Anne 
05/09/2001

         After a very normal school day, my dad came home from his work in Brussels. We had a nice house in Diepenbeek, with a little park in front of it. We ate, we laughed, but after that dad had to tell us something important. He told us we were moving, and we didn’t have a problem with that. When he told us we were moving to South Africa, my brother and I got angry with dad and started crying. I couldn’t say anything else than “I’m not going, because I want to stay in Belgium!”
         
        The next days and weeks my concentration in school was very bad. That was not a good thing, because the exams were coming. My mom had already informed the teacher about the move. I didn’t think he thought that was reason enough for my concentration to be bad, because he was always angry with me. I told Anika and Greet about the move, which was strange. They weren’t really close friends. They asked me why we were moving so far, but I didn’t have an answer. I asked dad. My dad said it was for his work that we were moving. My father works for AIG, which is an insurance company.

        The last week of my school in Belgium (Vrije Basis School Rooierheide) I was in South Africa to look at the house, and some schools. So we went, and sat in the plane for 12 hours, which was long. The furthest I had ever been was Morocco, which was only 3 hours and a half, I think.
 
        In South Africa, we went to look at the house, which was really nice! We thought it was huge, and we even had a swimming pool. My dad went to his work everyday, but my mom, Stijn and I didn’t see too much. We stayed in the Westcliff hotel, where my brother and I swam everyday. The other people there thought we were crazy, because it was winter after all! We did think it was hot, because it was warmer than our summer!
 
        We went to look at two schools: Dainfern College (since we were going to live in Dainfern) and A.I.S.J. First we went to Dainfern College, which was huge, we thought. My school was only one little building, but it was only from grade 2 to 6. All the grades lower than those were in another building across the street. Grades 7 to 12 were almost always in another school. Dainfern College had a soccer field, and a swimming pool. We couldn’t believe it! Dainfern College also had a uniform, but we weren’t looking forward to that. When we went to A.I.S.J., we thought it was huge too! A.I.S.J. didn’t have a uniform, which was a good thing! It also had a lot of nationalities, even Belgian! So we could speak our own language once in a while.

          Back in Belgium, we went from hotel, to hotel and then I could sleep over with a friend, or play at another friend’s house. Every one was so nice! That made it all the worse when we had to go. I still didn’t want to move, because I missed my friends already.

        Now we are here, and I do like South Africa a lot! Sometimes there are some problems, but I guess that’s everywhere! I really like the teachers at A.I.S.J.! I also made some friends. We have also made a few trips in South Africa. For example four weeks ago, we went to Cape Town, which was a lot of fun! The game parks here are also different, because we don’t have them in Belgium!