Page Four
Our Foreign Students Will Give Chapel Program Tuesday
^ ^ ctndents. Ricki December Sth is a big: day in
Our two foreign students, Ricki
Eikendal, from Apeldooren, the
Netherlands, and Meggi Schuetz of
Frankfurt, Germany, are probably a
little bit homesick during the holi
day season. They especially missed
their homes early this week, on De
cember Sth, which is a day of cele
bration in both Holland and Ger
many.
In the Netherlands, December Sth
is the day on which people ex
change gifts with friends and
family, while December 2Sth is ob
served as a religious holiday only.
Ricki received a box of all kinds
of traditional Dutch candy for De
cember Sth, with a long poem from
“Sint Nicolaas” in the Neitherlands.
She misses the atmosphere of Sint
Nicolaas, day, though she received
records, pictures, poems, and letters
from her family, and sent them pic
tures and presents from Winston-
Salem.
Ricki And Meggi Teil Of Christmas At Home In Europe
to a
the woods
By Susan Hughes
With her long blonde hair falling
over her shoulders, Ricki hopped
out of bed and threw on a robe as
she talked to me about Apeldorn,
her home town in Holland. Apel
dorn is about the size of Winston-
Salem and is in the higher middle
eastern section of the Netherlands.
The Dutch Queen Mother lives
there in her royal palace.
Ricki’s family is a close one. She
has no brothers or sisters, and she
and her father and mother do lots
of things together. Some of their
favorite things to do are walking,
swimming, riding “bikes,” and going
on holidays to the seaside or
tiny place they love in
beside a lake. i „
“I have an enormous family, sne
said, “I have all my grandparents
still.” Along with her grandparents
and her immediate family, Ricki
gathers with the whole host of
aunts, uncles and cousins every se
cond Christmas. She laughed as
she told of her grandfather, who is
retired and keeps cows. He has an
ancient racing bicycle that he stil
races out to the cows every morn
ing, and he still wears wooden
shoes.
Her father is the chairman of the
board of supervisors for a large
baking corporation. They m a k e,
import, and export all kinds of
cookies and FOOD. He and the
family enjoy doing things together
because there aren’t as many out
side organizations, and they don’t
“go out” as much as we do.
The “best wishes” to Ricki in the
dining room the other day were to
congratulate her for becoming en
gaged to Jan de Groot, a first Lieu
tenant of Engineering at the Royal
Military Academy. “He builds
bridges.”
“We don’t have colleges like you
have here .” There are two
kinds of high schools, the “lower”
which is equivalent to ours and the
“higher” which gives the education
equal to our high school plus two
years of college. To enroll in a
university, one must go to the
"higher high school”. The children
begin school at the age of six. In
all the schools, all the courses are
required. A Dutch student must
RfjUfXijwg
learn French, German, English and
must take courses in Dutch, just as
we do English.
Ricki says she is not sure just
what she wants to do when she
goes back. She may continue to
study, or, if she can find a good
one, she might get a job. “First
of all I am going on a holiday
again.”
This is the first year that Ricki
hasn’t been home for the whole
holiday season. She says, “I like
Salem, and I hadn’t been at all
homesick until now . . .”
From Erlenbach au Main in Ger
many comes Meggi Shuetz. Her
gray-blue eyes sparkled as she
peeped out from under the hair
drier hood to answer my questions.
Erlenbach is a town of about 6000
people near Frankfurt. Meggi says
it is very clean and nice, and she
is proud of the beautiful scenery.
Since she was born, the family has
moved ten times, finally building
their house in Erlenbach 5 years
ago.
Besides herself there are three
other children: Angela who is two
years older and who is studying
eastern languages and philosophy in
France, a brother Hubert who
wants to be a teacher and who is
studying at the University of
Wuerzburg, and her “little” brother
(eighteen years old), Arnulf, who is
studying at a music school. He
plays the organ, harpsichord, flute,
and violin. Both her brothers are
musical and have sung in a famous
German children’s choir,
Meggi says she finished high
school at the same time Hubert did
and that he sat next to her. He
would tease her and cause noise
and the teacher would always say
“Miss Shuetz, can’t you be quiet.”
In Germany the children go to pri
mary school for four years and then
they go nine years to “high school”
which isn’t like ours at all. In the
first year they begin to study Latin,
in the fourth year, Greek and in
the sixth year, English. They have
a list of required courses; and then
if there are enough teachers, they
may select extra courses.
After high school a student either
goes on to a university or does not
continue in school. Meggi has been
two semesters at the University of
Frankfort. Between semesters she
went to France and studied two
months at a language school. Her
major subjects are English and
French.
All of the children were born in
different cities. The first time that
Meggi met someone whose whole
family had been born in one place,
she ran to her mother crying,
“Mother, that can’t be . . .” The
occasions all together, for the child
ren have been off at school or away
somewhere.
When they are together they like
to take hiking tours, and she and
Hubert take bike trips. The whole
family enjoys “house music,” or
singing and listening at home.
Maggi’s grandparents live 300
miles away near the border of
Czechoslavakia. She says when she
was little it was a great event to
pack up and go all that way to see
them. They used to spend all their
Christmases there.
Her father is in charge of exports
from a factory near Erlenbach.
They employ about SOOO people to
make nylon, orlon and other syn
thetic fibers. The workers come
from all around that area of Ger
many. “Fathem becomes most im
portant at Christmas when he locks
the door to the room with the
Christmas tree in it, and decorates
the room, and puts the presents
out.”
The hum of the hair drier made
a very busy sound as a background
for Meggi's voice spelling W-u-e-r-
z-b-u-r-g, and it was hard to leave
December Sth is a big: (j^y jjj
Germany, too. It is the night when
“Heiliger Nicolaus” and his servant,
“Ruprecht” go to every house
where there are children to
punish those that have been bad
and give gifts to each child. They
come through the streets rattling a
big chain, and Ruprecht carries
switches to punish the bad ones.
(Meggi’s sister used to be so afraid
of Heiliger Nicolaus and Ruprecht
that she locked herself in the l.iath-
room that afternoon and refused to
unlock the door until they had
gone, late that night.)
Meggi also misses the Advent
wreaths and the Christmas trees
that are put up in the center of
every town and village and deco
rated with lights that are turned on
every Sunday night during the Ad
vent season, which begins the first
of December. Her niother sent her
an anyel like the ones they put on
the top of their Christmas trees. In
Germany, however, gifts are ex
changed on Christmas eve and
Christmas Day, as here.
Both Meggi and Ricki are look
ing forward to seeing the decora
tions which we put on our doors
and windows during the holiday
season. They both went to the
Candle Tea in the Brothers’ House
and said they enjoyed it very much.
'We may hear more about their
Christmas customs in chapel on
Tuesday, December 13th, when
Ricki and Meggi will have the as
sembly program. There will be an
opportunity for questions on other
subjects, also.
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