Becoming an Author
I’m exploring my roots as a writer. My first news story was published my senior year of high school. I authored two articles in one month—both written in second person (mostly). Not sure I would ever write from that POV (Point Of View) again…. This feature story summarized my two week exchange trip to Germany in 1986, before the Wall came down. The experience changed me forever, and made me into a world explorer. The story is unedited, aside from a few apostrophe typos that I can’t let slide 34 years later. There is so much my17-year old self left unsaid, enjoy as I am pondering whether to write a Part II.
44 Students Experience Deutschland
Friday, April 4, 1986
Germany…Bach, beer, castles, Hitler, the Berlin Wall, and Boris Becker. Those are some things Americans identify with Germany, but few have had a chance to live “behind the scenes.” What if you could see what it is like to speak, eat, and live with a German family?
Forty-four American students and three teachers had the chance. High school students from Kansas City, Minot, ND, and Renville, MN, traveled with ISE (intercultural Student Experiences) for a two week stay in Germany from March 5-20.
The impact of where and what was happening did not really occur to the students until the second day in Germany, after a day of traveling through East Germany to get to West Berlin, the jet lag still lingered two days after arriving in Germany. Anyone could see the looks of anxiety, fear, and exhaust on the faces of the 44 American students on the bus as it pulled up to the school where each student would meet a family and disappear into West Berlin for a week.
Anxious faces waited outside the bus as the names of students were read. One by one, each student went down the steps to meet his or her new family.
The family was standing by the bus entrance, everyone smiled nervously, shook hands, and exchanged hellos. They worked their way through the crowd, the Americans catching glimpses of other students very few minutes, no one wanting to leave the security of the bus too quickly.
Some people did leave quickly, some stayed until the bus was empty, but everyone soon realized that were on their own.
The car ride home was quiet; it is very hard to start a conversation when you have to speak a language that succeeds in making you sound like a five-year-old and you have a bad case of jet lag that will not allow you to concentrate, so you do not understand a thing they are saying. That first night was frightening, answering questions in German and ignoring waves of exhaustion sweeping over your body was next to impossible.
Waking up in a strange house is like waking up from a dream but instead of being a dream, it is real. Lying in a room in Germany, you wonder how to say, “Are you awake?” to your German sister, Andrea.
Finally, you notice that both of you are awake. You smile, wondering how much time you wasted thinking about three words when all you really needed was a smile. During breakfast several efforts are made to start a conversation. It ends up being very one-sided, answering their questions with nods or shakes of your head…but it is a start. Out of the whole conversation you figure out that her friend also has an American staying with him and the four of you will spend the day seeing Berlin.
The other American was one of the people you only met briefly on the bus, buy you are joyous that there is someone you can actually speak English to. After speaking to each other for a few seconds, you realize that your sister and his brother have very quizzical looks on their faces because you are speaking too fast and everyone bursts out laughing.
People from every walk of life live in Berlin. People with orange hair and leather jackets, fur coats and diamond rings; cars that look like lawnmowers, Porsches, Mercedes and BMWs populate the street. Shops are everywhere; McDonald’s and Burger King are as common in Germany as in America, one on every block.
Ordering a cheeseburger, French fries, and a Coke is common too, but it sounds like you are insulting the English language. It sounds like: burga mit kayza, fritts, oont a gross coke (not very appetizing).
Some of the fashion of the German guys at the high school I went to for a week.
By the end of the day though, you have succeeded in forming a language which is a mixture of German and English, you say the things you know in German then substitute English words for the words you do not know in German and hope that someone will get the idea.
That night you are dragged to a discotheque, visions of John Travolta and white suits on a dance floor fill your mind, but it is the opposite. It is a permanent party. Teenagers meet, dance, and have fun. Loud music, smoky air, lights and noise make it a teenager’s world.
Another world for the teenager is school, but in Germany it is a place just to learn, no pep rallies, football games, rooms or clubs. School seemed very dead; the school was large and the population was very small. Students usually had four classes a day with twenty or thirty minutes between classes and a 90 minute lunch. You notice in the classroom that most students do not pay attention in class.
Though understanding German was difficult and confusing, as it grew closer to the day to leave, everyone found themselves wanting to stay. In the short span of a week you became friends with your family, and it feels as though part of you has become German forever. For many students, the day everyone had to get back on the bus was going to be worse than leaving the United States because you might not ever see these people again, forever.
The day came, the faces that had been filled with fear and anxiety one week ago were now full of sorrow and love for their “second families” as the bus pulled out of the school parking lot and on the road to West Germany for the rest of the tour as a group.
It took two hours to pass through the West Berlin/East German border, which was a total of about 200 yards. You sometimes wonder how the West Berliners can survive in the middle of east Germany. While traveling through East Germany, a thick fog enveloped the bus. It almost seemed as though it was purposely blocking the view of a communist landscape.
Out of the reach of the fog, inside the bus, everyone was trying to get used to speaking English again and telling tales of their families. It was like a miniature, traveling America. American books, American music, American games and ENGLISH conversation.
For the next part of the trip, everyone saw Germany like a visitor would, instead of from a native’s point of view. In Berlin, natives saw the Wall differently than tourists.
View of the Brandenburg Gate from West Berlin.
The Wall separates Berlin into West and East; it divides the people as well as the land. One of the days in Berlin all the American students took a guided bus tour of East Berlin, a VERY guided tour.
View of Brandenburg Gate from East Berlin.
You only saw East Berlin as the East Berlin government wanted you to see it, but we saw the faces of the people. Solemn, devoid of all feeling‚ except for a glimmer of curiosity at seeing a group of Americans enclosed in a glass bus, separated from their world.
In the memory of those that tried to get across the Wall and failed. East German guard tower in background.
Forty-four students saw Germany as no one else did. From “behind the scenes,” to a tourist’s view. No one will forget those two weeks, the friends, the teachers, the unforgettable families, and most of all, the experience of actually living in another country.