Call it a touch of nostalgia but being a parent throws one back to one’s own childhood, and one of the most wonderful things in my childhood was the bond established in our class at Constantia Waldorf between our classmates, our parents and our teachers.
The connections were encouraged and nurtured by our class teacher with class and parent gatherings, class camps and long trips.
This bond extends even into our rather advancing adulthood, where we find ourselves still in touch with our teacher and many of our class mates and their parents 30-odd years on! (Some of us even married each other!)
Last year, the parents of Belinda Fellion’s class (now Class 4) thought this bonding idea was worth a try, so we embarked on a weekend away together! It was so fabulous, we did it again this year.
Petervale Guest Farm, 10km outside of Ceres, is a thoroughly Waldorf place, owned and run by the Rouxs, a veteran Waldorf family. This beautiful, peaceful, organic farm, resting beneath the Skurweberg Mountains, gave us its forest camp for the weekend where the children ran free, where we swam in the dam, toasted marshmallows and told stories round the camp-fire. We shared our lives for a few days in nature, and it was fantastic!
While the children of Class 4 strengthened their already blooming friendships, their brothers and sisters established new friendships and we parents bonded, commiserated about teetering on brink of the teenager abyss, laughed at each other’s stories and shared dinner. (There may even have been a glass of wine or two!)
We milked the cow in the mornings and fed the donkeys, petted the rabbits and chickens and scratched Henry, the enormous pig.
We celebrated Noori Doray’s birthday and leapt from towering rock cliffs into glacial mountain water. We stayed up late and woke with the birds. We gazed in terrified wonder at the very rare red adder sunning itself on the path.
It was a relaxed, happy weekend, and really was a time of bonding for all of us!
Thank you to the tireless and heroic Amanda Hall, who arranged everything.
Tariq Fensham, Class 4 parent