Monday, June 27, 2011

BLOG: Trip To Germany

On invitation of the Federal Foreign Office of Germany, the winning team of the 2010 PASCH tournament will set off on a trip to Germany in June and July 2011.


The PASCH Festival in Berlin will bring together the winning teams from the six regional PASCH tournaments, which took place in South Africa, India, Cameroon, Israel, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Brazil.


Similar to the qualification tournaments, the two-week trip is dedicated to intercultural exchange, historical exploration and educational football activities and offers the participants a once in a lifetime opportunity to meet peers from all around the globe. AMANDLA EduFootball’s female dream team, Noluvuyo ‘Nkazi’ Dudumashe and Annika Beste, will accompany the group of girls and boys on their Germany trip...
14.06.2011: WELCOME to Nkazi's & Annika's Blog
From the 21st June onwards we, Noluvuyo ‘Nkazi’ Dudumashe and Annika Beste, will update you on our Trip to Germany with our Team from Khayelitsha. Together with the girls and boys we will post daily photos and little reports about our experiences abroad so you can follow our journey through the eyes of the children.
We are very excited!

21.06.2011: The journey has begun!
Our extremely exciting and long-awaited trip to Germany has finally begun!! Today at 5pm all members of our team met at the Cape Town International Airport to prepare for our departure from South Africa. For many of the members of the team this will be their first trip outside of Cape Town, not to mention their first trip out of the country. 

The excitement was evident as the boys and girls said by to the congregation of family members and friends that had gathered at the airport to wish the team good luck and safe travels. After safely and successfully shuttling everyone through the security check point the team is ready for their plane ride and the beginning of what promises to be an unforgettable adventure.

All the anticipation and preparations have finally come to an end and the journey has begun!! 

22.06.2011: Welcome to Germany! Welcome to Berlin!
After a long but exciting 24 hour journey from Cape Town via Johannesburg and Amsterdam, we have finally landed at our final destination: Berlin! All of us arrived safely, besides one bag that got lost along the way, but will follow with the next flight from Johannesburg today. 

After a short introduction session last night where we met all the other teams from Israel/Palestine, Bosnia/Herzegovina, India and Brasil we enjoyed our first German dinner at "Hofperle" in Berlin.

The last delegation, our fellow Africans from Cameroon, will only join us today, as they were delayed due to visa issues.

On the schedule for today: Integration activities with the whole group and a visit to the German Federal Foreign Office, who funds the International PASCH Festival in Berlin. More information on our first exciting day in Germany will follow shortly! Berlin here we are :)

24.06.2011: Mbasa, William, Pixie, Akona, Nosipho, Thando and Zikhona report
After our first night in Germany, which was very peaceful, we went to the field for some integration workshops, which was aimed at getting to know each other. Then in the afternoon we met with the Cameroonian team, which arrived a day later then all the other teams and went to a reception at the  German Federal Foreign Office.

They gave us a warm welcome. At dinner time all the countries did their cultural performances and it was awesome! We sang the South African National anthem, performed the Tswarelo dance, the gumboot dance, the Kilo and sang the Shosholoza song to close the performance.

Today we went to Berlin’s former airport Tegelhof to do some workshops on Fair Play, preparing ourselves for the Fair Play Football tournament tomorrow. We met some youth from Berlin. We really enjoyed mingling with some of the locals. Not forgetting the bag that was lost, we finally found it!!

After dinner we are going to an arts & culture festival, which is around the corner from our Hostel in Berlin Kreuzberg. Please also check out our first photo album on our Germany Trip on the AMANDLA EduFootball Facebook page: AMANDLA EduFootball...

25.06.2011: Nosipho (17) reports...
What an awesome day! Today we were at the fair play tournament playing games with the multi-cultural teams. We played as fair as possible although my team drew most of the games. 

It was tough but the main aim was to have fun and play fair which we did. At the end there were NO losers, we were all winners and received the most important prizes which are the photos of the teams that we were playing with... some good memories. 

I'm very greatful to the German Federal Foreign Office, streetfootballworld and Play-ya for putting up this day for us. BIG-UP!

26.06.2011: Mbasa (13) and Pixie (16) report:
This morning we took a boat ride along the river Spree which flows through Berlin. From the boat we were able to see all kinds of different sights, some of the buildings that we would see again later on during the day. After the boat ride we walked along the Spree to the ‘Reichstag’, the building that houses the German parliament. 

Our guide gave us a tour through this historical building and taught us about German history, such as the Holocaust. In the parliament building we saw different places such as Angela Merkel’s office (as the chancellor the head of state in Germany) and the writings from Soviet soldiers along the old walls of the buildings from when they conquered the building during the Second World War. 

One of the soldiers left a love message for his wife and wrote ‘My dreams have come true’ as he knew from this moment that he was going to return home.

In the afternoon we finally started our long anticipated way to the Olympia stadium where we watched the opening match of the Woman’s FIFA World Cup, Germany against Canada. That was great! We were dancing throughout the whole match and took lots of pictures. Germany won the match 2-1.

After the match we all took pictures with the German players and also got some autographs mainly from the player with the number 11 Alexandra Popp. In total 73.636 people attended the opening match at the stadium – what an experience to celebrate with so many people at the same time.

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