Dear Kurus-Team

We really enjoyed the time we spent with you in Cape Town.
It as a wonderful experience for all of us and we will never forget this trip.
Thank you very much for your support and we wish you all the best for the future!

We hope to come back soon!

The FEJO group April 2009
Anika, Anna-Lisa, Stefan, Jennifa, Sonja, Martin

In this weeks Language Excursion of “Youth & Education” we discovered some of the differences between high schools in different neighbourhoods of Cape Town.

We started with Sarepta high school, in Kuilsriver, where we met about 20 pupils. We intented a few interesting discussions about the problems the students face at Serepta and talked about their future perspectives. They were very willing to share their stories with us and inform us of their lives.

On the second Excursion we visited Rustenburg Girls’ high school in Rondebosch. The school itself was very different in appearance than our previous school. The girls warmly invited us into their school offering us tea and milktart. Afterwards, the pupils took us on a tour of the school, and they showed us their personal interests and perspectives on life.

This week was very interesting, experiencing the differences beween schools within Cape Town.

For more information about the Language Excursions of “Youth & Education” take a look at the other Excursions we did on the theme, here!

About an hour’s drive from Cape Town lies the town of Stellenbosch. Stellenbosch is the second oldest town in South Africa and is known for its many wine farms. Everywhere you look you see rows and rows of vines, heavy with grapes, for sole purpose of making wine and for fruit export.

The best part of these wine farms is that you can taste all the different wines that one made; in some farms you can even take a wine cellar tour. The people are friendly and very willing to help you taste and select the wines you desire. Some farms even offer to ship the wines you like best back to your home country to be delivered to your door.

Some surrounding towns, such as Franschhoek and Paarl have fewer wine farms, but not of lesser quality. Some of these farms also have cheese or chocolate tasting. There is a lot of variety, but with one unifying factor: Everything is delicious.

It is well worth the time and the effort, to not only taste all the delicious wines South Africa offers, but also to enjoy the view some farms have. These are magnificent. You can either take a guided tour, and visit three or four farms, or you can drive to a farm with your own transportation and make a nice day out of it, including a long lunch at one of the farms.

After arriving at the Cape Town international Airport we were picked up by Jacques from Coffeebeans. He took us to our guest house in Sea Point where we met our very friendly apartment-mom, Cheryl. We felt very comfortable during the two weeks.

Our days always started with English lessons with Gavin in the advanced class. We had so much fun learning English with him. We refreshed our knowledge in gramma and skills and had interesting discussions.

Also very interesting were our Language Excursions in the afternoon. Because of our first topic “Environment” we viseted Rondevlei and met Joy. She showed us around and we got to know many different South African plants and animals. On Thursday we met Clinton, a fire fighter at the Table Mountain National Park. He showed us the equipment which they need to fight a fire. Clinton was a very nice guy who answered all the questions we were interested in.

At Saturday we started a whole day trip all along the Peninsula Route with Jacques. At first we stopped for a delicious lunch at the harbour, where we had fish and chips. Afterwards we visited the penguins and took a lot of pictures with them.
The highlight of the tour was our walk to the Cape of Good Hope. We had an amazing view over Cape Town.
Khwattu! was our second weekend tour on Sunday. We learned to read animal tracks, got to know how the bushmen lived and made ornaments and lastly we attended a very interesting click-workshop.

The theme of the second school week was “Education & Youth”! Therefore we visited two very different schools. One was the Serepta High school at Kalkfontein, where we had an interesting discussion with the pupils. The second school we visited was Rustenburg Girls’ High school in Rondebosch where we had a warm welcome by the girls and teachers. The most interesting was to see the big differences between both schools.

All in all it was a wonderful experience to be in Cape Town. On the one hand we improved our English skills and on the other hand we learned a lot about the culture, the environment and the South African people. The whole trip was very good organized and everyone was taking care of us. We all thisk this trip was worth wile and we would always come back!

Sonja, Anna-lisa, Jennifa

Advanced class: A completed story as part of an excercise.

She didn’t want to leave without Peter. The whistle sounded and suddenly Hannah felt with absolute certainty thay something was desperately wrong. At that moment she was distracted by another sound; A sinister sound. She turned and peered along the dimly-lit platform and saw at the end of the station concourse flashing blue and red lights.
She felt strangly taken in by the lights. Intuitively, she felt something had happened to Peter; something that would change her life forever.
She began to walk towards the lights and then started to run. At that same moment the sky broke apart and silent tears started to flow down her cheeks, as if in sympathy with the rain. A crowd had gathered around a unmoving body lying on the station floor. The emergency personell were trying to assist the injured man. Hannah feared the worst; the man on the ground was Peter. But for a moment she was distracted by the small red box, which he was still holding tightly in his hands. Soundlessly she kneeled down next to Peter. Her heart was beating frantically. “Darling, Peter, is this for me?” As if in reflex Peter’s hand seemed to tighten around the box. Nevertheless, Hannah carefully pulled the box from his fingers. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes and opened the box. When she opened it, she saw two things. First a magnificant diamond ring and then she read the few words she would never, ever forget. ‘With everlasting love to my darling Stephanie’. Hannah made a immediate decision; she turned on her heel and marched out into her new life, box in hand.

Jennifa, Anna-Lisa, Sonja and Gavin

If you are in Cape Town from July to December definitely take the opportunity to go Whale watching.

From mid July the whales are coming back from the cold Antarctic and stay in the area until around December to mate, calve and breed in the warmer water around South Africa.

False bay is the best place to watch the whales in Cape Town. This beach streches around 35 kilometers. Also Hout Bay and Table bay are great beaches to watch these fantastic animals. Take a tour with one of the many operators and take a closer look at the whales on the sea.

Hiking up Lion’s head is a different experience from hiking up Table Mountain. Some people think it is easier to hike up Lion’s head and some people find Table Mountain a much easier experience. While Table Mountain is higher in altitude it is mostly high steps along the trail. A bit like a really long stairway.

When hiking up Lion’s head, you start by walking up Signal Hill, which is a steep slope, but the road is well paved and no real difficulties such as rocks and so on. But the higher you climb the more difficult it is going to become. The surface will be more rocky, and sometimes there will be some obstacles, and the only way to climb further, is by using a rope ladder or pins in the wall. This makes Lion’s head a more varied walk.

The best time to hike up Lion’s head is just before sunset, you may choose to have a picknic at the summit and watch the sun set over the sea. And even then you could spend several hours up there enjoying the many lights of Cape Town. Make sure though that for the hike down you have a torch with you, because those steps could be tricky in the dark.

Lion’s head is also used for many other activities, such as abseiling and paragliding. If you engage in these activities during the day you will see a beautiful view of the beaches and the city.

In this weeks Language Excursion the theme was all about the Environment. We went on two different excursions. The first one was to Rondevlei nature reserve. Joy showed us around the reserve, told stories about the hippotomuses, birds and plants that live in the reserve. Interesting because Rondevlei is located in the middle of the city area.

The second excursion took us to the fire department of Table Mountain nature reserve. They have around about 20.000 hectares of land to protect against the fires during the fire season from, which lasts from November through March. Clinton showed us around the base, with its fire trucks, the helicopters and the quarters where the firefighters sleep if they are on call during the weekends.

For the review of the previous Language Excursions of “Environment” click here!

When I was sitting all day in your school I did not think that I am in a school. It was a nice flaer. Aaliya, Gavin and Steven are brillant teachers. They create the lessons in a way that it is really easy to learn English

After the lessons the excursions were brillant, too. So I could learn a lot about the language, South African history, food and cuisine and so on.

Last week I was for a week in Scotland to visit my brother. So I could apply my english again.

Thank you for the marvellous time in your language school! Without the team during the course I wouldn’t haven spoken that English that I spoke last week.

I hope I can manage to come back soon!

Andrea

Academicworld.net published an article with Johannes about working and living abroad, and the importance of getting to know the culture when moving to a new country. Johannes also explains how Kurus English can help a person adapt to a new culture and what ways they use for this purpose.

Click on the following link to read the whole article. http://www.academicworld.net/index.php?id=1934

With the following link you can download an article where Kurus English is mentioned as source for working abroad.

Thanks to the extensive history of South Africa and of Cape Town, the city has a lot of museums to offer where you can experience the history thorough, first-hand, documentation and objects.

There are museums about the different neighbourhoods in Cape Town, which have their own history to tell. Examples of these are the District Six museum, which is about the apartheid era, of forced removals, in South Africa, and the Bo-Kaap museum, which has a rich history being the first Muslim district in Cape Town.
The Slave Lodge tells you a great deal about the slavery in South Africa. The Slave Lodge was a place where slaves slept, worked and lived during the time of slavery. You can feel the history by just walking into the place.

There are also other museums to be visited in Cape Town, such as the National History museum, which is about the evolution of the people, animals and the country of South Africa. Connected to this museum is also the planetarium where you can view the stars on a cloudless sky.

All these museums fall under the Iziko Museums in Cape Town and are definitely worth a visit.

The Cape of Good Hope is the most southern point of the Cape Peninsula. Before the Dutch colonised South Africa, Cape point was a stop-over for the VOC ships heading east to Asia. The ships visited the settlement for fresh water, fruit and vegetables for the drew so that they could continue the rest of the journey. Gradually more people started living in the settlement, not only colonists, but also slaves, VOC workers, and many more and out of this settlement Cape Town developed.

Nowadays the most southern point of the Cape Peninsula is part of the Table Mountain National Park nature reserve. There you will find the original lighthouse which you can visit. You can climb up, or take the ‘Funicular’ cableway, which bears the name the Flying Dutchman. You have a beautiful view up there, of the waves crashing onto the cliffs and you can even see a Portugese ship, that was shipwrecked in 1911.

And don’t forget to have your picture taken under the sign of Cape the Good Hope.