Coach Billarocks on Her Travels

I enjoyed going around in different parts of Germany and learning about the history of the country as well. I mostly enjoyed going to the South African embassy and meeting our ambassador.

I had a language barrier because most people were not familiar with English so communication was a problem. It’s a good thing we had Darina there with us for the first two weeks because she could help with the translation and she helped us get around Germany as if it was not our first time there.

I enjoyed my internship at the Rheinflanke. I learned many things from the staff. I was going around in different communities and learning how one community was different from the other. I enjoyed seeing how the organisation works with each community to address the different challenges their kids were facing.

I also enjoyed meeting the team – Nino, Caro and Dennis just to name a few.

I loved meeting kids from different backgrounds and listening to their stories, especially the ones who had a violent type of background and how they planned to turn around their lives after meeting the team at Rheinflanke, and it was all because of the time they spend playing soccer with the team and talking to them individually. I love what the Rheinflanke team does to help these kids turn their lives around, trying to find them job opportunities and helping them with their CVs. I love how the small children only go there to have fun and how the team provides their time and give them toys to play with. I also learned that this helps keep the children safe and out of trouble.

I also had a language problem at my internship and it was even more difficult because Darina was not there to help translate. I even tried logging onto the organisation’s website but everything was written in German. Even most of the kids we worked with could not speak English so this was a challenge for me.

My only wish is that I could have done more and also showed what I was doing here at home. One suggestion is to involve the person and give them a day so that they can show you how they work back home because maybe you can also learn a thing or two.