"A little German"

After customs and baggage claim we shuffled toward the airport exit where a tall man with tussled brown waves held up a white paper. "Stabler" was written in thick black marker. It excited me to see our name. "Hey Scott, I've never had anyone hold a sign with my name at the airport before!" He chuckled with pride. Scott loves when he can show me any new experience. 

The man was Jochen, an English professor at the university where Scott would teach. He took us and our luggage in his hatchback to our new home in Bargau. As he expertly wove through the narrow curving roads, we stared out the windows at the rolling green countryside and exchanged small talk. Jochen, who told us we could call him Joe, spoke flawless English and respectfully praised my attempts at German. "I'm so glad all of our stuff fit in your car," Scott commented. "I wasn't sure it would after you emailed me all the bags you would be bringing. That's why I asked in my last email if your wife was slim. Did you get that email?" Guffawing, Scott answered, "No, I didn't get that one, but that's a funny thing to ask, though!" Jochen chuckled as well, "I was worried when you didn't answer the question. I thought maybe I should bring a bigger car!"

 I liked Jochen by the time we reached Bargau. He was fit and good looking. He seemed very laid back and he made a point to use his rear view mirror to make eye contact with me while he was talking. I felt like he wanted me to be part of the conversation, which honestly isn't always something American men do when speaking with Scott and me. Plus I liked his candor. I appreciate someone who is truthful about who he is, despite the fact I have an inkling he may be a dog...he mentioned to us that it was good that the university's student body is made up of about 80% females.

 "Why is that good?" I asked. 

"Well, it's good for me! It's nice to look at," he said with a mischievous spark in his eye. 

Bargau is a tiny village nestled in a shallow valley surrounded by the greenest hills. All the houses are about the same height and they are bunched together like a cozy family. They all have red roofs made of countless u-shaped clay shingles and tightly line the curviest little streets. The village reminded me of the base of a ski resort, where the ski shops are all set up like a tiny Swiss village, or the opening scene from Beauty and the Beast, where Belle twirls and sings about "this provincial life." The tallest structure in the town is an old red church steeple, and it was the first thing I saw when I walked out on the balcony of our 500 square foot apartment. 

 Our first night we decided to go out for a few beers to help us sleep. We were given directions to the town's one restaurant, Italian. It was within walking distance, as is everything in town as far as I can guess. With Elle on Scott's shoulders, we took the path behind the apartment, crossed one street, which wasn't much wider than the walking path really, passed behind a house with ducks in the yard, then turned right onto the next windy road. 

It was hard to tell which place was the restaurant. 

The houses and the businesses look similar, and the huge, bright signage that we're used to in America doesn't exist in this little town. So Scott and slinked inconspicuously beside each building trying to peak inside the small windows to see if the people inside looked like residents or patrons. We found one that we agreed looked like a restaurant and bar, and peaked in the cracked door before entering. 

Three hardy men, beer steins in hand, were hunched around one rectangle table beside a small wooden bar. A plump waitress stood at the end of their table, adding to their carousing conversation. Her short, graying hair, full, rosy cheeks and frilly apron illustrated the stereotypical German barmaid quite amusingly. 

 Scott stepped aside for me to approach the little bar. I had been learning German for the last three weeks using a German language cd set and he knew I could at least ask for basics. I prefaced my request by telling her in German that I understood only a little German. Then I haltingly asked, "konnen wir ein paar Beir zu kauffen?" I had rehearsed this sentence all the way to the restaurant, and was proud when she understood me right away (Can we buy a few beers to go?). 

 "Nein." My stomach dropped. Was Sarah from the airport right about the Germans not being friendly to strangers? The barmaid spewed more German explaining her answer and I was sure she was telling us that she wasn't selling us any beer. 

Then she saw my perplexed faced and slowed down. My stomach relaxed when she began gesturing to the tap. I thought I understood but clarified just to be sure...and to show off some of my newly acquired German, of course. "So we can drink beers here? And eat here?" "Ja!" she beamed. Then she waved her hand toward the five or six open tables in the cramped space and gestured for us to sit down. I ordered zwei helles bier (two light beers) then we sat down a few tables away from the three men. 

The waitress, Anna Maria took our food order patiently then experimented with her own small English vocabulary while we waited for our dinners. A few more men wandered in to sit with the others. They were certainly locals who met here often. Each man that entered was a little bigger than the one before, until the last man bounded in, as wide as the door and as round as he was tall. 

When our dinner was done, Anna Maria cleared our table and brought me another "light" beer. Then, to our delight Mario, the petite Italian cook, dressed in a thin white undershirt and black pants strode over to our table and pulled up a chair. Joyfully he sized up our language skills. It turned out, along with Italian, he spoke a little Spanish, a little French and a little German. Scott speaks a little Spanish. I speak a little French and a little German. Plus Anna Maria, who joined us between serving her group of regulars, spoke a little English. So between all the common ground, we had a great time understanding each other in all of our bits of language. Someone trying to follow our conversation would have been pretty frustrated trying to figure out what language we were speaking. 

 I could barely finish my second beer. Germany's "light" beer is not so light after all. Mario offered me a cigarette. He winked and said we wouldn't usually be able to smoke in the restaurant but "we are only friends here tonight so..." 

 With our bellies full and with smiles on our faces, Scott, Elle and I waved goodbye. I called out every good bye I could think of in German as Mario and Anna Maria yelled back encouragingly. "Auf Wiedersehen! Bis Spater! Bis Balt! Bis Morgen! Alles Gute!" 

When we got back to the apartment, I learned a new German word, "mich ubergeben." After only two beers? Yes! Seriously, German beer is thick in the gut!

Smile Power

At the Newark airport where we had a 6 hour layover, we met a young American couple returning to Germany after a visit with family in the U.S.. The young man, Brett was a marine, stationed in an Army base in Stuttgart for the last 2 1/2 years. His wife, Sarah, a Panamanian-American, was also a marine but had been discharged in order to give birth to their now 20 month old daughter, Zarati (rhymes with karate). Elle and little Zarati had emptied Elle's carry-on and backpack. 

Scattered books, toys and games between two rows of chairs acted as a perimeter for our little lay-over camp. The girls sat playing on the floor while Scott exchanged travel destinations with Brett, and I grilled Sarah about her life in Germany. 

 "Do you like living in Germany?" I asked Sarah. 

 "No," was her simple and direct answer. 

She was easy to talk to and readily answered my questions, but I noticed a hint of guardedness, as if she were holding back some extra bit of enthusiasm or animation in her answers. 

 "If you could tell me one bit of etiquette that to us would seem completely natural, but to Germans would seem just plain ridiculous, what would it be?" I asked her. 

 "Small talk," she again answered simply. "They don't just ask, 'How are you?' to strangers. "If you ask 'How are you?' they will tell you how hard work is or how sick their mother is; it's not just a polite thing to say, so they think it is strange to ask unless you are a friend who really wants to know." 

 Brett chimed in to expound, "Strangers won't just talk to you to be polite. They won't even say hi to you. They will actually walk right by you and stare at you right in the eyes and not say a word...not even a nod or a smile." "Really?! Not even a smile?" I clarified, incredulous. 

"Really! They stare right at you without even a little smile." 

 As the time passed, more passengers gathered, taking up seats around us. We eventually had to tighten up our belongings and use only 7 chairs between our two families rather than the breadth of 22 seats across which we had sprawled ourselves over the last several hours. I started to hear the curly gutteral sounds of German conversations happening around us and craned my neck to try to understand words here and there.

 I was still reeling from the idea of strangers not smiling at me in Germany. While in Ghana, every single person, young or old, male or female, black or...well black, not only looked at us, but said, "Good Afternoon, How are you?" Every single person who passed by. I actually left Ghana with the self-imposed challenge to do the same in America. I found quickly that it is not our nature in the U.S. to speak to every person who passes us by in the street, but we at least we nod and smile to each other. Now I would have to fathom a place where not even that is the norm. The value of our meager nod and smile set in at that moment. 

 I remembered a sermon our pastor, Andre Daley had given about how close heaven is. He talked about how we can actually make a heaven on Earth simply by being kind to each other...a smile at a passing stranger who is lonely can bring heaven that much closer to them.

 I thought of the loneliness I might feel while in Germany for three months without friends or family, and of how powerful a smile from a stranger could be...along with how painful the absence of the mere smile from a stranger would be. 

 I decided to test Sarah's theory about Germans as we filed into the airplane. We were certainly not flying first class, so we had to pass many rows of Germans returning to Deutschland as we found our seats. I watched each and every face as little Elle, wearing her pink tutu and pulling her Tinkerbell suitcase, passed by them. On domestic flights in the past, nearly every person smiled at Elle and me as she toddled by, assuring me of her sweetness, and in turn mine. But this time, I was devastated to find that every face was stone. They watched us walk by without even a smirk at her cuteness. Just as Sarah said, the Germans did not nod or smile at us. We were strangers. 

By the time I sat in my assigned seat, panic had set in. "Scott," I worried aloud, "I don't think I can handle not having people smile at me for 3 months!" He laughed it off, knowingly.

 For hours, I continued to feel anxiety cramp my insides at the thought of a hell on Earth where fellow human beings stared at each other but didn't share a warm smile. But I realized later, as the plane flew at an altitude of 39,001 feet, 559 mph into the sunrise 2 hours from Stuttgart, that anxiety wasn't the only thing fluttering in my stomach...excitement was there too. I studied the clouds below, a huge pink mountain range supporting a dark blue and lavender horizon, and I reflected. 

Until now, I had honestly not been too excited about this trip. After our adventure in Ghana, where my whole identity had been challenged, where I had found in myself a totally new and stronger person, I felt that no other destination could possibly measure up. I guess I thought, nothing could ever be as powerful of an experience. Yeah, it would surely be interesting to see Germany and tour Europe, but would I come out the other end a whole new me?

 For the first time, I was able to identify a challenge I would have to overcome. I foresaw a scary circumstance I would have to face, a possible weakness within myself that I would have to hone. Sure, it was scary to think of the rejection I may naturally feel when a passerby didn't acknowledge me with a smile, but it seemed that the opportunity to examine myself and change was exciting to me. The chance to see myself differently motivated me to push through this trip and come out the other side a new and stronger person. Maybe Germany would be an exciting adventure after all.