiently waiting for had finally
arrived. I woke early Saturday morning
and heading to Nijmegen Central station to pick up my parents and my uncle and
aunt. They had been staying in Amsterdam
since Thursday and were spending their last day in The Netherlands with me in
Nijmegen. It was great to be able to
show them around Nijmegen and take them to see all the sights but the best part
of the day was taking them back to Vossenveld to meet all of my Erasmus
group. Everyone made such an effort to
introduce themselves to my parents and even though some of the group didn't understand them half of the time (due to the fact that my ones talk so fast
even though I reminded them to speak slowly) they made my family feel so
welcomed and it showed me how much we have grown from a random group of people
in to an Erasmus family. We ended the day with an incredible meal at an Italian
restaurant. It was a great end to the
week and although it was sad to say good bye to my family on Saturday night I was
glad to have been able to have the opportunity to see them and show them my
second home of Nijmegen.
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| Presents from home |
References
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