Afrikaans

Recently I have become very interested in the Afrikaans language (maybe inspired by the fact that I have just read a book by J.M. Coetzee). I have had very limited contact with the language and from the limited amount of Afrikaans I have heard I would say that it sounds far more like Flemish dialects than the Dutch spoken in most of The Netherlands. I have not had enough exposure to determine how much spoken Afrikaans I can understand but from what I have heard it is not immediately comprehensible to Dutch speakers.
One thing I have noticed in The Netherlands is that the average person here has little or no interest in the main languages related to Dutch. Frisian is often dismissed as a Dutch dialect, most people I have asked no nothing of Afrikaans. In Ireland I remember learning about the other Celtic languages while studying Irish so it is surprising that this does not seem to be covered while children study the Dutch language. Scandinavians by comparison will all have knowledge of how their language (be that Norwegian, Swedish or Danish) relates to the other ones and many will be able to adapt their speech so that they can speak a 'Scandinavian' with somebody from the other country.
The reason I mention this is that there are no readily available materials for learning Afrikaans through the Dutch language. In fact Afrikaans does not feature in the list of some 40 languages that are taught by the Dutch Volksuniversiteiten (adult education institutes). Perhaps the apartheid regime in South Africa led to a wish on the part of Dutch people to distance themselves from the Afrikaner people or maybe there is little value seen in learning a language that has no particular economic value. I remain surprised that there are so few resources for learning a language which shares so many features with Dutch. From a purely cultural point of view I would have expected more.
Ironically there are many resources available in English including a very comprehensive Open Languages site  which gives a very thorough introduction to Afrikaans. Furthermore there are quite a few teaching methods available including Teach Yourself Afrikaans. Although I am an English speaker I already speak Dutch so I would prefer to tackle Afrikaans from that angle. Afrikaans is quite readable for a Dutch speaker, there are a number of differences in spelling but you can quickly work out the differences. In terms of reading the grammatical differences are not such an issue but that would be a major challenge in writing Afrikaans. There are many difference in vocabulary but some words can be guessed from the context and others are clearly imports from English.
I found one fascinating paper (in Dutch) which compares Dutch and Afrikaans and proposes a syllabus for Dutch speakers wishing to learn Afrikaans. I am not sure if the syllabus has been applied anywhere, I could not find an institute offering it in my search so far. In any case it highlights the differences that you need to be aware of between the two languages and the core message seems to be that Afrikaans is not as easy as it looks (for Dutch speakers).
Anyway, I intend to pursue my interest in Afrikaans as a hobby (without impacting my Japanese or Italian studies). I might also start looking at Frisian again. There is a lot to be said for quick wins, it is easier to learn a related language than a completely new so waarom niet?