AMA GUADALUPEKOA-KGS SEHNDE EXCHANGE 2010

GERMANS IN AMA!!!:Being -as I have, for almost 19 years- the eldest English teacher in Ama Guadalupekoa, it's been a delightful privilege for me to be able to get (at last! ) a steady contact with a German teacher working at a Secondary School in Sehnde, a small town about 20 kms. away from Hannover, Germany. This is something very special for me as my job, for the last few years, has been turning into taking up more Spanish lessons. But thanks to that "relationship" I've managed to make it possible to put some students of AMA in real contact with some German peers, apart from opening a new "age" in this school, where there had already been other exchanges thanks to Mertxe -our French teacher and also current headmistress -, but these hadn't been longer than a day's.

As I realised this exchange is also being very special for my students in 1º BACH. I decided to publish something here in my blog, for anyone being interested in the experience to have the possibility to read this.

Our long time wished dream became true on the very first day of May, a Saturday in which a group of students of AMA gathered, at 11:00, in Bilbao's airport. The previous weeks - well, to be honest, the previous months- had been nerve-racking for me, as my students couldn't believe me (didn't want to???) when I first told them about the project - other attempts of exchanges with different schools in Sweden, Canada and the States hadn't progressed enough to become real-. This skepticism flew over all the decisions to be made. Every time I informed my students about progress in the project (= agreements on most suitable dates for both schools, on money spent during Germans' stay, on less Germans coming, heartbreaking selection of participants...), they made me a lot of further questioning through which they tried to suggest this project of exchange would end up, again, just as another attempt, if not a fail... My English lessons in 1º BACH. had become some sort of "why I still haven't received any news from Germany-5 minute-introduction to class" routine. Oh, my God! Teen students can be persistent when the time comes to complain!

Anyway, after that Saturday 1st May 2010 when Germans arrived in Hondarribia, a lot of things happened during this first half of the exchange, some of them unexpected for everybody, some of them better than expected. During that first weekend I spent the two days showing Heidi and Gabriele around (they both got amazed at Hondarribia's beauty and had a great time tasting some "pintxos" in Donostia's old part). The "a bit threatening" rain appeared on that Sunday and hardly vanished when their stay finished. It accompanied us when we headed towards Murillo de Gállego, in Huesca, for our students to practise both, canoeing and rafting, thanks to Ana's, our Ph.E. teacher's, enthusiasm. The two classes of 1º BACH and our German exchange-mates proved their abilities to take risks, facing rain and cold when canoeing across the "barranco de Formiga" and bearing both, a strong wind and a freezing temperature when rafting. Torben, a German "quiet man" in his 16s had to be taken to hospital as he got injured in Formiga. This wouldn't turn out to be the only hospital that my own exchange-mate, Gabriele (or "Frau Pape", as their students headed to her) , would visit in my company. Thanks God, Torben was finally seen by a doctor after about 3 hours of having had his shoulder come off. I especially remember my conversation with Nerea that night, at the hospital's waiting room. I liked it. On Friday 7th May Gabriele and I, we had to get Marvin a lift to the "Hospital Comarcal" de Irún. Our students in AMA had invited their German peers to train football and this "sweet eyed" boy got injured himself in his ankle. These two German boys will remain in my mind because due to their unluck I became like a pilgrim (but instead of visiting churches, I placed my ass in hospitals' "most-comfortable-ever" waiting room's seats). But I also remember the only two girls in the group, Anna and Laura, always so nice and polite, not grumbling when I approached them with my camera or I tortured them in class with Spanish "refranes"; Jan-Nicklas, friendly to everybody , Dennis, cheerful and a bit naughty, Lennart, whose Spanish was just "perfect", Daniel, with that "hint of mistery" in his eyes, and Kai, always serious to me. Everybody in our school smiled at their sight on a Wednesday, 5th May, especially when they were taken "up, up, upstairs" to the "frontón" where they tried their best playing "pelota vasca" with our students. Here you are some photographs, just a few that will be completed when we go to Germany in September.