TWO St Mary's GAP students return to their homeland of Germany next week after 12 months living and working at St Mary's Diocesan School in Stratford.
Andrea Benzing from Isingeu, from the "middle of nowhere" she says, and Lisa Zimmerman from Hanau are both 20 years old and after finishing school last June in Germany they decided to have a GAP year in New Zealand before going to university.
They assist in the school classrooms and office, and in the evenings and weekends they help out in the boarding hostel.
They have taken every opportunity they could and during school holidays they have travelled around New Zealand. From Cape Reinga to Slope Point they've seen almost everything, and more than a lot of New Zealanders! They were most impressed with Milford Sound, the West Coast and Coromandel.
"Despite the rainy weather we really love Stratford and Taranaki. We did a lot of things around here, for example – climbing to the top of Mt Egmont – in the summer -and going dam dropping," said Andrea.
"One of the reasons we liked work at St Mary's was the wonderful people we have worked with over the past year. No matter what the problem was, there was always someone to help us."
Now it is time for the girls to go home. They leave on July 30 and although they are looking forward to meeting up with their families and friends again, saying goodbye to everyone will be really hard. The staff and students at St Mary's will miss them immensely too – they have fitted in to St Mary's and Kiwi life so well and been such an asset to the school.
Back in Germany Lisa and Andrea will both start university in October. Lisa wants to study media and communication and Andrea wants to study English and maths for secondary school teaching.
"Although we will be poor students during the next few years, we'll start our piggy bank as soon as we get home to pay for another flight back to New Zealand," said Lisa.
Heading home with happy memories of Stratford
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