Ex Patria

Things grow in our backyard

All the boys are at the birthday party of their cousin, so we spent the afternoon cleaning up the yard.  Lots of nice big walnuts this year, and lots of (inedible) mushrooms.  We decided to keep one bucket of nuts - last year's batch went bad and we had to throw them all away.  Now the yard is nicely raked and Doug is doing the last mowing of the season (or so he hopes).

I love fall.

 

 

 

The chestnut game

Yesterday, Alan came home and was upset.  It took me a while to distill some meaning from the flood of hurt anger that was pouring out of him but this is what apparently happened:

His class has weekly themes.  This week's theme is "friendship".  So far, so good.  Yesterday they played a so-called chestnut game: each child had one chestnut.  He (or she) could do two things: give a chestnut to a friend and take a chestnut from a kid he didn't like.

Alan ended up with no chestnuts.  In his anger, he took chestnuts from all those kids who keep bullying him - five in all.

What the hey?  What kind of an irresponsible and stupid game is that?  "How to enforce cliques in my classroom?" Alan was upset all day.  He kept lashing out at his brothers and us in unpredictable intervals, he cried and sobbed intermittently.  We did our best to build him up but boy, it was tough work.

Maybe I got this all wrong.  Maybe something was lost in translation, maybe he remembered it wrong. There might have been talking about what happened and why this and that was not acceptable.  But somehow, I think not.  The aftermath in our house was unhappy and sad. 

I thought the bullying was tapering off but I was wrong.  Alan is still singled out, and the longer this goes on, the more everyone falls into predictable patterns.  Noah and Simon tease Alan, Alan complains to the teacher.  Noah and Simon don't take that too well and tease and bully Alan some more. 

Alan gets bullied for his name (silly name! Like a girl's name!), for his language (he mixes some English in sometimes), for his imagination (apparently, no one here knows about Green Lantern), for his knowledge (robots don't actually exist, stupid), for his fascination with science (there are no probes on Mars), for his ADHD.  I know he's not always easy to get along with but he is a fierce and loyal friend and he has a very kind heart.  Those who can call him friend are very lucky indeed.

I am out of my wits. I try to teach Alan to ignore the bullies but that's hard to do.   One of the bullies is the class captain, the other is the star student.  They are both adored by the other kids, and the leaders of the pack.  It's hard to ignore the popular kids.  I hate to see Alan be singled out but what can I do?  I talked to the teacher and while she seems nice and I like her as a person a lot, I think she's in deep water here.  I don't require her to like him (I honestly don't know whether she does or not which speaks for her professionalism), I just want her to make him feel accepted.

Alan has no tool kit how to deal with this.  He doesn't resort to clownery which some kids might.  He has started to fight back (also physically) and gets caught (he's not sneaky) and punished. Which reinforces the vicious cycle.

My instincts tell me to take flight or to take Alan out of school.  But, no job on the horizon, and no where to go to -- and homeschooling is not permitted in Germany.  In any case I believe he needs to learn how to deal with this -- some kids attract bullies, and unfortunately, he does.  He got bullied on the bus in Armenia.  The problem is not going to go away when we leave, so we better learn it here and now.

But how?

[I had the idea to make a Halloween party for his class.  I shy from the work but it's a US thing that is gaining popularity in Germany and maybe it will show some kids that not all that is foreign is bad?  I had suggested to Alan to invite each bully by himself for a play date to reconcile but he doesn't want to do that.]

Basalt

The Rhön is of volcanic descent - it's all basalt and rocks and stones and more basalt.  The coolest formations are made up of columnar basalt. There is a famous site at the Gangolfsberg near my Dad's hunting lease and I have to confess, I've never ever been there.  So today, in between the misery that is multiple sick kids and adults, we picked ourselves up for a short outing of an hour or two to visit the site.

It was really worth it - it instantly became a favorite place.  Rocks to climb, soft forest paths to run, cool formations to look at -- what's not to like?  And all of this only 10 minutes from our house!  It was a good break from lounging on various sofas and beds, and improved moods all around.  I'd call that a success.

If you ever find yourself in the Rhön, drive past the Schweinfurter Haus, and park up the street in the woods.  Then the "Teaching Path" will lead you directly to the basalt columns.  It's a cool path with lots of wood carvings sprinkled about (a shoe, an owl, a hare, a mushroom, etc.) and informative panels about the trees in the area.  It's really nicely done.  The path is great for walking.

Right until the end where you have to be somewhat nimble to climb up the steep steps to the basalt columns:

And then you see this:

And this:

Probably not this one because we took him home with us:

Great climbing rocks!

Sick little girl.

Feeling much better after the outing - fresh air is a wonderful curative.

A bit down from the colums is the "Teufelskeller" (Devil's Cellar) which is a giant rock with a tiny cave underneath it.  The boys were both spooked and intrigued.

And now, early bedtimes all around.

Worlds collide, nobody gives

In keeping with the religion theme, here's a sad example of what can happen when two fundamentalist world views and two cultural worlds collide:

At least two German women and a South Korean woman kidnapped in Yemen last Friday have been murdered, according to Yemeni authorities.

Still missing is a German family with three children aged 5, 4 and 11 months, as well as a British citizen.  What happened?  The Spiegel gives a round-up of the events:

The German Christians kidnapped recently in Yemen were probably the victims of an act of revenge, SPIEGEL has learned. According to information obtained from the German Foreign Ministry's crisis task force responsible for the case, a dispute took place in Saada a few months ago related to missionary activities by one of the Germans, in the course of which angry Muslims threatened the German engineer Johannes H. and demanded that he cease his attempts at proselytizing.

Germans on the street are horrified about and saddened by the murders but there is always a caveat: How can you go to such a place, how can you bring your children along, how can you not heed any warnings?  That does not mean these brutal acts are excused or excusable but Germans are not passionate folks and like to see themselves as rational beings.  Going off to proselytize in a Muslim country in a basically lawless region is asking for trouble.  Most Germans are especially mystified how someone could possibly bring their children to such a place.

I admire people who go places and do humanitarian work.  I especially admire people who work in the health sector, and most of all those who work to make the world a safer place for mothers and children.  But you can do all of this without alienating the same people you are trying to help by talking about religion. It's a sensitive topic and it seems that Johannes H. was not sensitive enough to spot trouble brewing.

I'm sincerely hoping all will end well for them.  I especially hope this for the children.  But you know, in general, common sense is a good thing to have.

Too big?

I've been looking into vacation deals for us.  I would love to go on a real holiday that doesn't include visiting relatives or friends (no slight against relatives or friends here!) -- just us and the kids and sweet Nichtstun*.  Complete relaxation.

You're saying?

Oh, yes.  I see your point.  Three kids and relaxation don't really go together, I agree.  However!  In Germany there is a trend towards family hotels - small and big hotels with great service for families.  One hotel in Rügen even offers to pick up your kids at your hotel door at 8 am so you can sleep in.  How fabulous is that? I think this sounds like heaven on Earth.  Full time kids' program from 8 am to 9 pm, special supervised kids' dinner service from 6 pm to 8 pm so your spouse and you can eat by yourself, like real civilized people, kids' clubs, babies' clubs, swim lessons, arts and crafts, bike tours, hiking, gourmet food for the grown-ups... What's not to like?

Well, you see.  All the hotel prices are listed for 2 adults and 2 kids. Because that, my friends, is the German standard family size.

Brother Sun and Sister Moon

We are trying to do something with the boys every day - otherwise, we'll get cabin fever with Hyperboy and Mr. Defiance.  Today, my Mom and I took Alan and Jacob to walk the Path of St. Francis [Link in German only].

This is a new installation, to be presented to the public in May 2007.  My Mom approved it as a member of the city council of the city of Ostheim.  It's mainly located in my Dad's hunting lease.  You could say, the Path is family business (just kidding!). 

The Path is five kilometers long and leads through ten so-called "meditation stations" where local woodcarving artists have created ten pieces of art, corresponding with the ten stanzas of the Canticle of Brother Sun (of course, in German, it's Sister Sun, and Brother Moon because of the articles, but never mind).  They really did a great job.  The stations are lovely and thought-provoking.  Because this is a rather wild and remote place (by German standards), you are alone with the art and with the nature that St. Francis loved so much. It's very -- meditative.

There are also seven stations along the "Life's Way", the Lebensweg.  These are meditations about life, pure and simple.  They are connected with the natural flow of the path -- a street crossing leads to a meditation on just that, crossing.  Another station is at a steep decline and muses on how we sometimes need to hold on to something to keep us from stumbling and falling.

As I said, the Path isn't officially opened until May so it's not quite finished yet.  Certainly the  loggers have messed up the paths something bad these past weeks - deep grooves made going with the stroller quite, um, challenging.  But we walked the entire thing, and so did Alan.  Not bad for a four-year-old. 

For me, it was enchanting, elating, calming, and strange.  Remember, it's my Dad's hunting lease.  I grew up in those woods, we used to have potato fires there in the fall, and our Sunday walks.  It was odd to think that masses of people would wander along those paths one day. (Also bad for my Dad's hunting.)

But, I approve.  It's a great idea, and very well executed.  The art is exquisite, and if you ever find yourself in the neighborhood, I definitely recommend to stop for an hour or two and walk the path with St. Francis, celebrating Brother Sun and Sister Moon.

Sweet 16

Alles Gute, Deutschland!

Still flying

When we arrived in Germany on July 1st, I saw something that amazed me to the point of disbelief: the whole country was awash in German flags.

For someone who is not German this might not be easy to understand.  Germans on the whole have a little hangup with patriotism and any symbols that go along with it.  Traditionally (i.e. ever after WWII), we associate an ostentatious showing of the flag or a display of pride in Germany with the radical right.  It was just not done by your average German person.  Flags would fly on high holidays but mostly on official buildings, and sometimes a few would hang from houses when a German sports team do something wonderful on an international platform.

But now, see this!  Flags everywhere, hanging from houses, and more than anything else, flags on German cars.  Lots of them.  And smiling people.  The whole country vibrated with something that I can only call friendly pride in oneself.  Not arrogant, not condescending, just happy.

So I thought this was because the German team got further than anyone ever thought it could go.  And I watched the game on Tuesday evening, and I was excited, and I was sad when the team lost.  And I thought to myself, knowing my countrymen and women, that the flags would be pulled in now that the German team was out, and that people would go about their business as usual.

I still didn't understand just how much of a transformation for Germany this world cup had been.