Three Year 6 girls from St Pirans Independent Prep School in Maidenhead, England, arrived on Friday, 3 February to spend 2 weeks on exchange at St John’s D.S.G. Miss Petra Wiesinger, our Junior School Headmistress, along with our hosting girls (Kate Foss, Jessica Dickason and Kiara Rampersad) and their families, were at the airport with a huge “welcome” sign to greet the girls. We caught up with Poppy, Lyra and Erin to find out how their experience has been so far. (Erin has unfortunately been sick with a chest infection and therefore hasn’t been able to attend school for most of the week).
Have you enjoyed your time at St John’s D.S.G. so far?
Poppy: Yes, but school is very different here to how it is in the UK. We finish school at 16h10 and then have compulsory sport until 17h10. School finishes much earlier in South Africa!
Lyra: Yeah, school is definitely more relaxed in South Africa! I’m enjoying my time at St John’s D.S.G. because there aren’t any boys – only girls! Boys can be really annoying sometimes. There are 18 pupils in our class and 12 of them are boys!
How have you found South Africa so far?
Poppy: The heat was quite a shock for me – I wasn’t expecting it to be this hot. At the moment, it’s really cold in the UK. It’s rainy and the skies are grey all the time!
Lyra: South Africa is a lot hotter than I expected. It’s much better than I expected as well. The food is really nice. I am staying with Kiara [Rampersad] and her family owns a restaurant so I have really nice food every night!
Erin: South Africa is so hot! Last weekend, before I was sick, I had fun with Kate and her family sight-seeing. We [the St Pirans girls and their hosting families] spent time at Piggly Wiggly last weekend. On Saturday night, we had a braai and I tried phutu for the first time. It was really nice!
Some of the words or phrases that we say in South Africa aren’t used anywhere else in the world. Have you been confused at all by some of the words you’ve heard?
Lyra: Kiara’s mum asked us to put our ‘takkies’ on and I didn’t know what she meant. She tried to explain to me by saying “clothes shoes” but then I thought she meant socks! Eventually, we figured out that ‘takkies’ are trainers.
