Magdeburgers against the neonazis

I seem to continuously stumble upon festivals and markets and rallys in Germany. I am no longer surprised to see kiosks and booths and tents springing up from nowhere, and mobs of people celebrating one thing or another. However, today's discovery was a little bit of a shock for a naive westerner.

This Saturday Shannon and I decided to visit the historical monastery in Magdeburg, which now houses a modern art museum. On my way to meet her I could not ignore the unusually large number of policemen lining the streets and milling about. As I walked further, I counted dozens of people, mostly young and male, dressed entirely in black. There were also tents everywhere that appeared to be informational mostly, handing out brochures and posters. I passed an Amnesty International booth, and a booth that read (roughly translated) "women's issues."

As if sensing my confusion, my project manager sent me a text message just then asking me if I would like to join her at the anti-neonazi rally downtown. When I called her to tell her I was actually accidentally smack in the middle of the rally already, but had plans with Shannon, she explained that Magdeburg was an annual location for a large neonazi rally. In mid-January 1945 the entire city of Magdeburg was razed to the ground by Allied forces. Though the date is not significant to many Magdeburgers, the neonazis have clung to it as symbolic of their cause. This year the Magdeburgers organized an even bigger ANTI-neonazi event in retaliation on the same day as the neonazi rally. I am still unclear about the identities of the people in black though, since dressing this way is sometimes seen as a method of alligning oneself with the neonazis.

Despite the police officers, police vehicles and eventually riot control squad, the atmosphere of the day was pleasant, and the usual Saturday afternoon shoppers seemed to all be carrying on with their usual business. The monastery was smaller than I expected, and very dull and grey looking from the outside. On the main entrance door handles, an artist had afixed two brass busts, one of a woman and one of a man, cleverly rigged so that when I pushed the man's hat up, the door opened. I imagine this was a later addition and part of the modern art museum's influence, although I enjoyed the mental picture of devout sisters with their pious heads bowed all pushing on the asburd man's hat to enter the convent.

I don't know anything about modern art. The first exhibit we saw seemed to be abstract representations of inards and organs made from terra cotta and clay and bronze. Another even creepier exhibition was of life-sized children wearing real clothes; each child was facing the wall with their hands against it, giving the appearance that all seven of them were under arrest, or perhaps trying desperately to hold up the wall. Even if I didn't understand the art, the setting with its old stone hallways and high ceilings was interesting and I liked to try to read the German explanations on the placards.

Back outside it had gotten colder and the crowds seemed to be moving more quickly and agitated as we made our way back toward the center of town. We saw a man in black with a flag that had an indecipherable symbol on it. Behind him walked a few others dressed in black, and all of them were chanting something I didn't understand. It became clear to us that the anti-neonazi rally was coming to a close, and the neonazi rally itself was just beginning. By six o-clock, when I went out to the front of my building to bring in the mail, I could hear the confident voice of a leader addressing his followers in the distance, but again I could not make out what he was saying.

Different Magdeburgers have different ideas about why these ideas didn't die out after the war and why there has been an insurgence of neonazis recently. The consensus seems to be that those people who are wanting in some way, or maybe wanting in many ways, need to find someone to blame, and that the neonazis are very good at blaming. Though no one here has anything to blame me for, I am staying inside tonight.

The Daily Grind

Now that the holiday season is over, the ham dinners digested, and the New Year's resolutions quickly tossed to the wayside, it's time to get back into the usual routine here in Magdeburg. A normal day for me in the dreary January weather looks like this: First I get up at around 6:30am, long before the sun has started to peer up over the horizon. I put on my winter peacoat over a sweater or two, add a knitted scarf, a wool cap and gloves and waddle a few blocks to take the 7:32 tram to the zoo. The Magdeburgers are all marvelling at the weather, which they tell me is unusually cold this year. Today we actually reached almost 35 degrees, so the weeks-old snow that has caked onto the sidewalks finally started to melt just a tad. Upon arriving at the kindergarten, I pretty much just play with small children for a while. This includes acting as conductor for the "train" made up of tiny chairs, building barnyards with wooden blocks for plastic animals, and anything else the children think of.

Reading is the most difficult morning activity for me because I am only allowed to speak or read English to the students, yet most of the books in the classroom are in German. If a child brings me a book and says, "Kannst du mir vorlesen?" ("Will you read to me") I agree. The child sits on my lap and I open the book and proceed to make up a story based on the pictures. Occasionally a book is written at a rudimentary level and I am actually able to translate quickly enough in my head to tell the real story. One morning when a five-year-old girl brought me a book about monsters, I had a lot of trouble understanding what the plot was based on the illustrations. Apparently my story was unconvincing because the girl assured me, "It's okay. I can't read right either." ("Es ist okay. Ich kann auch nicht richtig lesen") Thanks.

At 9am we start our morning circle time by sitting everyone down in a cozy, but never really circular shape on the floor and talking about some topic ranging from which items float in water to what the English word for jumping is. Some days after morning circle we attempt crafts, games or songs. Crafts generally result in glue or paint someplace it doesn't belong, games generally end in a giant giggling dog-pile, and songs are recognized as finished when the teacher becomes hoarse.

Without fail, the children spend time outside in the kindergarten yard every day, even when it's only twenty degrees. To prepare for this, the adults spend what seems to be an exhorbitant amount of time shoving little bodies into puffy snow suits, so that each student looks like Ralphie from A Christmas Story, who can't put his arms down because of his outfit's immense padding. The students become impossible to tell apart, especially from a distance, unless a teacher has skillfully memorized which child wears which combination of hat, boots and snow suit.

Next, we eat, brush our teeth, listen to a story and take a nap. Well, I don't get a nap, but the kids do. Most days I leave just after dessert (always something healthy like yogurt or fruit salad) to go to the zoo. The following four hours might be spent planning environmental education lessons with my Canadian coworker, Shannon, or working with any animals or keepers who might be involved in upcoming lessons, and some days I go to meetings, which may be held in English, German, or possibly a mish-mash of the two.

In all, it's not a bad gig. There is a lot of pressure on me though, since I work for the zoo, the kindergarten and the university's research project--it can be quite an intricate dance to please all the directors from these organizations, not to mention the children, their parents and the zookeepers on top of it.

The one person I know is always pleased with me, is not a person at all, but rather my cat, Sophie. Currently she is reclining directly on top of my arms, purring like a jeep with a bad exhaust pipe, while I do my best to type. Sophie is delighted with Germany, but I get the feeling she would be delighted anywhere. For my part, I was delighted this weekend when Shannon and I, plus the teacher from Malaysia, Diana, felt adventurous and dined at an Asian restaurant in Magdeburg. The small establishment served mostly Chinese and Thai food, each dish for around five euros. I ordered pork fried rice that tasted just like pork fried rice should and would had I ordered it in Seattle.

Before I conclude this entry to obtain a sofa (yes, finally I will have a place to sit while I watch either the international version of CNN or German cartoons!), I would like to say thank you to everyone who made my holiday season truly fabulous. Also, I am leaning toward returning to the U.S. for good in December of 2009. Nothing is set in stone, but I think it is a fairly good estimate. What does this mean for you? It means if you plan to visit Suzanne in Deutschland, get over here this year!