This past week, we had noticed several school bags and flags, some decorated with the words "geslaagd", being displayed outside the houses of our neighbourhood.
This is a Dutch tradition to indicate that children have passed their "middelbare" school exams - similar to the passing of Matric at the end of high school in South Africa.
Normally the flags would appear once the final examinations have been completed and the individual results have been announced, but this year the exams had been cancelled due to the closure of schools.
For children of all ages, this school year must have ended on an anticlimactic note, but especially for "middelbare" school children, since the end of the year is often accompanied by school concerts, dances and school trips to other European countries. (The image of hopping across to Paris for a weekend of "pain au chocolat" with your school friends, somehow seems very far removed from the Plett Rage a.k.a. the 'Margate Matric holiday' prior to 2005.)
It is nice though, to see that throughout all the changes and disruptions of 2020, some traditions and excitement still remain.
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