Passing for German

Just keep your mouth shut. They'll never know you're not German, you don' t belong. The facial features, the haircut, the nondescript, dark-colored clothing don't really give you away. There really isn't much need to speak to anyone anyway. You park your bike, walk past the kneeling beggar, ease through the side portal, grab a red hymnal and slip into a pew. There are no greeters, there's no one to shake your hand or give you a worship book. If there is a folded program it may be generic and therefore you still may need to refer to one of the wall displays to see which page numbers are assigned on that Sunday. It's easy enough to moderate your singing voice to the degree that people around you will never actually notice your pronunciation is a bit off. You can fudge it. As for liturgy, just modulate or moderate which ever suits your fancy. The tricky part is the unread, the rote part which you don't actually know yet and may have to search for in the worship book. It took a while to figure out that the "Lord's Prayer" and the Apostolic Creed are right inside the back cover of the book. But having to follow along on the printed page doesn't necessarily pinpoint you as a non-German. You could be a child for example who isn't brought to church very often or an adult who appears at worship once every ten years and has lost touch with some of the ritual. And don't worry, no one is going to ask you to turn to your neighbor in the pew and "pass the peace". That simply is not done at the Apostelkirche. But the money-changers have entered the church and set up their wares on a table in the back. You can buy fair-trade goods and in particular you can buy red wine from other parts of the globe. What would the folks back home say to that?! There is one tricky moment when you pass by to shake the preacher's hand and say: "Auf wiedersehen", they may realize you are not German. You may lose your cover. But I have never actually had anyone say any more than that to me at church. So I figure I may have "passed" for German. Au contraire: on the other side of town there is a place where there is not a chance in hell I could pass for German. Everyone in the building knows who I am even if I don't have a clue who they are. Just the other day at school I found myself accosted by a lovely little grade seven girl, a girl I don't recall ever having spoken to previously, who wanted to know why I had been sent out of the classroom. Had I gone out voluntarily? Class was just beginning and it just didn't seem right to her. She was eagerly awaiting her Latin teacher and knew that I was the one teaching French in the grade 7 classroom next door. I gently explained to her that the pupils were planning a surprise for Mme Stout and therefore they had asked me to exit for a few precious minutes. But what amazed me most was as we continued our little chat and I ended up admitting I was looking forward to reuniting soon with my cats she said to me, "They are called Love and Light, aren't they?" Wow, how the word does get around and stay around! At some point during the year I had probably had that girl during "class coverage" and told her class a bit about my life in America and apparently, it had stuck. Over the course of the year I had visited various classes speaking on requested topics such as immigration, ethnic diversity in California, and taking part in study abroad programs. So, taken together with the multiple class coverage experiences, there must be a lot of kids who know me that I don't know at all. So at Paulinum it would be hard to be invisible. There is that one brief moment in the Teachers' Room though when a new face walks in and before I open my mouth, they might think I am German.

Hells-Angels versus Bandidos

What to do when over 1000 Harley-riding, leather-clad rough-necks ride into town right under the windows of the school and park in front of the court house nearby?! It may be June, but it's too soon to close the school down altogether. Summer break is still two weeks away. Today was the day when the verdict would be announced as to whether two Bandidos had actually killed the Hells Angel. Both sides were to be well-represented to see that the decision went their way. Although the school has a small group of carefully-trained peer mediators, it was decided to leave the big decisions up to the big guys in the court house down the street and school was moved to "Freibad Stapelskotten", a large outdoor swimming pool/recreation area on the Werse River, many safe kilometers away. Excluding the grade 13 graduating class of about 70 and the grade 11 classes which are spending the week doing internships, roughly 650 children had to be accommodated. The coordination and planning flowed seamlessly. The local Harley-Davidson distributor donated enough ice cream for everyone and the city provided the park as well as the buses for those who didn't want to come by bicycle. Personally bicycle is the only way I would have considering getting there. I wanted to see the lay of the land. The p.e. teachers had gathered together equipment and ideas so that there was something for everyone to do. But the weather was the most important player in this game of chance and most of the children had their frolic in the water and many teachers, especially the class teachers of the younger children were coaxed into the pool. Class teachers had the typical duties of parents but not: they had to take roll, designate a gathering area for their class and basically be there for their kids. Other teachers were assigned to various activities such as ultimate frisbee, table tennis, beach volleyball, basketball, dodge ball, soccer, hula-hoops and jump rope. High lights would have to have been the fellows with the guitars picking out a few familiar songs and the representatives of the local press who interviewed staff and pupils. What kid wouldn't be content on a day like today?! Three of us colleagues rode our bicycles together through the city, detouring around a large construction site only to be joined along the way by various of our children on their way to the park. Going home we took a more countrified route through fields and woods, crossing the canal on several bridges. I would like you to try and describe a more perfect school day! There are rumors that it may have all been for naught. They say that a last-minute witness has appeared on the scene and that the verdict may not come down today after all.

Wire Donkey

To be more accurate: the "Drahtesel", is the life blood of Münster. It makes up both the red and the white cells which circulate on the Promenade, the tree-lined, bicycle highway which circles the Old City, the Altstadt. Just what can you see while perched on a wire donkey? Most obviously you see lots of other wire donkeys, although sometimes on long lonely stretches of the "Ring" where cars speed around the heart of the city you find yourself alone, inhaling the exhaust of automobiles and wondering where all the riders went. But on most days on most bicycle paths this is a bit of what else you see from the saddle: riders of all possible dimensions, ages, and attire, folks in business suits, sweethearts holding hands between bicycles, mothers with a baby up front and another small child perched behind, a sort of tricycle with a crutch mounted behind, a large plastic crate mounted up front with Fido tried in, very small children on a small bike attached to mom's bike, what looked like a wheel chair with a bicycle up front and hand pedals, parents pulling a baby-chariot (sometimes carrying things other than babies), Dutch-style bicycles where the rider sits quite erect, racing-style bikes where you hunch over in your skin-tight suit and most-likely wear a helmet and reclining bikes where the feet are clearly way out in front. Just what do people do with themselves while they are riding? They definitely smoke, talk on the phone, eat, stick the bud in for a bit of i-Pod, carry on important discussions, and enjoy the breeze rushing against the face. Yes, it does rain, but most folks just carry on. There are those balancing along with an umbrella in full array, others fully enveloped in the cocoon of a rain poncho with just a bit of face showing, but once the summer rains hit, most cyclists don't seem to mind getting wet. It's really only in Southern California that people stay home when it rains. There have been extremely windy days when you felt like you were standing still although you were peddling for all you are worth. Is there danger? It's easy to see myself smeared all over the highway because I feel that there is a long way to fall when I am riding along but nothing has ever happened. Once I did see the aftermath of a colleague's demise. She was on her bike just in front of the school when an 86-year old auto driver "didn't notice her". No real damage, but a couple of really upset people. Every day I read in the paper about bad things that do in fact happen to riders of the wire donkey: head-on collision of two cyclists, drunken biker ends up in hospital, drunken driver hits bicycle. Most often bicyclists under 14 are seen in helmets. Where do wire donkeys spend the night? The school has a huge bicycle cellar, with even a separate locked room for the teachers' bikes. My apartment building has a bicycle room in the cellar as well. But I prefer the great outdoors and my bike does to. Bike racks are almost everywhere in the city, but where there aren't any or enough of them the "bike police" arrive and line them up properly. These guys in neon yellow vests spend their days re-parking and re-arranging bicycles. What a cool job! They are especially busy around the university cafeteria buildings. It seems that university students have things other than orderly bicycle parking on their minds.