How did the children experience their visit to Holland? 

What did the children think about being here? What were their impressions of Holland?

Flying

During their flight from the United States to Holland the children had a lot of turbulence. They all agreed: flying is really scary. They couldn't stop talking about it. What it was exactly that was so exciting, why flying over sea is so much worse than flying over land, it was all discussed down to the last detail. It didn't matter that in their discussion they used an incomprehensible mix of Zulu and English. They understood that it was the best way to travel, but it should be kept to a bare minimum.

Cold 

One of the first things the children noticed in Holland was the temprature. Especially when you consider that South African seasons are exactly reverse, it's not hard to imagine how cold they were. The new winterclothes that they had been given in the United States was a very welcome gift. The wintercoats were so popular that they'd rather not take them off at all. We had to try our very best to explain to them that it's better to take your coat, mittens and shawl off indoors. The only place they voluntarily took them off was when they went to bed. With sleepingbags in abundance and the heating on Max it was just barely habitable in there. 

Bicycles

The amount and diversity of bikes they saw everywhere was a source of great wonder. At every train station they encountered they wondered where all the bikes would come fromm and how you'd ever find your own bike. All bikes we encountered on the road were rated for appearances and quality; shiny new bikes were rated considerably higher than ugly old ones. They couldn't understand that we'd rather have bikes of the latter category, even when we told them that it's this kind of bike that's ideal for train stations. That we actually have special lanes for bicycles was something they found utterly brilliant, especially when they got to ride bicycles themselves.

South Africa versus Holland

South Africa is about 10.000 kilometres from Holland and is on the other side of the equator. The differences between South Africa and Holland are great en sometimes became painfully clear. For example when one of the girls only wanted to eat breakfast when we assured her that there was enough food for all the children. However, there were many more moments when all differences between nationality, skin colour and language were forgotten and the children played happily together.