when Tabea helped me move all of my not inconsiderable belongings across the country, I thought I would never be able to repay her. Then she asked me to help chaperone her Church's youth group trip to the Czech republic. I told her she could keep the change.
Tabea and I took (along with one German man in charge of Youth from their congregation) 13 teenage German girls to the middle of the Czech Republic. There we stayed in the church of another Czech congregation. Actually there was much more house than church there.
The giggling which we endured in those 5 days is beyond what I can describe, of course, but also interesting was the fact that the girls were non-stop playing music, of course in English, on their cellphones. So we also had badly projected teeny-bopper music for 5 days.
On the first two days we had to work for the Czech congregation in order to pay them back for letting us stay. We divided into two groups, and I went with the man (Martin) and 7 girls into the forest to "make firewood" as I was told.
--- since the girls all spoke SOME English from school, I could communicate with them. Also my German improved dramatically over the five days. But all the announcements Tabea made and much of the rest of the time was in GErman and too fast for me to really understand, so often I was in the dark on things and just followed blindly. Sometimes I asked a girl to translate for me and I would get the gist of things, but sometimes I just had to hope I was doing the right thing.
So I proceeded to head out with Martin and the girls that morning to the forest. After walking uphill into the forest of a small mountain for 45 minutes we arrived. I was pretty panicked as we went because I couldn't imagine the 7 girls who were walking with us yeilding hand axes and chopping down trees, but that seemed from the descriptions I was getting, to be what would happen. When we arrived in the forest, exhausted, however, it turned out that the trees were already felled but were in their respective places on the hillside amongst the still-growing trees. We had to "shlepp" (the correct German verb in this case) the trees down to a central collecting place that ostensibly a truck could come and pick them up. The trees were often only 8 inches in diameter as they are a kind of pine tree that grows thickly, much like lodgepoles, but they were often 15-20 or even more feet long. We had ropes that we could put on the trees and then pull them down and actually a single girl, despite being technically smaller and weighing less, could actually pull one down the mountain because the incline was so steep. Getting back up the mountain each time was not particularly easy of course because you were tired after pulling them down and then you had to turn around and climb back up. The girls began to complain after about a half hour and we were supposed to do it for 4 hours or more. Martin was doing nothing to supervise or jolly up the girls, just pulling down the trees. So I made up a game wherein the girls came to a central location higher up that Martin and I pulled the trees to and then two girls came at a time to get them and bring us their ropes. The girls who brought each tree down could then call out the next girl who had to go to the higher receiving point. This actually worked well for a while and helped the girls to rest a bit between trips up and down. After an hour and a half, and two hours or more earlier than we were supposed to, we left and came back to the house (after walking again 45 minutes). It was exhausting, hot, buggy work. And when we got back, I slept for an hour or more.
Then in the afternoons we had lunch at 2. The food was only marginal without a lot. But we managed somehow. In the evening, I taught the girls the cup game from camp. That was fun. Also I had brought the stuff for friendship bracelets. We gave the girls the opportunity to make them and they had no interest. So then Tabea and I were sitting on our bed in the big room where we all slept and I was showing her how to make the finger weave variety and soon a few little curious eyes were popping up. By the train ride back to Germany on Sunday, everyone had at least two on their arms and they were begging for more embroidery floss to make more.
You see, being American, I was quite the novelty for the girls. So I had a certain cache with them that could make them help a bit more or make them cheer up a bit more or whatever. Also my camp counseling experience gave me a serious leg up on the other adults because they hadn't had any training. There were two girls who were also something like adults, 18 year olds who were supposed to be helping. They were, to some extent, and had planned some games for the first night, but they were not particularly older than the rest of the girls (who were 13 and 14) so they weren't terribly helpful all the time. One afternoon two of my favorite girls, Kathi and Anna, spent an hour or two teaching me German grammar. It was fun for them and helpful for me and they (of course accidentally) learned more English by having to explain things to me. It was cool and I called them both "Professor" for the rest of the trip. I think they liked that. Both of those girls seemed like minature versions of Tabea and I and so we loved them. They were more serious, didn't play music from their cellphones, helped with the work, didn't complain, etc.
There was another girl who bears mentioning here-- Helena. She was the tallest and blondest and loudest of the girls. And when we first were going to CR, I was worried because she seemed like she might really be trouble. And yes, she could complain like nobody's business. But she also worked the hardest of the girls. And she would help if you asked. And she would do what you said. Tabea said in German she was actually pretty mean to one of the other girls, an outcast, but I couldn't understand that part. And she really was good otherwise. And apparently when Tabea told her to cut out making fun of the other girl she did and didn't start again. It was just funny to be around her because she was quite a force of nature. And she cussed in English like a drunken sailor recently out on parole who had stubbed his toe. So I actually told her when she was saying "fuck" that this isn't really a very acceptable thing to say in English-- they don't really know that because they only hear the music, etc. and don't have the cultural understanding as young teenagers of another culture. So I taught her to say "crap" instead and it stuck. So all the girls were saying "oh crap" instead of cussing and, although crap isn't necessarily the nicest thing in the world, it is much nicer to hear 13 and 14 year olds saying that all the time than the other things they were saying which were rather jarring when that was really all you could pick out of a conversation.
Anyway, the second day of work, apparently, would have been boring if we were just dragging tired, giggling young teenage girls 45 minutes up a mountain to drag logs bigger than them down with ropes. So it was pouring rain. Therefore, the forest floor was slippery in the spots we had worn paths in from dragging logs down the day before. So now there were tiny girls slipping down the slopes of this forested mountain with logs bigger than them. Good thing we weren't boring. Actually early on that day I was bringing a pointed log down and it slid into the back of my leg (when I stopped, it didn't) and I have a giant bruise and I said "oh Crap!" So I was rather irritated because I was wet and there were no less than 10 flies landed on my face at any given time with more buzzing around my ears. So I didn't have the capacity to jolly up the girls and I just ordered them to bring 3 more each and then 2 more each, etc. Then Martin and I pulled the rest down ourselves. Probably I should have worked harder to make the girls help, but with the weather conditions and my mood, it was just better to do it ourselves. I was absolutely more exhausted than I have been in a long time when we finished.
We went back early again that day, but there was literally nothing more I could have done and our (albeit cursory) survey of the mountain showed we had gotten most or maybe even all the felled trees anyway. That was definitely an adventure. And I don't think in a million years you could have done that in the US, the liability possibilities were astounding me as I was doing it. I was, of course, always trying to be conscious of safety and ways to make the process better, but it was still dangerous I knew. Nevertheless, I think we minimized the danger as much as possible and the only one who was hurt at all was me and that was just because I was taking something too heavy by myself to try to be an example for the girls. It was stupid and it was only painful, not worse. And now I have a nice purple decoration on the back of my leg.
The picture on the top of this page is of the pile of logs we had accummulated at the end of the second day.
Anyway, the rest of the trip was fine insofar as the girls did mainly what they wanted and didn't give us much trouble. At night twice it became clear that they were getting dressed up at bedtime and wanted to sneak out, but that was easily avoided. There was a carnival in the little village where we were and they were all terribly boy-crazy and wanted to go out there. Tabea said they could go out between 8 and 10 at night if they had an adult with them. They wanted me to go with them, probably because they could plan sedition openly in front of me in quickly-spoken German and I would have no idea. So I took them the first night to the town square and stood around, in the misty rain, but then when they spoke German and English to a few Czech older teenage boys who were drinking and the boys were obviously really annoyed by them, I gathered them up and took them home even though they really didn't want to go. It was good because I heard the boys curse them out a bit when the girls didn't hear. Tabea says the Czechs get really annoyed when Germans come to their country (which is much much poorer than Germany but shares a long border) and speak German to them and expect them to understand. So I gathered the girls and took them home and we proceeded to keep them busy until 10 every night thereafter so they wouldn't ask to go into town.
I learned a lot about friendship on this trip. It didn't occur to me to be upset about going or be mad at Tabea for the work I had to do. Of course you do that. As she helped me shlepp boxes out of my house for hours and hours and hours last year, so I shlepped trees. And it was interesting to see the girls interract. Certainly different from American girls. They walked always hand in hand through the villages and cities we were in. They sat on each other's laps and were very demonstrative. It was interesting.
But most of all, I learned about friendship because Tabea was in charge of this whole event, being the Pastor. Because I didn't speak the language they were speaking, I had to just trust her and blindly follow. This isn't particularly easy. But she looked out for me and always tried to make sure I was okay and that I was understanding what was going on. On the other hand, the other "adults" Martin and Anka, one of the 18 year olds, were not really helpful and undermined Tabea's authority with the other girls. They wanted to, for example, order pizza the last night when we had lots of leftovers and groceries to clean up. Tabea thought it was a bad example to waste all that food and really was disrespectful in front of the Czech pastor, Hynok, who may have had to struggle a little for food from time to time. So I helped Tabea make dinner and convinced her that we needed to offer the girls more than noodles with Ketchup and butter sauce (which is a particular favorite of teenagers) and we together made a pretty darn good dinner for the girls in a very short time. She listened to me and I only questioned her in private. We bore the grumblings together and defended each other. It was a bit like a marraige and we were the parents and even the "adults" were our kids.
On the last night, Martin and Anka led open sedition against Tabea's rules. She wanted the girls to get some sleep, but they thought the girls should be able to stay up as late as they wanted. It was a trying night for Tabea but eventually we got some sleep.
The next day we took 13 tired teenagers and one annoying and not particularly favored German man back to Regensburg on 4 trains, narrowly catching connections and getting delayed over and over again. But we delivered everyone safely home. It was a success. The girls I think learned something, certainly improved their English, had a great time.
And I learned a lot too. And I do really care about all those girls and hope they will succeed in life. It was hard to see that some of them may be pointed in the direction of a difficult path-- wearing skimpy clothes and being overly boy-crazy and dependent on male attention, for example, and not very confident. I hope they all find their way.
It was overall a great experience and one I don't think many people get, to see into the lives of kids of another culture when they are pushed into different directions and when they are somewhere else apart from their parents, etc. And it was a beautiful place. The landscape there is really nice. And it was fun a lot of the time.
No comments:
Post a Comment