Chance foreign language pick that earned me Germany tour

When I joined high school, I was not too keen to study a foreign language.

By chance, I signed up for German in my first year and that has done me plenty of good.  As a student, I gained entry into and regularly attended the annual German Cultural Festivals organised by the Germany Embassy.

I loved these festivals because I met new people from new schools. I also found the German Music Festivals extremely engaging. Unlike other competitions which begin at the district level, the German ones begin at the regional level. In August 2019, I was ranked second in both my solo verse and German public speaking but, unfortunately, this denied me the chance to move to the national competition.

But greater things lay ahead of me. Instead of the national competition, I was informed by the Germany Embassy that five young Kenyans had been selected to explore Germany for a month.

Early in February 2019, I had participated in an essay writing competition. In March, nine other students and I were called to the embassy for an oral interview at the embassy in Nairobi.

I had moved on from the test and perhaps written it off.

Selected to go to Germany

But in August, I was informed that four students from Brookhouse Academy, Loreto Matunda, Kabarak High School, Alliance High School and I had been selected to go to Germany.

The trip began in Bonn, after which we went to Cologne. We got to visit the famous Kölner Dome, the third highest parish in the world.

We spent two weeks in Hamburg, where we were hosted by two families. We then visited the famous capital, Berlin.

The last city that crowned the whole trip was Munich. I managed to create time to take photographs and send to my siblings back home, and they told me how jealous they were of me.

At a time like this last year, I was in Germany learning about how other people live and how other countries are run. I also learnt about the endless possibilities that my future holds.

The trip also emboldened me to work hard in school and earn a scholarship to the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, an institution that excited me when I visited.

It is unfortunate that Covid-19 has made it impossible for those who should have gone this year to visit the country.

Peris Moraa, 18, is a student at St Bakhita Bahati Girls in Nakuru County.

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