My girls
It has been almost a year and a half now. Seventeen months of trying to get used to the language, behaviors and social conventions of these northern Germans; and just as much time working on establishing some sort of social network. We’re happy to report that the never-simple process of making friends has not been entirely dreadful. There are two main reasons for this: small children and low expectations. First, it is relatively easy to meet people (read: other parents) through a toddler’s play groups, kiddie classes, or playground routine. To break the ice, there is that guaranteed topic of your kids and their—choose all that apply—ages, names, runny noses, talent on the swings, agility with the pail and shovel, or penchant for stealing sips from another kid’s sippy cup. Second, we have known from the beginning—thanks to an all-day German cultural training workshop we attended in Atlanta--that these people have a different concept of friendship than most Americans do. According to the stereotype, due to what’s referred to as the Germans’ “village mentality”, their friendship bar is raised almost impossibly high. Friends are those few souls who have known you your whole life, are related to you, are sleeping with you, and/or have been by your side during life changing events. Anyone less is just a “Bekannte”, that is, literally a “known” person.
So we’ve been content just cultivating relationships with pleasant people, mostly Germans, some not. Maybe--maybe--we could call one or two of them friends, but that’s a subject best left for another entry. But because now there are, at least some numbers on our local phone list and a handful of people to meet up with at the park or for a Sunday breakfast, I no longer feel compelled to view every person who even half smiles in my direction as a potential friend. What follows are descriptions of some of the women in our neighborhood with whom I’ve had semi-friendly encounters but from whom, it’s safe to say at this point, I’ll probably be seeking nothing more. Please read on.
Brinna*
I had seen this unusually petite, ash blond woman several times on the playground. And while her no-nonsense, cold-weather uniform of chocolate brown, calf-length North Face parka, beige corduroys and brown rubber-soled boots all signaled an uncomplicated personality, her constant chatting with other mothers made her seem inaccessible. Until one sleety afternoon last winter when we were the only two adults on the local “Spielplatz”. When I saw that there were four kids with her, digging in the wet sand with large bright plastic shovels, I marched toward her armed with two legitimate inquiries: where could one buy such great sand toys at this time of year, and, were all of those children hers? She admitted, somewhat shamefully, that the toys were from Toys R’Us (German mothers love to hate this place), and with not a little exasperation, that yes, both the set of 3 year-old triplets and the 5 year old boy were hers. At the time I was pregnant and worrying about how I would manage with two little ones, so I stood trembling before this woman, in awe of her obvious achievement. (I was also struggling to comprehend how someone so tiny could carry triplets). She then recounted for me, without an ounce of sugarcoating, just how difficult it was to take care of four children under five, how little time she had for herself, how impossible it was to find trustworthy hired help, how her parents lived two hours away, and how late her husband came home from work. It did seem like a formidable task, and my goodbye to her was “Good luck!” as she rounded up her fair-haired herd and they ambled out of the playground. Curiously, the next few times I saw her there she ignored me and continued her conversations with the other mothers. I didn’t mind, since she had seemed a tad bland, even after factoring in the fatigue, chaos and tedium proper to her mammoth mothering job. I eventually stopped trying to meet her gaze, and “forgot” that I knew her. But just a few weeks ago Brinna stopped me to say hello, at the weekly farmer’s market held a block from our house. I had just dropped Leo off at Kindergarten and was buying apples with Marco in the carriage. She hadn’t yet met Marco, and smiled approvingly at him. She then turned to me and asked how I was managing with the baby. But before letting me answer, she commented, “I can see that he’s not sleeping well yet, because you look very tired.” Wait a second…How can this woman know if I look tired—she doesn’t even really know what I look like! Once at home, I dropped both Marco and the apples in our hallway to go check myself out in the bathroom mirror. I looked… no more tired than usual. Sometimes these Germans are too honest.
Ute*
How fun that I am in Germany and I found my own personal Doppelgänger! I witnessed over a few months, while pregnant and with a young toddler boy, as this neighborhood woman got even more pregnant, with her own little male toddler in tow. So one summer day (on the playground, of course), as I waddled along after Leo, I noticed that she was now thin and kind of grey looking, hovering over a baby carriage as her toddler played on the swings. For several weeks my double and I had been exchanging smiles of complicity, so I felt the time was right to make my move. In retrospect, I should have never begun a dialogue with Ute, because pretty much every thing out of her mouth, after introducing me to her newborn and older child, was negative. During our initial conversation, I began to slip in English words, which is my standard, indirect way of pleading to my interlocutor “Please, speak English! I don’t understand everything you are saying and it sounds important!”, but she just kept right on carping in German. I nodded sympathetically as she talked about not sleeping, crying, and throwing-up, but inside I dreaded every word out of her mouth (those that I understood). Somewhat naively I suppose, I had sort of hoped things would be easier with the second baby, and this woman was freaking me out! Then, for the first several weeks after Marco was born, I ran into Ute every few days-- in the little supermarket around the corner, on the play ground, in the zoo, and on the street. On the bright side, these encounters improved my German vocabulary tremendously. Now I knew plenty of words suitable for catastrophes: schlecht (nasty), shrecklich (horrible), schwerig (heavy, tough), furchtbar (terrible), and anstrengend (strenuous, stressful). I found out later, from my friend Veronika, that for Germans, this rapid fire of (un)pleasantries is not uncommon. But for an American like me who strives to “show a good face”, particularly with mere acquaintances, Ute’s conversational style was hard to take. Interestingly, I also learned from Veronika that Germans are critical of the American convention of always asking “How are you?”, (almost) always answering “Fine”, and never expecting/wanting anything more than a one-word answer for this exchange. OK, lesson learned: I will brace myself before asking the question again to a German. But the “it’s just cultural” excuse only goes so far. I guess she’s not really my twin.
Marise*
I made Marise’s acquaintance at the farmers’ market early last fall. Again, I was buying apples, but this time I had just dropped my carton of farm fresh eggs, broken 80% of them, and was feeling frazzled (and eggy). She could detect from the way I asked for a half kilo of Elstar that I was not a native German speaker. “Where are you from?” She asked me in English. When I told her I was from America she smiled and said, “so am I… Canada… Montreal.” I then recognized that she, too, had an accent… a French one. She had been living in Germany for a decade, so was acculturated and totally fluent. Standing in front of the apple sellers, with egg yolk on my fingers and Marco whimpering in the Bjorn, we had a nice conversation, each nodding enthusiastically at our commonalities (ties to Atlanta, bilingual children, living abroad, learning German, etc.). She gave me her email and implored me to contact her. A few days later I did, but we had trouble finding a time to meet. It was no big loss, though she had seemed nice and peppy. But I did keep running into her-- once with her Hannoverian husband on a Saturday, once leaving a fancy furniture store, and once in the little supermarket, when she insisted on lending me her umbrella since it was raining and again I had Marco in the Bjorn, with no rain cover. It was October, and she mentioned her total stress over a new client (she is a self-employed intercultural trainer). She suggested we get together in January. Yes, that’s right: Marise was suggesting a play-date for the following year. I agreed, incredulous, that this was a grand idea. After that day, I didn’t see the French Canadian-German woman again, not even once. It’s just as well, because her umbrella has gotten so much use in inclement weather that it is now totally busted, and I haven’t quite motivated myself to buy a replacement.
Lea*
Lea is a friend of our friends Veronika and Matthias, a woman who I had seen at a few social events and a couple times at the… yup, playground. This tall, gaunt, blond woman with ice blue eyes, high cheekbones and a knob at the end of her nose also has two young kids, Henno* and Elena*. Lea is very quiet and her English is limited. So I was surprised when she invited me over for coffee. When we were there, though, all Lea talked about was learning English and the frustrating courses she and her husband had been taking. So I was soon suspicious that she wished me to be her new English teacher. Now, the Germans are a foreign language-obsessed breed, but never in my time here has anyone been so transparent about their intentions for me. Feeling a bit peeved, I decided I’d “use” her for German practice, and searched around in my head for some words that I needed clarification on. But she was not receptive of my attempts to practice her language. I then looked around her apartment, seeing if there was anything else I could take advantage of her for. For starters, I could help myself to another slice of cake and get her to make me one of those cappuccino drinks from that fancy machine they had. The carpet was nice and soft for the babies, and Leo was seriously digging Henno’s trains. When the clock struck twelve, it was finally time to dress the kiddies and take them home. Unsurprisingly, my new English student asked me what Leo, Marco and I were doing the following Friday. Foreseeing the beginning of a fixed weekly meeting, I told her I could only meet two weeks later. She seemed positively elated—her husband would be so jealous of all this language practice! That Friday came. I bundled everybody up and gave her a call to tell her we were on our way. Though she seemed to expect my call, she told me that her kids had been sick all week and she didn’t want to get mine sick so could we please not come. If they had been sick all week, why not call and cancel? She immediately worked on re-scheduling her next English session, and I reluctantly gave her another Friday spot, again at her place. The next Friday, the same thing happened! This time I told her--as I was removing Marco from his snowsuit and thinking of how to tell Leo he wouldn’t be playing with Henno’s train set that day, either-- that we were busy on Fridays until 2009. I wished her family better health and hung up cussing. In defense of Germans, Lea’s non-existent “cancellation policy” is by no means typical. They usually take their appointments very seriously. Maybe that’s why it irked me so. But, on the bright side, I’m now free from pro-bono English teaching.
As you can see, nobody described here is a Bad Person. In fact, I plan on keeping their contact information, just in case. And luckily, for every “iffy” person in Germany, we’ve met twice as many nice ones. They’re just not as fun to write about.
*name has been slightly altered
So we’ve been content just cultivating relationships with pleasant people, mostly Germans, some not. Maybe--maybe--we could call one or two of them friends, but that’s a subject best left for another entry. But because now there are, at least some numbers on our local phone list and a handful of people to meet up with at the park or for a Sunday breakfast, I no longer feel compelled to view every person who even half smiles in my direction as a potential friend. What follows are descriptions of some of the women in our neighborhood with whom I’ve had semi-friendly encounters but from whom, it’s safe to say at this point, I’ll probably be seeking nothing more. Please read on.
Brinna*
I had seen this unusually petite, ash blond woman several times on the playground. And while her no-nonsense, cold-weather uniform of chocolate brown, calf-length North Face parka, beige corduroys and brown rubber-soled boots all signaled an uncomplicated personality, her constant chatting with other mothers made her seem inaccessible. Until one sleety afternoon last winter when we were the only two adults on the local “Spielplatz”. When I saw that there were four kids with her, digging in the wet sand with large bright plastic shovels, I marched toward her armed with two legitimate inquiries: where could one buy such great sand toys at this time of year, and, were all of those children hers? She admitted, somewhat shamefully, that the toys were from Toys R’Us (German mothers love to hate this place), and with not a little exasperation, that yes, both the set of 3 year-old triplets and the 5 year old boy were hers. At the time I was pregnant and worrying about how I would manage with two little ones, so I stood trembling before this woman, in awe of her obvious achievement. (I was also struggling to comprehend how someone so tiny could carry triplets). She then recounted for me, without an ounce of sugarcoating, just how difficult it was to take care of four children under five, how little time she had for herself, how impossible it was to find trustworthy hired help, how her parents lived two hours away, and how late her husband came home from work. It did seem like a formidable task, and my goodbye to her was “Good luck!” as she rounded up her fair-haired herd and they ambled out of the playground. Curiously, the next few times I saw her there she ignored me and continued her conversations with the other mothers. I didn’t mind, since she had seemed a tad bland, even after factoring in the fatigue, chaos and tedium proper to her mammoth mothering job. I eventually stopped trying to meet her gaze, and “forgot” that I knew her. But just a few weeks ago Brinna stopped me to say hello, at the weekly farmer’s market held a block from our house. I had just dropped Leo off at Kindergarten and was buying apples with Marco in the carriage. She hadn’t yet met Marco, and smiled approvingly at him. She then turned to me and asked how I was managing with the baby. But before letting me answer, she commented, “I can see that he’s not sleeping well yet, because you look very tired.” Wait a second…How can this woman know if I look tired—she doesn’t even really know what I look like! Once at home, I dropped both Marco and the apples in our hallway to go check myself out in the bathroom mirror. I looked… no more tired than usual. Sometimes these Germans are too honest.
Ute*
How fun that I am in Germany and I found my own personal Doppelgänger! I witnessed over a few months, while pregnant and with a young toddler boy, as this neighborhood woman got even more pregnant, with her own little male toddler in tow. So one summer day (on the playground, of course), as I waddled along after Leo, I noticed that she was now thin and kind of grey looking, hovering over a baby carriage as her toddler played on the swings. For several weeks my double and I had been exchanging smiles of complicity, so I felt the time was right to make my move. In retrospect, I should have never begun a dialogue with Ute, because pretty much every thing out of her mouth, after introducing me to her newborn and older child, was negative. During our initial conversation, I began to slip in English words, which is my standard, indirect way of pleading to my interlocutor “Please, speak English! I don’t understand everything you are saying and it sounds important!”, but she just kept right on carping in German. I nodded sympathetically as she talked about not sleeping, crying, and throwing-up, but inside I dreaded every word out of her mouth (those that I understood). Somewhat naively I suppose, I had sort of hoped things would be easier with the second baby, and this woman was freaking me out! Then, for the first several weeks after Marco was born, I ran into Ute every few days-- in the little supermarket around the corner, on the play ground, in the zoo, and on the street. On the bright side, these encounters improved my German vocabulary tremendously. Now I knew plenty of words suitable for catastrophes: schlecht (nasty), shrecklich (horrible), schwerig (heavy, tough), furchtbar (terrible), and anstrengend (strenuous, stressful). I found out later, from my friend Veronika, that for Germans, this rapid fire of (un)pleasantries is not uncommon. But for an American like me who strives to “show a good face”, particularly with mere acquaintances, Ute’s conversational style was hard to take. Interestingly, I also learned from Veronika that Germans are critical of the American convention of always asking “How are you?”, (almost) always answering “Fine”, and never expecting/wanting anything more than a one-word answer for this exchange. OK, lesson learned: I will brace myself before asking the question again to a German. But the “it’s just cultural” excuse only goes so far. I guess she’s not really my twin.
Marise*
I made Marise’s acquaintance at the farmers’ market early last fall. Again, I was buying apples, but this time I had just dropped my carton of farm fresh eggs, broken 80% of them, and was feeling frazzled (and eggy). She could detect from the way I asked for a half kilo of Elstar that I was not a native German speaker. “Where are you from?” She asked me in English. When I told her I was from America she smiled and said, “so am I… Canada… Montreal.” I then recognized that she, too, had an accent… a French one. She had been living in Germany for a decade, so was acculturated and totally fluent. Standing in front of the apple sellers, with egg yolk on my fingers and Marco whimpering in the Bjorn, we had a nice conversation, each nodding enthusiastically at our commonalities (ties to Atlanta, bilingual children, living abroad, learning German, etc.). She gave me her email and implored me to contact her. A few days later I did, but we had trouble finding a time to meet. It was no big loss, though she had seemed nice and peppy. But I did keep running into her-- once with her Hannoverian husband on a Saturday, once leaving a fancy furniture store, and once in the little supermarket, when she insisted on lending me her umbrella since it was raining and again I had Marco in the Bjorn, with no rain cover. It was October, and she mentioned her total stress over a new client (she is a self-employed intercultural trainer). She suggested we get together in January. Yes, that’s right: Marise was suggesting a play-date for the following year. I agreed, incredulous, that this was a grand idea. After that day, I didn’t see the French Canadian-German woman again, not even once. It’s just as well, because her umbrella has gotten so much use in inclement weather that it is now totally busted, and I haven’t quite motivated myself to buy a replacement.
Lea*
Lea is a friend of our friends Veronika and Matthias, a woman who I had seen at a few social events and a couple times at the… yup, playground. This tall, gaunt, blond woman with ice blue eyes, high cheekbones and a knob at the end of her nose also has two young kids, Henno* and Elena*. Lea is very quiet and her English is limited. So I was surprised when she invited me over for coffee. When we were there, though, all Lea talked about was learning English and the frustrating courses she and her husband had been taking. So I was soon suspicious that she wished me to be her new English teacher. Now, the Germans are a foreign language-obsessed breed, but never in my time here has anyone been so transparent about their intentions for me. Feeling a bit peeved, I decided I’d “use” her for German practice, and searched around in my head for some words that I needed clarification on. But she was not receptive of my attempts to practice her language. I then looked around her apartment, seeing if there was anything else I could take advantage of her for. For starters, I could help myself to another slice of cake and get her to make me one of those cappuccino drinks from that fancy machine they had. The carpet was nice and soft for the babies, and Leo was seriously digging Henno’s trains. When the clock struck twelve, it was finally time to dress the kiddies and take them home. Unsurprisingly, my new English student asked me what Leo, Marco and I were doing the following Friday. Foreseeing the beginning of a fixed weekly meeting, I told her I could only meet two weeks later. She seemed positively elated—her husband would be so jealous of all this language practice! That Friday came. I bundled everybody up and gave her a call to tell her we were on our way. Though she seemed to expect my call, she told me that her kids had been sick all week and she didn’t want to get mine sick so could we please not come. If they had been sick all week, why not call and cancel? She immediately worked on re-scheduling her next English session, and I reluctantly gave her another Friday spot, again at her place. The next Friday, the same thing happened! This time I told her--as I was removing Marco from his snowsuit and thinking of how to tell Leo he wouldn’t be playing with Henno’s train set that day, either-- that we were busy on Fridays until 2009. I wished her family better health and hung up cussing. In defense of Germans, Lea’s non-existent “cancellation policy” is by no means typical. They usually take their appointments very seriously. Maybe that’s why it irked me so. But, on the bright side, I’m now free from pro-bono English teaching.
As you can see, nobody described here is a Bad Person. In fact, I plan on keeping their contact information, just in case. And luckily, for every “iffy” person in Germany, we’ve met twice as many nice ones. They’re just not as fun to write about.
*name has been slightly altered
posted by J&F at 7:03 AM
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