Bye Bye Berlin... Belatedly

Tonight I was perusing a book from the library entitled Alone in the Kitchen with and Eggplant, and the introduction by the editor Jenni Ferrari-Adler brought up some intense memories, thoughts of the cramped kitchen in Berlin, where I felt I was alone, despite my three roommates. In the apartment I had company, but in the kitchen I felt alone, missing my college friends, for whom and with whom cooking was a great joy. Like the book's editor, I felt loneliest when contemplating how to feed myself. I would get hungry, but not feel the inspiration or motivation for preparing a proper meal, and instead opt for a slice of cold-cut turkey and cheese, rolled up and eaten with my fingers. I don't know how many times Alex would scold me, after finding out my evening nourishment consisted only of popcorn, or müsli and tea.

For some reason this started me thinking of this blog, what it has meant to me to keep it, and how I left it, abandoned with so many posts imagined but left unwritten. Naturally, my readers have trailed off after months without posts, but this post is for me, for the blog, even if no one else comes to read it. Despite my dislike of the word "blog" itself, writing this record has been one of the most rewarding and illuminating tasks I have undertaken in the last 18 months. It has brought me to the realization that I love to write. I love to analyze life, people, cultures, everything. I love to ruminate on complicated topics, trying to distill them into something understandable and thought provoking.

I left off writing in the last two weeks before my move back to the United States because of some shocking news, the worst kind of news to get when you are far away. My mother had breast cancer, and was going to undergo a double mastectomy the day after I was scheduled to arrive home. I was crippled by worry, by the distance that separated me from her and the consolation of seeing and feeling that she was alright. I found out when I was in Venice, visiting my friend Monica who was indulging in a passionate affair with a good-hearted Italian man she had met when she vacationed their months before. Unfortunately I got the news right as I was packing up to return to Berlin, and thus I missed out on the in-person support Monica could have offered. I was, however, relieved that I had not found out sooner, since I knew my vibrant and traumhafte time in Venice would in that case have turned to ash. From the moment I got the news, I just wanted to be home. The sadness and deep regret I felt at the thought of leaving my home, Saalestraße 38, 1. Etage Rechts, evaporated in the face of my urgency to get home and be with my family. Part of me knew that my mother was holding up well, and had lots of support. But the selfish part of me that wanted to comfort myself by being home to do small things to feel helpful and supportive, that part was stronger. I knew I couldn't save her from the hardships of recovery, but at least if I were there I could load the dishwasher, something, anything.

These thoughts propelled my through my last days, energizing me as I dismantled my room and packed my things, keeping notalgia at bay. But now, six months later, my mother healthy and heroic in her recovery, I return to that nostalgia, to the Heimweh I knew would accompany me after my departure from Berlin. I think back not just to the practical things I miss, like the unparalleled public transportation system and recycling programs, but also to the sensations of living in that, my beloved city. The feeling of pounding the cobblestone sidewalks to catch the bus, of looking forward to sitting down to a big bowl of vietnamese curry at my favorite restaurant My Hamy, and reading a book there over my solitary meal. I even think back to the solitary meals I prepared for myself in that narrow little kitchen, chopping vegetables on top of the washing machine. I think about the hours spent listening to This American Life and NPR's Kitchen Window podcasts as I painstakingly cleaned kilos of spinach bought at rock-bottom prices from the Turkish Market, dealing as patiently as possible with the many stow-aways that were often the real cost of those cut-rate comistables. My go-to meal when I felt I popcorn was not going to cut it? pasta with vegetables (spinach if I was lucky) and feta, tossed with a bit of olive oil and salt. Or, during Spargelzeit, a big plate full of white asparagus peeled and boiled with butter with a salad on the side.

It's probably not surprising that food has finally brought me back to provide some closure for this blog, and this singular time in my life. I feel, however, that this isn't really the end, but a commitment that there will be more to come. In my heart I hope providence will bring my back to Berlin. For now I am committed to seeking the next opportunity, the next adventure wherever that may be. Perhaps it will soon be Z in Brazil, or Z in Berkely. Time will tell, if only I can stay patient enough to let it have its say.

Nougat und Fußball

I just finished a bowl of Nougat Pillows. What could that possibly be? you might wonder. Well, it's a cereal that I have been suspiciously eyeing since I got here which is best described as, well... a pillow, crunchy and chocolate filled with Nutella (Language Note: If you're in Germany Nougat=Nutella, always. Do not expect the fluffy white filling of a Snickers bar, you will be confused when your dessert comes). This is no stingy American "filling" like that of strawberry shredded mini-wheats which leaves you doubting its existence even after you have bitten the little guy in half and examined the cross-section. In fact, the cereal, in typical German style, guarantees the consumer proudly on the front of the box that the pillows are comprised of 40% Hazelnut Cream Filling! It makes me wonder whether there was a boardroom discussion somewhere about exactly what percentage of filling the discerning shopper could reasonably expect. Germans want to know exactly what percentage of the principle ingredients make up their food purchases. If you purchase fruit Müseli, the percentage of dried fruit will be prominently displayed. If you order a glass of wine, or even seltzer water at a restaurant there will be a line on the glass showing you the volume of the contents. This is German law. I like it. There are no discussions. The customer, no matter how crotchety and cranky, cannot quibble on the quantity of beverage they have been served. The line says it all. So anyway, the Nougat Pillows are kind of tasty. They are strange, and go against a lot of my ideas of what a breakfast cereal is, and what it is not. The idea of Nutella in milk is somehow a bit unsettling. They do require you to broaden your breakfast food conceptions a bit.

The Nougat Pillows have stolen center stage. What I intended to write about was another German fascination: soccer. Not playing it so much as watching it. Soccer is a sport played by quite a few boys, but as I've been repeatedly informed by my students, it is a boy's sport. It's not at all for girls. No one could explain to me what it was about that Y-chromosome that made it so essential to playing soccer in Germany. I told them that in the US soccer was just as popular among girls as boys. They simply can't believe it. It shocks them just as much to learn that I played soccer for many years when I was little as to find out that I'm a boxer. I do not get it. Tonight is the Euro Cup final, and it is the single most important thing happening in the country. It's like the Super Bowl, only with lots of national pride sprinkled in to spice things up.

Flags have sprouted up all over they city, flying from little car window attachments, from windows everywhere, and even draped around the necks of many a citizen. As many of you may know, the previous World Cup was held in Germany, which led to a revival of national pride which has been taboo ever since you know who was toppled from power by the allied forces. But now national pride, flag waving, spontaneously breaking into the *gasp* national anthem has become acceptable... but only in connection with soccer. It's a little exception clause in the doctrine of national penance. I've heard all sorts of opinions on the matter. Some laugh, shake their heads, and say it's harmless fun. Others see it as a slippery slope leading to all out nationalism. Still others with a more socialist leaning philosophy see it as a tool of the capitalists which serves to keep the exploited plebeians distracted and content. My own feelings about it are complicated. It is true that it makes a lot of people happy. But I don't see the need for all the nationalist paraphernalia. The German National Anthem focuses my discomfort. When the crowds spontaneously start singing it, it puts me a little on edge. Why does it bother me so much? Isn't it only natural to love your country? Maybe it's because the anthem hasn't been changed since the Nazi times, except for the deletion of the lines which refer to world domination. Maybe I just distrust national symbols which as Germany's history shows, can easily be put to nationalist causes.

Reading news of the presidential election at home incites similar feelings in me. There is so much attention put to proving or disproving a candidates "Patriotism." A term which is used in the media and by politicians which refers to a persons ability or willingness to wear and/or display the American flag and to say things like "I love America" and "I'm proud to be an American." People treat this like it's an important test of a candidates suitability for office. In fact it does not take any particular ability or intelligence to love where you come from, on the contrary it is what a human is hard-wired to do. Belief in the superiority of the group you were born into is innate, which is why racism is one of the most consistent traits of people world wide. It is something that must be overcome if there is to be any hope of peace and understanding between different groups of people. Moreover it is one of the most difficult things to eliminate from your mind. It requires thought and deep self-examination, and incredible humility. Perhaps I'm being too hard on patriotism. Maybe it can also be used to unite people of all colors and creeds with a sense of common identity. I do actually hope that there is a thread that unites us as Americans, as different and diverse as Americans are. I hope that paradoxically by cherishing our diversity we can be united. My problem must not be with Patriotism per se, but with nationalism. Patriotism needs to be pried from the claws of nationalism. It needs to signify once again the willingness to tirelessly expose and ameliorate injustices and inequalities which plague your compatriots. Only I don't think that's enough anymore. Patriotism today should include compassion and consideration for our world neighbors. After all, it is impossible to have a truly peaceful home while your neighbors languish, their homes rocked by violence and poverty.

Anyway, if your looking for something to do, tune in to see if Germany beats Spain tonight to become Euro Cup Champs.

Update: The Spaniards beat the Germans 1-0, and as much as I hate to admit it, rightly so. To their credit, the Germans were great losers, congratulating the Spaniards present in the bar where we watched the game.

Spring Fever and Wanderlust

May has gone by in a flash. From the very first day of the month, there was always something going on. The first of May meant a huge street demonstration in Kreuzberg, our neighboring barrio. I was told it was going to be big and crazy, and it did not disappoint. It's easy to get the impression walking around Berlin, that it's gotten pretty polished lately. There are posh boutiques and cafes in even the most traditionally modest neighborhoods, even in my neighborhood, Neukölln, which traditionally doesn't have anything you could call a "scene". Rent prices are rising fast. These days you have to look a little harder to rent a room in a shared flat for less than 200 EUR a month (including utilities naturally). Even beer prices are skyrocketing, well above 2.50 EUR for a half liter in some bars and clubs! With these sorts of developments as well as the gentrification of Kreuzberg and the former Eastern districts, it's easy to think Berlin is fast loosing it's poor, punk edge.

The First of May celebrations, however, convinced me that Berlin is still keeping it weird. Berlin's very handsome and openly gay mayor Klaus Wowereit infamously stated that Berlin is "Poor but Sexy". May Day proved him right, my goodness there are a lot of good looking young people in Berlin! Of course, I only took pictures of the weird ones, who were out in full force. As far the part about being poor is concerned, my roommate confirmed that when she told me that she, earning net 1,500 EUR a month, belongs to the highest earning 20% of Berlin's population. That doesn't seem to keep the population down too much though, because at least for the moment, life remains dirt cheap in Berlin.

So, while I did not see the open warfare which I have been told often breaks out on May Day here, I did see a wild group of people, lots of near altercations, and many many many riot police. I was told that there were up to 8,000 police on duty, including a special Anti-Konflikt team. It was strange to see people pushing their baby strollers past the groups of police in full riot gear. As we did not care to see for sure if violence would indeed break out, we did as all nice kids on May Day, and got the heck out of there before nightfall. Here are some pictures of the scene for your enjoyment.

The Scene on Kottbusser Tor. Imagine loud socialist hip-hop in Spanish (the language of left in Europe it seems) to complete the scene.

Lots more people on Oranienstr. Less militant and more curious onlookers.

Aren't they lovely?

Barely managing to stay upright, and looking good doing it.

I nice little line-up, Anti-Konflikt Team on the job.

Now that you've had a taste of down and dirty Berlin on May Day, I'll write about a different sort of German experience. Train travel in Germany is notoriously expensive. A two hour trip which would cost you 4 Euros in Italy, costs 100 Euros in Germany. There's one little exception to this rule, the Schönes Wochenende Ticket, a wonderful ticket for a poor student (or TA) and four of her friends which allows her to travel as much as she wants in Germany on a Saturday or Sunday for only 35 Euros. Split between five that makes for pretty cheap travel. One catch is you've got to use regional trains, which more than double the time your journey takes. No problem for us though, we're in no hurry. On this past occasion, we set out for a little place called Quedlingburg, which is a town so old, not a building in the place stands up straight. Some of the houses were so narrow, people with a more generous modern girth would have a hard time turning around in them. I'll spare you too much more talk about it, and just get to the pictures...





My final adventure this month was also the greatest. When Alex came to visit, I planned a surprise for his birthday: a trip to Italy. I got a good deal on tickets to Pisa (cheaper than a German train), and since that was near the area I'd been farming in a couple years ago, I knew a couple places to go. I decided to revisit Cinque Terre where I had lost my camera on my first Italy trip, and to visit Lucca, a place I'd never been. I got Alex to pack his bags for a 6 day trip to Hamburg, but when I got him there I gave him the tickets and we flew to Italy the next day. It was all very exciting. I think again, the pictures say it best.

Pisa

Lucca

Aren't they just so Italian?

Cinque Terre

Riomaggiore, the town we stayed in on our last night

Coming soon....

Dear family, friends, blog readers, I've been ruminating on lots of ideas for upcoming posts, but because I've had such an exciting and action packed month, I haven't yet managed to pound them out yet. I have decided that in these next couple days my main goal will be to get writing. As an insurance to make sure I stay true to my big ideas, I am making my declaration public. Also, I don't want you all to give up on checking in for lack of new material. Recently I have realized that this blog has ended up being the main product of my time here. I had lots of photographic and cinematic ideas, but technological and cultural challenges have made that road a little difficult at the moment. I am not disappointed though, because this space has given me ample opportunity for expression. And in my last month plus here, I hope to fill it with some of the ideas and thoughts that have been banging around my head all year. I hope to also have enough material for a German "Americana" blog exhibition, in which I will post pictures of all things Germans consider to be American, decked out in stars and striped packaging. I've cringed, laughed, wanted to cry, and even been occasionally pleased by the things represented under our flag. So cross your fingers for me that I will get this all together. The good news is, I've always been good under deadlines!

Lost in Transportation

It was my goal to write two posts a month, and here I am on the last day of April taking the last chance I've got to stick to my goal. So, the month in review: I got a job teaching extra classes for big money (at least as far as this humble Fulbrighter is concerned), I've got a new class schedule because the seniors have graduated already, and every day is filled with small moments which astonish me. But of course that seems par for the course. At school I encounter a thousand small consequences of the way mass media influences people. It's so easy to see in kids, who are still open enough to accept challenges to what they think about something. It's harder somewhat to gauge the influence of parents and friends, but the media influences stand out pretty clearly. Particularly upsetting is to realize how our movies, music, and media portray such a racist image of African Americans. Today I was explaining how offensive the word "bitch" is, and how using sexualized words like bitch, whore, slut, etc. to criticize other women is very harmful, and that women are particularly guilty of doing this to one other. One girl innocently said, "black men use those words all the time." This struck me as proof of how, once a film, song, or text leave our borders, it takes on an air of basic truth that it might not have so directly within our borders. Americans know on some level, that when they see images of an angry black young man from the projects, that he is a product of his environment. They are more likely to have an idea of the range of social conditions that have caused him to become this way. They may also have real life experience which put the images into context. Of course, I believe constant exposure to the same stereotyped images of black people must have a damaging effect on the minds of all Americans. This effect is more subtle and difficult to quantify however, than the effects I see on young people here. Here, these images represent truth, they are taken to represent the people they portray.

Sometimes this leads to misunderstandings so big, they are even funny. For example, they see our somewhat sexy, party movies, and they think we are a sexually open or even libertine culture. This is so far from the truth that it is flat out comical. We are a nation where people get worked up into a frenzy about the smallest whiff of something sexual, something having to do with the human body itself, where when an artistic photograph of young Miley Cirus, queen of teen purity, shows a hint of her back, suggesting that under her covering she is naked, it is enough to provoke the outright wrath of mothers everywhere. I thought about that photograph a bit, and realized that it is not about what it shows, in fact it shows nothing which in itself is provocative, it is the reminder of what lies unseen that riles our puritan morals. It is the same reason that Arthur Schnitzler's Reigen was so provocative: provocation by omission, by leaving it up to the minds of the viewers he creates a space more provocative than any he could have put on stage. Anyway, I'm getting off track. So my point there was, American storytelling when it crosses borders is taken as a report of fact.

When I told Viktoriya that in the images of angry black men calling women bitch all the time, is not an actual portrayal of black men in general, she was sincerely surprised, telling me that that's what she's always seen. I told her that I grew up in a very white town, and I had heard many men (and women of course, which was my original point) who talk to women that way. I told her it had absolutely nothing to do with race, and everything to do with upbringing, socio-economic conditions, and education. Of course in our country minorities are underprivileged at a consistently higher rate than the Caucasian majority, which can lead to the impression that black people are naturally inclined to be a certain way. I told her though, that this is a false impression, although an understandable one given the images she's been exposed to. It had never occurred to her, and she had never been told that these images might be misleading. Just as easily as she had accepted that idea from the media that black people were a certain way, she assimilated the new information that this was not true, that these images are misleading and make for entertainment, not documentation.

It might have been possible that her understanding could just have been a one case thing, but my experience is that it is the rule, not the exception. Boys here worship their thug life rap idols, putting their image on a pedestal and seeing it in the face of every black person they come across. These images are so strong, and as they leave our shores, they gain strength, becoming unquestionable fact. I wonder whether this is a new problem, thanks to globalization. I am hard pressed to say, as this global world is really the only one I've ever known.

Well, I was planning on writing a light-hearted fluffy post tonight, but it seems that there is usually something more pressing on my mind. Tomorrow is May Day. A big deal here in Berlin, it's a favorite time for riots, burning cars and neo-nazis vs. punks. Should be interesting! Maybe May Day will provide me with some lighter material to reflect on. Mmmm.... or maybe not!

American and Abroad

Anti-Americanism. It's strange that I've only been moved to address this topic now, after so many months living here in Berlin. I'm not sure whether I've simply become more sensitive to it recently, after an unpleasant encounter on the street, or whether it really has become more undeniable due to changes in socio-political and economic conditions worldwide. Last week was the annual Fulbright Conference in Berlin, which brought together Fulbrighters from across Germany and Europe together for panel discussions, presentations, and "networking". I met up with a couple Vassar grads, which was very comforting. It's really a pleasure to meet with so many like-minded people, especially when it can be so difficult to find in daily life.

After the party on the last night of the conference we were grabbing curry wurst and fries from the Imbiss (street food/fast food vender) under the Eberswalderstr. U-Bahn. We were in the process of picking up and paying for our food when this tall, hippy-like guy elbows through and orders as though we weren't there. Hearing us speaking English, he pulled the food we'd ordered off the counter and started muttering "I hate Americans, stupid Americans, I hate you. I hate Obama..." and so forth. Jeanette, a Vassar girl, countered his odious ejaculations by ostentatiously saying how happy it made her that when people visit the US they are treated with respect and treated to good American hospitality. Surely, this was the most positive response one could make. I however, was seriously peeved by this jerk's sense of entitlement, and I did not appreciate how he pushed me when I tried to save my friends' victuals. So I pushed him back and told him in his own language to take off. My reaction may not have been so peaceable, but I couldn't just let him push me around. Was my or Jeanette's effort productive? Probably not. Perhaps one of the most surprising things about the incident (other than the fact that he said he hated Obama, who everyone I've encountered in Germany loves, and didn't mention the president everyone loves to hate) was that this sort of encounter is not all that unusual. All the Fulbrighters present had previously experienced similar bile. They weren't even that upset by it. It has become frighteningly commonplace.

In the days since the street encounter the blatant stereotypes I've heard about Americans (that we don't cook and only eat fast food, that we're uninformed and unintelligent, you know the drill) have become harder to ignore. Patricia tells me I just need to let it slide off my back. In some ways I know she's right. As the civil rights activist Amelia Boynton Robinson said at a speech she gave at my school here in Berlin, hate hurts the haters more than the hated. They have to live with it inside them, and hate is corrosive. I can turn my back on them and walk away from their hatred, they carry it wherever they go.

Perhaps this is why it is other manifestations of Anti-Americanism that bother me even more. The other day I talked with a British man about music, saying that I thought it was in modern music that the British and Americans have had their greatest collaborations. He immediately got defensive, disavowing any American influence on British music. Of course this is patently ridiculous. After all, both the Beatles and the Rolling Stones got their start as bands playing covers of American Blues and Rock music. To say their music was not influenced by this is just plain silly. Also, my argument was that the influence goes both ways. Still, the idea that there was any collaboration involved between great modern American and British musicians was abhorrent to this guy. Collaboration and cooperation should be among the highest goals of any two nations in their dealings with each other, and yet, people are utterly turned off by it when you bring it up.

When I talk to people from all over the world who revel in the problems the US is currently facing, declaring gleefully that America is a nation on the decline, their Schadenfreude burns me. They savor the suffering and tribulations of the American people in a way that deeply disheartens me. And somehow, this sort of attitude is acceptable, and even encouraged by the way America is portrayed in the news media. I understand, that what often lies below these feelings is simply resentment of the strength of the American presence worldwide. And yet, people everywhere keep buying our music, our movies, our pop culture, even (regrettably) our fast food. They love our cultural production, and resent it at the same time. Untangling these sorts of complicated love-hate feelings seems nearly impossible sometimes. But as Patricia reminds me, all we can do as individuals is be the examples of that which we hope our nation represents, be accepting, critical, well-informed, and hopeful in the face of great challenges. Of course, I am also acutely aware of the failings of my nation's government, and the ignorance and sometimes arrogance of many of its people. I am aware of how far we have yet to go, how the ideal of working to create "a more perfect union" is threatened by an unjust war, propaganda of fear, and personal political agendas. It is hard to be an American living abroad, but while it presents the greatest personal trials, it also presents the greatest opportunity to smash apart the ignorant and pervasive stereotypes about Americans, so that people can begin to form more complicated, well-rounded and realistic impressions. This is why the sweetest sound to my ears, is to hear someone say, I didn't think Americans were like you.

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Now playing: Air - Universal Traveler
via FoxyTunes

Family Vacation - Europe

My family departed Berlin yesterday and should now be in Chicago, preparing to face a long drive north to end their journey. It was really nice to have most of the family here, although Pete's absence was always on our minds. Things have really come to a screeching halt here since the family left. I almost don't know what to do with myself now that I don't have anything to plan or coordinate, now that I'm back to the real world.

Today the weather finally turned beautiful again, temperatures getting up to about 50F and sunny. Of course, the two weeks of the family vacation were not only unseasonably cold, they were in fact the coldest and snowiest since I arrived in September. Miraculously the very day they departed the clouds broke and the temperatures rose. Figures. It'll be up around 60F before the end of the weekend. There is one thing that eases my annoyance at the cheeky weather. Today I went to the Turkish market with my roommate Katja. We accidentally went one stop past Hermannplatz, so we had to go an alternate route to the market, which took us past a junk store with three beautiful dirty old bikes out front. I thought they'd for sure be too expensive, cheap bikes are not easy to come by in these parts. The guy only wanted 25 a piece. So Katja and I snapped up a pair, the men's and women's version of the same model. Mine needed and needs a bit of work, tomorrow we're going to the flea market for a pedal. They seem to be in good shape, great condition, just neglected and old. Really old. They are the 50th anniversary edition of a company established in 1919. So now my roommate and I have a little Pärchen of bikes, or as Patricia might say a casal. I feel like I ought to know more about bike care an maintenance. It will probably come in handy with this old man of a bike. I think that's what I'll refer to it as, Old Man.

So here are a few pictures of the highlights of the Zambon Family Vacation for your enjoyment...


My parents and José visit my 10th graders



Marion takes us on a castle tour


The sights of Berlin....
The Brandenburg Gate


The Berlin Cathedral and the East German TV Tower


The Charles Bridge in Prague


At Sansoussi in Potdam on our last day

Integration or Assimilation

Today's post grew very long, after many days of rumination. Somehow this topic has been tickling my consciousness for a while now, but has only recently come up in clearer terms. I hope it's not too cumbersome, but having rolled around in my head now for so long, I felt it was time to write it down.

Several days ago in class we had a very enlightening conversation. Grit brought up a comment that the Turkish prime minister Tayyip Erdogan recently made about Turkish-Germans. He said flat-out that "assimilation is a crime against humanity. I repeat... assimilation is a crime against humanity." That's right, he said it twice just to make sure you heard him correctly. Grit asked the students how they felt about this comment. Most of the students seemed to find it a little extreme, but emphasized once and again how they could never forget where they came from, their traditions, their culture. They seemed to buy into the idea that accepting the German culture and lifestyle meant that you must forfeit the identity passed on to you by your ancestors. There seemed to be a general consensus that in order to emigrate successfully to another country one must learn to tolerate and live amongst the original inhabitants. In other words, it is necessary to integrate to a certain extent into the host culture. They drew the line however at taking on any of the host culture's other traits. For them to do so would be to betray their traditional culture. With a few exceptions all of these students were born and raised in Germany.

In order to better understand what the argument surrounding assimilation and integration was about, we decided to look up several dictionary definitions of the terms. We put up several definitions we found. For example:

assimilation
noun
1.	the state of being assimilated; people of different backgrounds come to see themselves as part of a larger national family
2.	the social process of absorbing one cultural group into harmony with another
3.	the process of absorbing nutrients into the body after digestion
4.	a linguistic process by which a sound becomes similar to an adjacent sound
5.	the process of assimilating new ideas into an existing cognitive structure [syn: acculturation]
6.	in the theories of Jean Piaget: the application of a general schema to a particular instance

WordNet® 3.0, © 2006 by Princeton University.

in·te·gra·tion (ĭn'tĭ-grā'shən) n.

1. 1. The act or process of integrating.
   2. The state of becoming integrated.
2. The bringing of people of different racial or ethnic groups into unrestricted and equal association, as in society or an organization; desegregation.
3. Psychology The organization of the psychological or social traits and tendencies of a personality into a harmonious whole.
4. Mathematics The process of computing an integral; the inverse of differentiation.
5. Electronics The process of placing more than one integrated circuit on a single chip.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2006 by Houghton Mifflin Company.

Several distinctions strike me immediately. Both words can refer to the union of people from different cultures. Both imply the formation of a harmonious whole. However, integration suggests a sort of separateness, several different circuits that exist in the same place, but which have distinct and separate paths. What is most important about the term assimilation is its implication of understanding, of comprehension. A person assimilates new information when they truly understand it. I also appreciate its implication that people of different backgrounds can share a common identity. Integration is based principally on tolerance, whereas assimilation is based on mutual understanding. Thus for me assimilation is a much more powerful and harmonious concept. Tolerance presupposes a sort of disapproval, which must be overlooked in order to be able to endure someone. This is why I do not see tolerance as the ultimate goal when dealing with diversity.

After hearing my students affirm their loyalty to their ancestral traditions, I told them that for me living according to the traditions of my ancestors is simply not a possibility. Americans in general have many parts which make up their ancestral background. My identity is not dominated by the places my family immigrated from. Rather, it is something much more fluid than my students had ever imagined possible. I explained for example, that when I lived in Mexico, I assimilated to Mexican culture. I had to learn to think and behave according to their cultural norms if I wanted to be part of society there. Mexican culture allowed them to make room for me, and they accepted me both as an American and as a member of their community. I don't want to downplay the challenges of assimilation, but if the host culture and new resident are both willing, it is attainable, and in my opinion desirable.

My students were agape when I told them that after living in Mexico, my identity expanded to include my Mexican cultural assimilation. And yet, at the same time I never felt like I had sacrificed or betrayed my American identity. In fact, after my experience I don't believe it would be possible for me to do so. No one has ever told these kids that they can be more than just one thing, that their national identity can have multiple facets. As I told them of my Mexican experience, I also realized something about my German experience. I will never assimilate here. German culture does not allow foreigners to assimilate. To a certain extent, integration is possible, but without German blood, one has no right to claim German identity. In fact, by mere virtue of the fact that part of my ancestry is German, from their perspective I am less foreign than the students in my class who were born here in Berlin. Those students are condemned to be forever foreigners, born in a country which withholds from them its national identity, many never having set foot in their faraway"homelands".

US Election Mania in Germany

I wrote this little anecdote up for Daniela at the US Embassy. We had coffee the other day along with the other two Fulbright kids who helped with the Building Bridges conference. We started talking about the election and I mentioned how surprised I was to find a lot of interest in the election among my students. She said that that kind of information is really good for them to know, so that they can convince people in Washington to send good speakers to Germany. So I wrote this up for her:

In the course of working as a Fulbright Teaching Assitant in Berlin, I was recently asked by one of the teachers to give one of his classes a brief overview of the election process and and introduction to the candidates. I was concerned that our complicated system might be difficult for them to understand in English, and that the topic would be utterly uninteresting to them in general. The U.S. Election is all over the news here in Germany, its coverage even eclipsing a lot of domestic political issues. However, I never imagined that this interest might have penetrated the consciousness of a class of 11 graders. I was totally shocked by how knowledgeable and interested the students in the class were. The normally somewhat rowdy and talkative class listened attentively as I tried to explain the basics of the electoral system. When I asked them what they knew about the candidates, several students piped up at once naming the top contenders. When I pressed them for more information, some of the students were able to give me very up-to-date details on who the candidates were, what they were saying, and how they were being perceived. Not surprisingly, while their knowledge of Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama left me agape, they knew almost nothing about the slew of candidates on the other side of the party line. In Germany, interest even among the youth, in this election is astonishing. You would be hard pressed to find students in an American school that were more knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the election. And my school is by no means elite. On the contrary it is one of the schools in Berlin with an undeserved bad reputation. It is a school in which every one of German's ethnic and religious minorities are well represented. The interest these students have in the direction of American Politics can well be said to represent the feelings of the broadest spectrum of the German population.

My Fancy New Title

I am back in Berlin after a lovely Christmas time spent at home in Wisconsin. The whole family was there and I saw some of my closest friends, and also of course Alex! I was sad to leave, but happy to be coming back to this city I love. I'm really feeling at home here in Berlin. I haven't necessarily fallen head-over-heels for Germany as a whole, although it is a very nice place to live. However, I think I love Berlin despite some of the stodgy parts of Germany. It's a city where an artist actually has a chance. You can find around every corner little galleries, which appear and disappear just as fast. You can find clothing designers who display clothing in the front, which was sewn a few meters away, on a single sewing machine in the back of the store. People can afford to be creative in this town, because space is cheap. Unfortunately, while their prices are very reasonable, being something of an artist myself I can't afford any of it. But it makes me happy to know it exists, to see people creating and surviving from what they make.

So, as many of you may know, I have a new job. It's supposed to be part time, which is good as I already have a job. I am officially the newest Bricka Bracka girl, or as I sign my emails Ausbildungsdirektorin (Educational Director Germany). Last November I got a message out of the blue from Alison Gilbert, my roommate senior year at Vassar. She said she was coming to Berlin as a representative of a Software company at a conference here. She also offered to hook me up with a job at the conference, as they needed another promo girl. I talked to my boss at school, got cleared and accepted, although I didn't really know what I was supposed to do at this conference. The conference ended up being a lot of fun. We wo'manned the booth, talking to people about the company. We were the young, smiling faces of this small, hip CA company. The CEO, Brian (pictured above) was there and his friend and photographer/Educational Director Japan, Jesse was also there. We worked really hard, and I had a good time showing them around town at night.

So that's how I got this job. What it entails is marketing and setting up a Flash programming "Bootcamp" here in Berlin, to teach people some of the newest and most powerful Flash applications. Of course I have recently learned that the "Bootcamp" name will have to go, as the word bootcamp has been at the center of a controversy in German news. A German politician has proposed setting up U.S. style bootcamps to punish juvenile delinquents. Needless to say, many people are not pleased. So this is unfortunately the only context in which Germans know the word "Bootcamp." That and the straight-up military context, which is may even be less popular than the juvenile delinquent punishment camp idea. Suffice it to say we will be looking for another name. I'm kind of partial to something along the lines of MasterFlashClasses, or the Grand Masters of Flash Workshop. I will be taking suggestions here on my blog. Just submit your winning idea in the "Kommentare" (which means comments, sound it out) section. Prizes for winning answers!

Christmas in Germany

Christmas in Germany is a celebration of proportions unparalleled in my experience. I've been wanting to write about it since celebrations started in full at the beginning of December, but somehow have only managed to get around to it now that I am back stateside for Christmas with my family. In Germany there is no Halloween or Thanksgiving to hold back the flood of Christmas products in stores. These items started popping up right after I arrived in Germany in September. I tried to keep my eyes down and ignore them, determined not to be sick of Christmas before December rolled around. In grocery stores there appeared whole islands, 50 square meters large at least, dedicated to Christmas candies, cookies, and cakes. There was every imaginable kind of advent calender, by everyone from Kinder to Europe's poshest chocolatiers.

I needn't have worried about Christmas cheer being spoiled by premature product pushing though, because Germany's Christmas markets produce enough genuine cheer to overcome it all. The celebration begins on the First Advent, the first Sunday in December. Cozy little huts with food, mulled wine (Glühwein), and handmade gifts pop up on every Platz and free space in the city. Marion (the woman who gave me a place to stay in my first weeks in Berlin, and who has become a dear friend) took me to the best markets around. I contemplated bringing my camera, but saw that the battery was nearly dead, and decided it wasn't worth it. A bad decision, which I did not repeat on subsequent market trips. The first market we went to was quite beautiful and not nearly as kitschy as some in touristy parts of Berlin. It was at a farm here in town. It was pretty amazing to see a farm surrounded by the city, but of course it was quite necessary before the fall of the wall, since West Berlin had difficult access to fresh food as the surrounding agricultural countryside was off limits to them.

The second place we went to was a dirt cheap second-had market. There I found a few really fantastic things, which were particularly special because of their uncertain origins. I was feeling a little more clear headed as we went to the third market, which was clearly in a very nice area (as was the first). Large villas surrounded the church. The market was populated with cheerful, well dressed people, the booths filled with expensive artisan wares and charity organizations promoting their causes. I started watching the people and saw so many fascinating things going on all around. There was a beautiful young woman with doe eyes, working a booth for a group to prevent violence against foreign women. She was selling little lottery tickets for the items on the table. She held up her little basket, with red tickets up to an older man, looking up at him with bright enticing eyes. Beautiful. I started seeing things like this everywhere and hated that I did not have my camera.

Finally at the last place we went, a shiny black case caught my eye. In it was a pristine Super 8 movie camera, complete with all the accessories and papers, even the receipt, which showed that it was purchased at an Airport in Nakaku, Yokohama, Japan by one Martha Damröse of Berlin on the 12th of April, 1970. It was perfect and I walked away with it for 5 euros. My mind is busy working on ideas far more concrete than any I've had in a long time. My mind is quite occupied by new ways to tell a story with different sorts of images. Now I just need to search out the story I want to tell.

Brücken bauen - Building Bridges

It's a bit hard to know where to start with the happenings of the last week and a half. It seems like too much has happened for me to even keep it all in my head. Especially since I'm still reeling from it all. I suppose I will start with yesterday, or maybe the day before yesterday. I was enjoying a few minutes of free time between the end of my work day at school, and the welcome event at the Hard Rock Cafe for the US Embassy's "Brücken bauen - Building Bridges" conference. Several weeks ago I was contacted by a woman from the Embassy to see if I and two other Fulbright TA's would be willing to moderate a discussion group for a youth conference that they were planning. We met and talked a bit about the conference. There were to be three sections, one on National Identity, one on Media and Public Perception, and finally one on Community Service. After a welcome statement from the US Ambassador to Germany, and a funny warm up presentation on Stereotypes, there would be a panel discussion, in which three experts would talk about the topics on the agenda. After the panel discussion we would break into groups, one lead by each of the TA's to discuss to give the kids (German and American) a chance to discuss the topic on their terms. We decided I would take the National Identity section. My expert was a PhD who had done research on hip-hop and urban/global youth identities.
It was likely to be the most popular section for obvious reasons.

So the day before yesterday I'm taking a moment to relax before heading out to the conference opening. I get a call from the Embassy. My expert won't be able to make it, could I give fill in for the expert on the panel as well? Huh!? Seriously? Me fill in for the rockin' Hip-Hop PhD? It seemed absurd. I asked her to call me back in an hour so that I could have a chance to think and see if I could put something together. I reluctantly accepted, a bit panicked. I wrote something up off the top of my head, and went to the kick-off. At the kick-off there were tons of people from the Embassy. It was almost impossible to hear who was American and who was German because their "American" was so good, only the names sometimes gave it away. I mentioned that I was interesting in filmmaking and photography, and pretty soon people were asking me for more information, and saying they know someone that they could talk to for me. No promises, but they would ask this producer they know, or this guy working for the Berliner Filmfest, or whatever. It's pretty incredible how connections like that work. I mean, the only reason I was at the Embassy thing was that I had done a presentation for some teachers a while back, and one of them had a wife who worked for the Embassy. He was impressed and recommended Sam and me. Connections. So know I'm actually going to have to email these people and remind them of their offers to help. You never know.

It was near impossible to get anyone to talk to me about the position I was supposed to fill on the "Expert" panel. The only people I could get to actually look at the thing I had prepared were two interns. They gave me positive feedback, and I went home to sleep on it. Yesterday was the actual conference. It's all kind of a blur now, but I sort of felt like I rock star when I finally got up, sat at the panel and did my thing. All the organizers knew that I was a stand-in, and didn't have terribly high expectations (which is part of the reason I agreed to do it). I gave my intro confidently, (I was the first one to go!) and felt that I was pretty well in the flow. I got a couple of tough questions, something to the effect of "Who should be responsible for creating a more inclusive national identity? The governments?"(to which I replied that the governments need to leave space for changing identities, validate this change, and encourage organic formation of identity, but mostly they should stay out of it and give families support to find and help their children find their place in their nation.) And "With all this diversity and loose definition of National Identity, how can a nation foster unity and patriotism." I have to admit this one took me off guard a little, as I consider patriotism in the sense that the government uses it to be dangerous and harmful. I stumbled a bit, but basically said that when you make people feel accepted by their society, they will fill a sort of unity no matter where they come from. At the end of the panel discussion two more questions came back to the issue of National Identity. Essentially the kids said that they had a hard time finding their identity because it is constantly being imposed on them from the outside. Essentially, they were constantly battling against the perceptions of Germany as a Nazi state. I told them that I as an American could relate to this, often being written off by people before I even opened my mouth as an imperialist, warmongering, rabid consumer. I told them that they have the power to change all that. That such perceptions cannot stand in the face of personal contact. That every time they meet someone outside of Germany, they can and will destroy these ideas. They can show by dealing with the past, that they have considered and dealt with the Nazi past better than anyone. They can show themselves for the ultimate anti-fascist people that they have become. It may not be a world-wide solution, but just by going abroad and meeting and talking to people, they can open the minds of countless people. They loved this. Spontaneous applause several times. I felt great having the chance to make these kids feel empowered. To show them their power.

The break-out session was incredible. They were talkative, critical, and totally engaged. I asked who would represent the group, and this boy, Franklin (half Kenyan-half German), who I had noticed in the panel discussion already as an incredibly positive and powerful kid, volunteered. By the end of a really energized discussion, I asked them if they might want to put down their thoughts in Rhyme form, since we'd spent most of the time talking about music and global youth identity. I said that they could show Washington why these things matter, why it's worth spending money to bring them together, to show DC what they were capable of. They were up for it. They broke into groups and wrote Rhymes, which ended up being amazing. All in less than an hour! They were so upset when we had to end. They wanted to keep working. I'm going to try to scan all their rhymes, so that maybe they can keep working, so that they can show Washington. Franklin came up to me at the end and with such admiration thanked me for being such a great teacher. I was speechless because he was the one who was impressive from my point of view.

I'm still in a bit of a daze from it all.

An Argument for Optimism

I realized yesterday, that I haven't yet written about my neighbors, one of whom is my closest friend here in Berlin. This occurred to me yesterday evening as I was perched irresponsibly on the book carrying rack on the back of Patricia's bike cruising (if you could call our wobbly, stilted progress that) down the street towards Karl-Marx Allee. The cold, damp, sunless onset of winter, combined with the wear and tear of living in a foreign country had been grating on our nerves a bit. We discussed this as we sat drinking tea in her perpetually smoky kitchen talking about what we could do to take the edge off the winter/being foreign blues. I admitted that at the drug store the other day I bought a sock knitting kit on impulse. I had stared at the thing in my hand, and decided that I really had little chance of actually finishing a functioning pair of socks like those promised by the picture, despite the pledge on the front that the instructions included were "easy" and "for beginners." Fully conscious of this, I decided to buy it anyway. At the very least the rush I got from throwing down six euros impulsively for a project that I will probably never bring to fruition would make the purchase worth it. Ah the cheap thrills of retail therapy...

Patricia then suggesting taking up painting. It helped me last time I was living abroad, so I told her I was game. She then looked at me sideways, kind of giggled, and said, "hey, I've got this crazy idea. But, if you're not game just say so. It's kind of stupid, but I've always kind of wanted to do it." I was intrigued. "You wanna go for a bike ride?" The two of us? On your bike? I asked. "Yeah, my bike's got this basket-rack thing on the back." I think back to all the times I've seen kids on the verge of inflicting serious harm on themselves due to such antics. I watch them coolly, but at the same time envying a little bit their stupid fun. So there I was, riding side saddle on her thin wire book rack, hopping off every few minutes when I would hear the wheel starting to singe my coat. It was fabulous. A feeling I don't often get anymore, and appreciate all the more because of its rarity. Stupid fun.

We both felt a lot better by the time we stumbled laughing back up to her apartment. I stayed for dinner at her place, where her Italian roommate's friend Elisa was cooking up pasta. I asked Patricia what she had planned for Thanksgiving. She shrugged. Thanksgiving for Patrica has never been the traditional turkey-centric holiday of my family. Her parents moved from Brazil to the US, where Patrica was born, and consequently prefers traditional Brazilian food for their Thanksgiving celebrations. Her roommates were interested and insisted that we should make dinner. They asked what Thanksgiving was all about. I explained that it was similar to their harvest fest in fall, but more historically unique and significant. I explained that it celebrated the feast the pilgrims and Native Americans shared after the pilgrims had their first successful harvest with the help of the Wampanoags. And then they piped up "You mean, before they killed them all?" Hmm... somehow I don't think they got the idea. (I'd also like to point out here that while the settlers were quite good at the killing, their Native American contemporaries did not just lie around waiting to be killed. They were very able warriors themselves, not the naive innocents that such a comment implies. Particularly our Wampanoag friends.)

Their glib comment made me want to go find out more about the actual historical background of Thanksgiving. According to journal entries made by the pilgrims at the Plymouth settlement in Massachusetts, the first Thanksgiving actually did happen. It was a three day celebration in 1621 to which the Pilgrim's invited the Wampanoag people, who had helped them to survive their first winter and plant their first successful harvest. The pilgrims provided most of the food, and the Wampanoags contributed 5 deer. It was actually a very hopeful moment in American history, one that should remind us to strive always for peace. We should not forget the injustices of the past, but if we neglect to celebrate the beautiful and hopeful moments, how can we strive for a better present and future. If the past is reduced to a series of massacres, then how can we have any hope of making a better present for ourselves? How can you hold on to the drive to make things better without the belief that something better exists?

Growing up means realizing that adults are not inherently better people, that their wisdom and benevolence does not always increase proportionally to their years. When growing up our understanding of self and surrounding develop so quickly and steadily that it seems like time will inevitably continue to elucidate the world. At some point though time ceases to increase understanding as before, and experience begins to chip away at hope. I'm beginning to realize that intelligent optimism is very hard to hold on to, that it is much easier to become cynical, hardened, and hopeless. I want to continue to celebrate the things in life that feed hope. It is not easy though. Bad things in life are notoriously good at subjugating the value of the good. If we let it, one hurtful word will carry more significance than 100 loving gestures. Today in an effort to salvage this optimism, and give the good in life its proper place, I chose to find out the true story Thanksgiving.

And now I am going to knit myself a pair of socks.

Back and Boxing

So, I'm back at my blog, which of course means that Alex has crossed the pond and I'm back to my solo life in Berlin. Not bad, but not nearly as fun! We rambled all over the city, ate at lots of great restaurants, and just had a really good time all around. But, now I'm back to my regular life. I've been quite busy preparing a presentation "Globalization: American Perspectives" for a meeting of the English department heads of my school district. Luckily, another Fulbright TA is doing it with me. Man, globalization seems to be all they talk about in school. To me it seems a bit shocking that something so political and inherently moral is required curriculum. I guess it's not the only political and moral topic discussed in school, but somehow I always end up feeling guilty as an American at the end of class. As though, as the resident Ami (sorta like Gringo for the Germans), I were responsible for the McDonaldization of the world. This is all in my head of course. It's starting to get to me, hearing every day about American companies trampling over the cultures of the world and enslaving the little children of the third world. So yes, now I'm doing a presentation on this beloved topic of the Germans.

In addition to my regular school day and preparation for tomorrow's presentation, I went to boxing today. This was my second go around at the University boxing gym where I will be training this year. The class was quite full, and this time there was even another woman there, who was new to boxing, but very experienced in Karate. She's quite tough, and not at all arrogant. I like her. The guy who stepped in for the main trainer was quite the opposite, and managed to tick me off in good order. He was clearly just another student who had done some box, but he was quite interested in criticizing me on some almost insulting points. He talked to me like I was an idiot. He might have mistaken my blank look for a lack of intelligence. My blank look was rather born of my absolute disinterest in his opinion. I felt a little guilty for being so cool, so I explained to him that I was from the US and had yet to learn box jargon auf deutsch. He responded with a very heavy accent "Next time we can speak English then." This sealed the deal for me.

After a bit of observation, I think perhaps the disproportionate criticism I'm receiving may be due to the Germans having a different box style. I'm not sure about this yet, but it would explain why this guy only criticized things that I know I learned right, and not the things I'm actually interesting in improving. I must say, the gym is certainly a different style than I'm accustomed to. I've never boxed in a fancy, or particularly modern gym, rather the equipment is usually sparse and well worn, but relatively up to date. This gym makes me think of my great grandfather George's boxing gloves that are hanging in our basement at home: Old and puffy, but still in good shape. I half expect this guy to walk through the door at any moment:
The workouts are quite intense, and long. It is hard to box for 90 minutes. I'm used to 45 minute sessions, and even then at the end I'm totally kaput. At least we didn't have to jump for 15 minutes straight this time. The backs of my legs were covered by stripy welts by the time that little warm-up was done. I've decided that I'm a bit clumsy when it comes to jump-roping. Little did I imagine in elementary school while I jumped rope during recess, that I would be doing it 15 years later as a boxer. I suppose if someone had told me then, I wouldn't have been all that surprised. I might have just tried to get a little better at it so that years later I wouldn't have so many welts burnt into the backs of my legs.

A Brief Hiatus

First of all, thank you so much to those of you who have written me comments and emails in response to my posts. It's nice to know you're out there, and it's great to hear from you. As most of you know, I have had a visitor from the US of A for the past week or so. Consequently, I have been neglecting my blogging duties. Bear with me, I will be back in action soon. Due to camera malfunction, I will probably not have many pictures to add. My big camera doesn't get much play on an every day basis.

I have much to tell, so stay tuned, I'll be back soon enough!

The Kindness of Strangers

My room has been transformed from a big empty space with a bed into a real living space by the kindness of strangers. Today one of the teachers at the school and her husband invited me to their home for coffee and cake (the German equivalent of afternoon tea and biscuits), and then brought me across town to my apartment with a trunk filled with wonderful things for my room. Before Grit (my teaching mentor, yes, her name is Grit, as in short for MarGRIT) told me that Helga Rosenbaum had some things for my room she'd like to give me, I don't think I had even heard her name. Not only did she have some things for me, I was informed, but she had offered to bring them to my apartment and pick them up at the end of the year. My jaw dropped when I heard all this. I recently bought a couple rugs for my room in an effort to make things look warmer and more homey, but they kind of just ended up looking silly: two bright patches floating in the emptyness of my room.

So today we drove across the city with two wicker chairs, a coffee table, and a lamp in the back of their small mid-90's Volvo sedan. When we brought all this up to my room, Mr. Rosenbaum set straight to work putting the furniture back together, and Helga began pulling other little wonders out of a bag. She gave me a square basket of apples from her garden, another basket/bowl of colorful squashes, also from her garden, a cork mat onto which she put a set of three tea light candle holders and an apple scented candle and votive. She also pulled out a mug filled with colorful pens, a calander for my lesson schedule, and some other things for my desk (which Grit will bring for me next week.) They bustled around setting things up and I could hardly do more than stand there in shock. I didn't know how to express my deep gratitude for this unexpected kindness. I awkwardly to let them know, but they already knew. In a very typical direct, but not unkind German way, told me that one thank-you was enough. They then promtly disappeared leaving me happy, still in shock. I actually jumped for joy, I'm slightly embarassed to admit. It's not just the things themselves that make me so happy, it's the fact that someone would go out of their way to help me, even without knowing who I am. Helga knew that I was new here in Berlin, and didn't have anything except what was in my suitcases. She knew she didn't need these things, which are from their summer house, and so simply decided that I should have them. It sounds so simple, I needed something that she could give me and so she did. I think that's the way she sees it. But to me it feels like so much more.

And she is not the only one. Marion and Günter not only offered me their home, their food, and their friendship for my first weeks here in Germany, but also sent me on my way with sheets, towels, candles, and many other little things to help me. Grit has let all the teachers know about my situation, and has asked them for any little thing which might help me. Many have obliged, promptly bringing blankets, pillows and whatever else they had around. Grit is going to take time during our upcoming vacations to bring me a desk from her house, and to help me pick up other things from the school basement that the principle has said I could have. This sort of support has been a bit overwhelming. I can't help but hope that someone coming to my country under similar circumstances would be greeted with this kind of support. I would like to think so, but I'm not sure.

Grit is an East German, and proudly so, something that may of may not be relevent. She was born in Thüringen, as were the Rosenbaums. She talks with fondness of East Germany, of all the support she got from the community and the government when she had her first son. When I brought up the wall and the lack of freedom of movement, she attributed this to the Russians. I didn't go so far as to bring up the Stasi. For her, and probably for most East Germans, the Stasi were never an issue. She was just a normal citizen, with no political interests or aspirations. I'm sure it was quite nice for her in the East. When I think about the outpouring of support I've received, I have to wonder if it might have something to do with the communal mentality of the former East. Berlin is a fascinating mix of East and West. I'm still just skimming the surface of the many cultural currents flowing through this city.

The Land of Pilsner

I'm using the oven in my new apartment for the first time. I'm attempting to do a version of cowboy cookies. I say trying because I've run into a few challenges. First of all, the oven doesn't have temperature marked in degrees. Instead it has the numbers one through 10 on a knob. Or is it 1 through 8? Not that it matters, because it doesn't correspond to any degree system I'm familiar with. My roommate says "between 2 and 3 is pretty standard"... The rest of my challenges have been in the realm of ingredients. There are no chocolate chips here as far as I can tell. No big deal, I bought some tasty chocolate and chunked it with a knife. I do, however, take this to be a disappointing indication of the diminished role of chocolate in baked goods here. Also, there is no brown sugar. I improvised with some "beet sugar" or molasses and the regular stuff. The best I could do for vanilla is this packet I found claiming to be "natural." When I opened it, the substance claiming to be vanilla ooooozed out. Vanilla does not ooze. So, I'm going to have to find some sort of proper vanilla stat, but for now, my expectations for the cookies are not that high. I have to say though, the smell of them baking makes me feel right at home.

The one thing I never expected to be missing here, is beer. I thought I was coming to the land of beer. Oooohh, they do have large quantities of it to be sure. The bottles are all .5 L, about one and a half of our beers. In the back of the stores you see what seems to be a very impressive selection of beer. I was excited the first time I saw those rows of crates filled with big bottles for 60 cents a piece. Then I started searching to my favorite varieties, lager, ale, reds, blonds, porters, stouts... I saw Pils, pilsner, pils, pils, pils, pilsner.... on and on, with a few dark beers crowded into small corners. So many rows of beer, such an apparent abundance of variety! Oh the disappointment. Germany is not the land of beer as I was lead to believe, it is the land of Pilsners! Not that I don't enjoy a good Pilsner from time to time, but sometimes I just want more.

I've asked around a bit, and have searched on the internet to try to find a store with a better beer selection. I have always been met with stony replies of "what, you don't like our beer? Our beer is the best. This is Germany! World famous for beer and wurst!" The variety of wurst here is much more impressive than that of beer. I even found on the internet a gentleman in Bavaria looking for a beer store which sells Belgian ales, and one of the responses was "German brewers would never allow for such a thing to enter our land. And I agree with them!" Wow. The poor guy was just looking for a little variety, you know, the spice of life? Oh well, at least they've got lots of wine from other countries. This may not be my year for beer, I'm afraid.

Well, my cookies seem to have come out alright against all odds. The roommates are raving.

Personhood and Politics

My chili is simmering in the kitchen, perfect time to sit down and write a bit about today. Today I had to be at school at 8am, which means I had to be up and moving at 6:30 this morning. This is quite a struggle for a spoiled college student, who spurned outright any class beginning before 10am. At 6am the idea of Grad school looks better and better all the time. Despite my early morning battle to get my body working, I am enjoying classes very much.

One of the classes I assisted in today was a large group in their 12th year. The whole hour was dedicated to them asking me questions about myself, my country, and my impressions of Berlin and Germany. I recognized some of the kids from other groups. Consistently there are a few kids who are brave enough to ask most of the questions, while the rest are quiet listening. Up to this point I've been surprised not to have entertained many political questions. Actually, there has only been one thus far: "What do you think of Bush?" I offered a diplomatic, but also clearly unfavorable response. They actually clapped when I said that I had never been a Bush supporter and was happy to be able to voice my opinion in the last election.

Other than that, politics have been surprisingly absent. When I commented on this to Günter - the 64 year-old husband of Marion, the couple I'm currently staying with - he says probably because they feel so hopelessly impotent in a political system that doesn't care about them, they have lost interest in politics. Somehow I think this is oversimplifying the matter. I think politics, and especially the idea of America, fills and surrounds their bi-cultural lives. I prefer to take their lack of desire to interrogate me on the politics of my country as a sign that they can separate a person from the government under which they live.

This was particularly clear when one of the boys asked me the highly political, but also deeply personal question, "Where were you on 9-11?" I told them that I was in Mexico. I felt the interest of the students peak. I told them how I found out, at first thinking it was a misguided joke of my prank-loving Mexican friends. I told them how it dawned on me that this might not be a joke, and how I felt when I wandered into the international students lounge just in time to see the second tower fall. I told them how alone I felt, how I felt light years away from home, loved ones, and compatriots. As I finished my abbreviated tale of that day, I geared up for the inevitable political follow up questions about the war, and our bellicose leader. None came. A moment of silence followed my little story, and the weight of it lifted. Then came the more questions, about school, teachers, and daily life in the U.S. For some reason this made an impression on me. I was a person, not a flag, a symbol for all the good and bad actions of my government. It was very humane. Or maybe they were just scared to ask the questions they really wanted to ask. It's hard to know.