News from South Africa

Since we had not heard from Paddy nor from any other parents of his classmates about how things were going in South Africa, it was more than a little alarming to get up Friday morning and read a mail to all the parents saying not to worry, the situation was not really as dire as it sounded at first, and our children are all safe.

Later that day we received a message from Paddy and a communication from the school including a message from the teacher with them in South Africa. These messages all seemed to suggest that a number of the kids must be suffering quite badly from "culture shock" and were finding it difficult to cope with living conditions so vastly different from anything they had experienced before, but everyone – the teachers with them, the school there, the host families – were doing everything they could to help the kids deal with the situation. Sadly, now it seems that things have gone badly wrong: the current news is that Paddy's class will be boarding a bus tonight to get to the airport in Cape Town and fly back a week early together with the parallel class that has been in a different (wealthy and white) part of South Africa for the past two weeks. From what we have heard from other parents, it seems that everyone has been getting different accounts from their own children, so it seems impossible to know what is really going on. Although Paddy wasn't finding the situation easy to deal with either, he didn't sound at all happy about coming home a week early.

Now a message has just arrived from the school to inform us that the kids will be arriving back in Linz tomorrow night about eleven. I think the two wonderful teachers with them are the ones I have the most sympathy with. This must be an absolute nightmare for them!

Even though I am sorry for it to end this way, I will still be glad to have Paddy home again. I really miss my little guy, when he is not here.