By Olga Georgiou

Willkommen!

On October 21st, we were thrilled to welcome and conduct an interview with some teachers from Germany who visited Cyprus and our school as part of the Erasmus+ programme! We were very excited to hear their views and have them enlighten us on any lasting impressions that Cyprus has left on them in the duration of their stay.

The Teachers Reveal Their Experiences…

For one of the teachers, Ms. Tina Gellert,  it was her first time visiting Cyprus, describing her stay here as ‘very interesting’ with ‘some familiarities and some new aspects that we will take back home with us’. Ms. Kristina Angelis-Harmening, the other teacher,  let us know that she was ‘really looking forward to this visit’ as she is half Greek and wanted to see how different Cyprus was from Greece.

Twins!!

We have come to find that our tiny little island bears quite a few similarities to Germany. Upon asking them, both teachers revealed that they paid much attention to our school system and compared it to theirs. ‘There are hardly any differences’, one states.  They also let us know that we all have something in common; weirdly enough, the English language! They seemed to like the fact that ‘no matter where anybody comes from, we all have a common language, which is good since nobody has a hard time, unlike with German.’

Watchful eyes…

Our interviewees revealed that they accompanied our Year 1s and 2s on their annual field trip to Lefkara and they surprisingly really enjoyed meeting and getting to know both classes as well as some of our teachers. Ms. Gellert also told us that she particularly enjoyed ‘the organisation of your school trips’. Shocking, right?

Did You Know…?

Surprisingly, there were not that many differences separating Cyprus from Germany. Both teachers compared the sizes of schools here to Germany, explaining that their own schools have around ‘1000 students and 90 teachers’. Ms Gellert also mentioned that she made Ms Angelis-Harmening drive them around the island, as she was not used to ‘driving on the other side of the road’. That’s probably just a nice way of saying she did not expect the amount of road rage coming from the average Cypriot driver. 

Some schools in Germany have NO A/C! ‘The days are getting hotter and we are using fans like crazy’ Ms Gellert states. Ironically, they are also feeling the effects of climate change with ‘very heavy winters, rain and a lot of flooding’. 

Apparently, Cyprus has shorter days compared to Germany. Although, with the Cyprus heat, you can’t really tell the difference can you? Our sun also takes much less time to set compared to Germany. ‘It is much faster, in our area it takes much longer, the same with the sun coming up’ Ms Angelis-Harmening explains. ‘But the moon is wonderful here’ both teachers claimed, which was met with a playful jab from our very own Mrs. Koulla; ‘But it was a special moon’ she explains ‘It’s not always like that but it was a very nice full moon’. 

Ms Angelis Harmening shortly became fascinated with the posters of various animals in our Biology class, as she recounted on a few occasions where she encountered some of these animals. ‘If you’re lucky sometimes you can see foxes and these squirrels.’ Ms Angelis-Harmening then told us about the time she got her shoe stolen by a fox! ‘He came with my shoe in his mouth, passed by our terrace and tried to escape but the shoe didn’t fit through the fence’. Thankfully, her shoe was saved…