Flushed, dived and overwhelmed - A weekend with sports, water and experiencing completely new musical dimensions

After turning our backs on Port Elizabeth the past two weekends, we wanted to try out some of the many offerings of our temporary university town this weekend!

And that definitely includes the immediate location of my dormitory on the beach of Summerstrand. I naturally want to make the most of this unique opportunity to live directly on the beach for several months.

But especially on this Friday morning, we realized that even these waves can impressively tower up and you have to have strong legs to not lose your balance. Even though we were flushed more than we were on the board that morning, I immediately knew that it was the right decision to buy the board. You experience nature in a completely different way, observe the waves, slowly learn to recognize when the right time to try something is, and simply become part of the ocean by interacting with it and adapting to it.

But after this experience, my water sports day was far from over. As soon as I freed myself from the sand and sea salt, I had to squeeze myself back into a wetsuit. This time, however, we were going a bit deeper than during our surfing attempts. Together with five other girls, I took advantage of the Orientation Week offer to try out a diving lesson in the pool at ProDive. From my vacation in Guadeloupe, I know that I definitely want to get my diving certification, as it was a unique experience for me to be able to see the underwater world of the Caribbean back then.

So I didn't want to miss the free lesson to remember the feeling once again. A diving lesson in the pool, where we learned the basics of diving, is of course completely different from being in the open sea. That's why I felt a bit claustrophobic when the six of us girls went underwater with two diving instructors. But the plan is still intact and will be put into action as soon as the dive school's winter break is over!

Even though the wetsuits were really thick, we had to warm up again after this dive, so we stopped by the French-inspired café Brioche right next to it.

Saturday started off quite sporty for me again, as I went straight from my track and field training with my roommate to putting on my wetsuit and venturing back into the waves with my surfboard.

We attended the musical So What, Sara Fina!?, which was planned by the organization Masifunde e.V. Masifunde means "let us learn" in Xhosa, an African national language, and aims to provide educational opportunities for children and young people in South Africa by offering a variety of different programs. We were able to admire one of the results of this incredible development work on this day. Up to 40 children from grades 6 to 12 were on the stage of the Port Elizabeth Opera House at the same time, singing, dancing, and acting, and you wouldn't believe that they were beginners in this field! Furthermore, it was interesting and exciting to observe, as many songs and dialogues were in Xhosa. In this way, we could only guess at what was being talked about to some extent, but the gestures and facial expressions made understanding much easier! In addition, the play dealt with a very serious topic. For 90 minutes, the children told the fictional story of the student Sara Fina, which revolves around the critical examination of today's legacy of the freedom movements of 1976. Sara Fina, who comes from an upper-class household, falls in love with a boy from the township. However, to the annoyance of one of her admirers from school, he incites the students against the "undeserving" boy and even provokes his death in this way.

All in all, it was a musical evening like I have never experienced before!

With these musical impressions, I send

lots of love home

Eure Caro