EIL Intercultural Learning

Kathrin Schneider spent from August 2009 to the end of February 2010 in Ireland as a student of EIL and Experiment's Secondary School Programme in Ireland. Kathrin was in Clonmel, Co. Tipperary and lived with an Irish host family, the Phelan Family of Lisronagh. Below is a reflection on her experiences here in Ireland:

My name is Kathrin, I am from Germany and I did an exchange for 6 months in Ireland. I was really excited about going to Ireland and I couldn’t wait for the letters to arrive from the organisation telling me where I would be going.

When the letter arrived, I was a bit shocked, because they told me that I will be going to an all-girls school. That was the thing I was mostly afraid of: going to a single-sex school.

I had no idea how to survive 6 months with only girls in the school, but after the first week in that school (Loreto Secondary School, Clonmel), I changed my mind. I was suddenly really happy that I got onto a girls school!The girls from my school were really nice and we often went downtown during luchtime to meet the boys from the boys school. I made friends after the first day in my school, I had great teachers and I got on well in my subjects. The teachers treated me like the other students in my class, which was great! It took me a while until I got used to wearing a school uniform. It was cold during the winter, because we had only a kind of a dress and no trousers…but it was a great experience anyway to see the differences.

The school was way smaller than my German one and our principal had a good overview of everyone. That is why the school seemed kind of strict to me at first, with all the CCTV-cameras and uniform-detentions, but I got used to it after a few weeks. I had a long school day. The school started at 9am and I got home about 5pm. The Irish students didn’t meet their friends often after school as I used to do in Germany. So I spent the rest of the evenings after school together with my host family.

I felt it was lousy that my irish friends hardly met on the weekends,  so I was really happy to have other exchange-students around who I could meet when my Irish friend didn’t have time. The other exchange-students were really nice and it was great to get to know them through the organisation. We could talk about our xperiences and I made friends with people from different countries all over the world.

It took me a while until i got used to Irish life...the weather especially, amongst other things. They do eat a lot of potatoes and watch a lot of television, (its true) and I was glad I didn’t mind either. It was great to get to know their habits which were normal to them, but really fascinating to me. It was funny to see the Irish people getting so excited about 2cm of snow and -5 degrees over night, which was the hardest winter for them in 20 years, but only a normal week in Germany! But the winter in Ireland was great! I am really happy that I spent Christmas together with my host family in Ireland, it was great experience!

My host family took me to some places in Ireland, like Cork, Kikenny or Waterford, on the weekends or during  the holidays, so I saw some other cities as well. Even if we lived in a small village with only a few buses into town, I got on well and my host mother drove me often into town so that I could meet my friends. The landscape in my area was really nice, but I unfortunatelly lived an hour by car away from the coast and I couldn’t go there very often. But my host family brought me down to the sea a few times, what I really enjoyed. My host mother loved taking walks on the beach and so did I. I actually didn’t mind that I did not live closer to the coast, because more important to me than the landscape were the people that I lived with- and the people in my area were the best friends I could imagine to meet in Ireland!

I loved my host family. My hostmother used to go to mass every Sunday and she seemed to be happy when I went with her. I would not normally go to church in Germany, but I didn’t mind going there in Ireland, and it was only once a week.

I had a younger host sister, an older host sister and an older host brother. I really got on well with them and it was great to have them around.

We also had a dog and I could take him for a walk. That was really good for me because I used to do a lot of sport in Germany, but unfortunatelly it was hard to find sport clubs for me in my area. They were mostly playing hockey and rugby in the schools, and I am not really into these sports. I used to play tennis with my host sister because we had a pitch right next to our house. We also had a trampolin in our garden and my host sister and I used to go out quite a lot. It is funny; even if it is raining, many Irish families have trampolins in their garden.

All in all, I am glad that I did this exchange. I had a lot of great experiences, found new friends and enjoyed every day of the month in Ireland. If you are doing an exchange as well, I hope you will have a great experience and that you will enjoy it like I did.