GLOBAL ID: Germany

Der von mir fuer das loveLife Magazin >UNCUT< verfasste Artikel, erschienen in der Maerz-Ausgabe 2010.


Anne-Sophie Waag takes us on a trip to her hometown of Berlin in Germany and gives us a tour of her current home in Luka, Rustenburg in the North-West Province.

The situation of a young woman from Europe staying in a rural area like Luka, Rustenburg is new for both sides, for me and the people who surround me. But since my arrival on the 1st of August in 2009 I could sense that my host family, my colleagues, fellow students as well as myself were going to learn a lot from each other.

Obviously this wouldn’t be possible if the Tswana people weren’t such a friendly, open- minded, interested and welcoming people. In the meantime I learned what signs to use to hail a taxi, wash clothes by hand and acquire a working knowledge of the Setswana language.

After passing my Matric in Germany in 2009, I got the opportunity to spend a year in South Africa and volunteer for loveLife. That’s how I got to the village of Luka in Rustenberg, which recently launched its new loveLife/Royal Bafokeng Y-Centre with a huge playground which included basketball, netball and beach volleyball courts, a games room for snooker and table soccer, a computer room, a radio studio where I worked, a weight training room and a clinic.

The youth centre (or Y-Centre) is where young people can spend their free time, learn about loveLife’s HIV prevention programmes and become part of a motivated, future orientated and conscious loveLife generation.

On Germany

Now, a little about my background: I am from Germany, specifically the capital city of Berlin.

Germany is a country of people living together from all over the world.
Festivals like the Berlin “Carnival of the Cultures” show the great diversity of cultures living side by side in Germany. Going out to a meal at a restaurant might include shish kebab from Turkey or Greece, sushi from Japan, pizza from Italy or vindaloo from India.

It’s a country full of art, music and well preserved green spaces.
Almost every city hosts opera and concert halls or theatres, museums and art galleries. Parks and other green places are treasured. It is a German tradition to do the “Sunday walk” in the park.

It’s a country with a difficult and glorious history.

The Second World War is obviously the first thing people think about when German history is mentioned. People also remember the Cold War and the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961, which separated the country for almost 28 years into East and West. But on the 9th of November in 1989 the Wall was torn down, reuniting the country.

But like in South Africa, a long term separation of people can’t be fixed only by politics, law or constitution – it needs time and effort. The 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany was a healing experience for the country and allowed Germany to take its place among the family of nations. So I hope South Africa hosting the 2010 FIFA World Cup would achieve the same thing for this country.