One of the most important things I have learned during my time with the Benjamin Franklin Fellows- or better: with friends I will miss a lot!- is not a professional one but the fact that -independent from which country people are- it does not matter how many borders divide countries or how far they are placed from each other, friendships have the power to connect all these countries, perhaps this is the answer to all bloody and senseless wars!

Darja and me, ...and water!

How to be a good German….

These days I was just surfing in the internet, enjoying some free time when I suddenly come across an article with the following headline: ‘How to handle a German?’ Is it so difficult to handle Germans? Perhaps I have done all these years something awfully wrong? Let’s see, I thought and began to read:


The introduction was so scurrile that I started to feel awkward: ‘Do not try to tell any jokes! Germans like jokes but have a very special sense of humor.’ Oh, is this true? I remember a lot of evenings full of laughter together with German friends or Benjamin Franklin Program friends. I have done something wrong. Ohoh! Perhaps I have to learn how to be a better German, so let us go on:


‘Do not expect every German running around in Lederhosen or big hat chewing a Bratwurst.’ I felt relieved! I looked down; I am wearing none of these! So I am a real German?! I began to relax again. My eyes skimmed over the article and suddenly stopped. Alarm! IHHHHIHHHHIHHHH….’Do not smile too much because Germans are distrustful and do not like this open showing of feelings!’ Oh, of course I like cashiers looking mean like they would like to scratch you dangerously in the next moment….ahhh….actually not! ‘If you are smiling too much Germans think you are not normal.’ Actually I think persons looking like they would be on a funeral are not normal.


‘If you are eating do not put your knife or fork out of hand!’ That was enough; I am German enough to shut down the computer with a loud bang…!

Today I was despite our nightly interruption in the middle of the night because of an alarm a little bit creative. Doesn' t it look like a kindergarden child has made it.... Ohoh! :-)

Is the German language on the best way to die out?

It is time to recover a huge secret: For those who do not know me, I am a German girl and there is one fact I have to tell you about some Germans, but do not tell any German…pssst! ;-)


The Germans sometimes do not handle their own language.

Imagine you are walking along the streets and see some small children playing in a park. One little girl considers a blond haired doll lovely: “This is the sweetest doll I have ever seen!” she sighs. A little boy looks at his playfellow absolutely doubtful. With an I-know-it-all-face he says: “If something is sweet, it is sweet and it can not be sweeter, pah!”

You continue walking and see the mothers of those two children sitting on a bench. You pick up some words:” Your daughter is the sweetest girl I have ever seen…” Are the children of these mothers perhaps more clever then their own mothers? The truth is bitter: Yes! A lot of grown-ups have forgotten the basics of the German language during their life, it is like a huge amnesia which spreads wider and wider.

It would not be so bad but unfortunately this amnesia goes on and on and on…
Actually Germans just have four cases: nominative, genitive, accusative and dative. Four is actually not a lot but Germans minimize that even low number and instead of using the genitive they always use the dative. The German genitive is on the best way to be wiped out. Perhaps the children of the little boy and girl in the park do not know the genitive anymore in some years.

Let us consider the German articles: For all non-Germans, there are three articles, for feminine expressions ‘die’, for male ‘der’ and for neutral ones ‘das’. Please ask a German on the street who is perhaps standing in front of a shop-window considering a nice lamp: “Why is it ‘die Lampe’ (the lamp)? “ Why is a lamp feminine, does a lamp have feminine traits? Actually I have never talked to lamp, asking her, if she likes shining in the dark. A lamp in definitely neutral, it does not talk, cry nor is it happy or sad, it is a material something, the only skill a lamp has is shining or burn though.

The German language is sometimes like a glimmering something which you can not catch or understand. How shall foreigners understand German when even Germans do not?

Auf Wiedersehen, German greetings
Sara

PS:
Actually nobody should take that entry to seriously, especially not Germans because this entry was written by a German girl. Something I want to say is that languages are alive, they are developing every day, and so all these “mistakes” are just a product of a developing language which shows us that our language is still alive and will not die out. Better a wrong (;-)) language than no language!

Emancipation reached Soccer-Stadions' ranks

The whole world has waited for it, the event which does not know any barriers like different nations, cultures or appearances, the event where eleven sports men run behind a little black-white ball:
The World Cup of Soccer in Germany. Sitting in front of your television faces of celebrating Africans dancing with Europeans, overwhelmed Asian faces meeting fans from America flicker in front of your eyes. You might think: ’this is it! That is what it should be like, when a lot of different nations celebrate in a wild mixture on streets full of colored flags. Sports do not know any exclusion!?
Our politics should be like that! No racism, everybody in peace and harmony…

“Stop that!” the little dirty laughing devil in the back of your head shouts…"Stop that exaggerated optimistic attitude.”
The smile in your happy face vanishes.
Have I forgotten anything? you are asking yourself. “Yes, you have”, says the little devil.
“Have you not forgotten the female world?” But this time it is your turn to laugh dirtily. You are able to make that little devil disappear. I have not forgotten women, you think!

This year we all were able to recognize that also soccer is reached by the
emancipation movement of women.
The times are over when women are desperately sitting at home, not knowing which program to switch on because everywhere the black-white ball is rolling on the television screen, the times when men left for watching soccer with friends but women sitting lonely at home.

No, an emancipated woman snaps friends up, wears colored T-shirts with flags on it, roots for her favorite team and just celebrates with her male soccer-friends. The emancipation has done recognizable steps.

Angela Merkel, the Federal Chancellor of Germany, sets a good example for all the women who indeed are interested in soccer but do not have the courage to watch it lively or in a group of men. Angela Merkel supported the German team on the first ranks, although her present did not bring the victory to the German team she brought a small contribute of victory to the emancipation of women.

Nice bikinis with flags on it, attractive tops for women with flags on it and other flag decorated clothes show that women who are watching soccer do not necessarily have to fulfill that stereotype of women watching soccer: Ten or twenty years before women watching soccer often were known as more male than female: They were the reason for a lot of laughters on the male side of soccer fans. Today women accept their femaleness and do not see in their feminine traits any barrier to watch soccer! While you were gazed with a doubting glance several years before as a woman sitting in a soccer stadium today you are definitely not the only woman watching a game.

The wave of emancipation has reached the sports field and we will see if this wave will develop enough force to destroy other sandy barriers of anti-emancipation….not just on the sport field!

Even stones which actually
obstruct your passage can
be used to build a new way...

That's just me....xx

Hey,

it is 10 o' clock in the morning and I have to admit that my creativity is still in bed ;-) so please be forgiving if you read my first entry...

It's my first test to blog anything and I have to add that my technical skills are very limited but I will try it...being optimistic will help me! ;-)

Bye bye Sara