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!

Misinterpretations: nicht gut Deutsch

I will admit that I earned straight A's in the equivalent of three semesters of high school German. Further, I will admit that I did quite well in another three semesters of German courses at Pacific Lutheran University. Additionally, I will admit that I spent January of 2003 in German-speaking countries. Lastly, I will admit that my German is very poor. In the time that I have been in Magdeburg my language skills have improved significantly, but not so much as to avoid awkward misunderstandings and funny looks. Here are a few of my "lost in translation" experiences.

Early in my stay here, I tried to mail a post card to my pals at the Wild Wonders Outdoor Theater in Tacoma. When I got to the post office I first thought I was a complete moron because I could not figure out how to open the door to get into the post office. Noticing my puzzlement, a lady behind the glass doors started calling something to me in German. She was yelling through the door "Zu! Zu!" As far as I knew, "zu" was a preposition meaning "to" (as in, Suzanne failed TO send the post card). Later I remembered that "zu" also is a word for "closed" (as in, Suzanne stop trying to open the door, the post office is CLOSED!) And that is why WWOT zookeepers have yet to receive their post card.

Another mistake I made that was more from cultural confusion than a language barrier happened after I learned that Germans shake hands all the time. Every morning when employees arrive at work, they shake hands; kids meeting on the tram shake hands, and sometimes people shake hands when they say goodbye. Americans have a very limited number of situations where hand-shaking is encouraged, so I had trouble knowing when to extend my hand to anyone. To add to the confusion, there are some Germans who don't like the tradition of shaking hands and will not offer a handshake, and there are some who know enough about America to know that culturally we do not shake hands every day and they will NOT offer to shake my hand. So one day when I was leaving the zoo after spending the day with a very kind keeper and he extended his hand, saying something very quickly in German, I shook his hand. He repeated the sentence and extended his hand again. That time, I paid better attention and understood that he was telling me I needed to return my keys...NOT trying to shake my hand. Oops.

Sometimes the mistakes are not from failure to understand the actual words, but from a failure to understand the meaning behind them. When I went to sign the contract for my new apartment, the agent attempted to make small talk with me IN ENGLISH. His English was not good. In German the word "do" isn't used as often as in English whereas the word for "make" is used more often. For instance if you want to know what someone's career is, you might ask literally, "What do you make?" Even though I knew this, the difference led to some slight confusion because the agent asked me in English, "What do you make at the zoo?" wanting to know what I DID at the zoo. I, having forgotten that the German agent might not understand the difference, answered, "About 2,000 Euro per month." Not what he was looking for.

I have even had a problem or two with the language when I am not speaking with anyone. In stores, I have to stare at the ingredients on containers of food for what probably seems like an inordinate amount of time to discern what the items actually are. Pictures on the boxes of food really help. I mostly have made good decisions regarding my edible purchases and can even read menus no problem. However, last week in an attempt to buy butter, I accidentally purchased what turned out to be a block of squishy, grey YEAST, which does not taste anything like butter. At all.

Lastly (just lastly for this post, not lastly overall, as I'm sure to make many further ridiculous errors with language), when another zookeeper asked me what kinds of wild cats I had previously cared for, I meant to say I cared for a lynx, but I am fairly certain that the word I actually said was "hole." Yes, earlier in my career, I used to care for...a hole.

Weihnachtsmarkt

In Germany around Christmas time, all the children get glassy-eyed and wistful thinking about a man and his reindeer magically gliding through the air and all the adults get glassy-eyed and wistful from wintertime drinks and festivities. To celebrate the season, every German town has its own Christmas market. When it was still the middle of November, unidentified little wooden buildings began appearing near my tram stop. They looked like little houses with fake snow on the roofs and real fir trees arranged beside them.

Each day more tiny houses appeared until finally on the 24th of November, Magdeburg's Christmas market began. Actually, since the market butts right up against my tram stop, I pretty much just stepped off the tram after work that day and was already at the market. So of course, I went. All of the little houses now had their front walls rolled up to expose displays of handmade candles, blown-glass ornaments, and homegrown fruits. Some of the little houses transformed into booths where children played games in hopes of winning silly prizes like Sponge Bob in a santa hat or Max and Moritz cell phone carriers. The whole town square shone with white lights, a huge tree stood in front of the (former) city hall, and Christmas music floated in from some unknown location. The statue of Otto von Guerike frowned down at the carusel, pony rides and a booth selling gemstones.

I searched for gifts for my friends and family among the crowds of people who were getting loud and merry from the specially stewed warm wine and eggnog concoctions. Around half the booths were selling food and drinks, making the whole square smell heavenly. Grills sizzled with bratwurst in more varieties than one would think possible, and a couple of booths offered some type of mushroom dishes. The Germans upheld their reputation for creating fantastic chocolate: they sold it by itself, drizzled over fruit, in heart shapes, on sticks, with nougat, nuts, or marzipan, in Christmas shapes, and any combination of the aforementioned.

The temperature was below freezing that evening, but with all the ovens fired up, the lights burning brightly and the closely packed Germans kicking off the holiday season together, I didn't feel chilly at all. On my way out of the market, I couldn't help but sample the goods from at least one of the booths contributing to the aroma. I chose the very last booth, which was selling something called schmaltzballkuchen (yeah, try to order THAT over the din of Bing Crosby, a game of balloon darts and a hot grill). I didn't even know what it was, but the smell from the booth suggested something sweet and warm. The woman in this little wooden house handed me a large paper cone filled with puffy balls of fried dough she had doused in powdered sugar. Mmmm...God bless her.

Snippets

1.) I told my first joke in German. Usually my translating is too slow or my grammar is too poor to say anything witty. But yesterday a keeper showed me the red-footed tortoise enclosure, and I noticed what appeared to be an avian nest-box about seven feet up the wire mesh wall. I pointed at it and said (in German of course), "Kinda hard for the tortoises to use that, isn't it?" See, it's funny because tortoises can't climb or use nest boxes...Right.

2.) Every radio station I have heard in Germany--in cafes, in zookeeper kitchens, at the Christmas market--plays music in English. The DJs still speak in German, but very rarely have I heard a song with German lyrics. The funniest part about these stations is that their draw comes solely from the fact that they play music in English, so it has nothing to do with the actual merit or genre of the music. In one set of songs I heard first the theme from "Ghost Busters" (appropo of nothing, since it wasn't Halloween), then the Temptations song from the 60's "The Way You Do the Things You Do," followed by the latest single from American Idol's newest flash in the pan. Also, I have never heard so much Phil Collins.

3.) I feel as thought the keepers I have been meeting have gotten exponentially harder to understand. First I worked with keepers who spoke slowly and clearly. Then I worked with keepers who spoke quickly and mumbled. This week I discovered the challenges of communicating with a keeper who has a speech impediment. No kidding.

4.) My homesickness is better, but I still have days where I wish for a little more familiarity. One day last week I was on break with the keepers and one of them cleared her throat. Suddenly I missed my mom. My mom has a very individualized throat-clearing "ahem," and somehow Frau Driechciarz's (yeah, say that even ONE time quickly...) throat-clearing sounded close enough that it made me think of my mom.

5.) When referring to me in conversation, the zoo employees don't know what to call me. In German it is friendlier to call co-workers by their first names and address them using the informal grammatical structure. At the same time, it is often very impolite to use someone's first name if you don't know them well. If you can read my blog, you already know that English has no corresponding rule. None of the keepers know what to call me. To avoid being discourteous when saying things like, "I'm taking Suzanne with me today" or being stand-offish and saying, "I'm taking Frau Akerman with me today," the keepers instead refer to me as "die kleine Amerikanerin" sometimes. Literally this translates to "the little American." I will overhear, "Let the little American do that, you go muck the zebra stalls" or "The little American and I are done with the giraffees for the day."

6.) Some of the German keepers are interested in hearing me speak in English or in learning English words, and this is a great opportunity to create some comeraderie. This week I had the whole department roaring with laughter about the English word "squeegee."


A few quotes from my days here in Germany:


"She doesn't talk with a potato in her mouth!" An administrative assistant at the zoo (in German). She explained that native-German speakers make fun of American accents by saying we talk like we all have hot potatoes in our mouths.

"Your accent strong, but I unnerstand, so good job anyway," waiter with a faux-hawk (in English). Thanks, dude.

"Is it....a crocodile?" Four-year-old Paul (in German) when I drew him an ANT-EATER!

Ever try to catch a fifteen-pound turkey?

Living in a country that has no history of peace-making between pilgrims and Native Americans means that no one here gives a hoot about Thanksgiving day. In Germany we will all be toiling away as usual on the American holiday, and I will be taking a train to nearby Braunschweig to give a presentation on our zoo kindergarten at a conference. The chances of stumbling upon a turkey dinner in Braunschweig are pretty slim. I will miss the yams and apples--oh, and of course the company. This weekend I did enjoy a homecooked Malaysian meal prepared by our other English-speaking teacher, who actually comes from Malaysia. We ate the traditional meal of rice, spicy chicken, boiled eggs and vegetables the in the traditional Malaysian style as well, which means no utensils. It was fantastic.

With no holiday neatly nestled between Halloween and Christmas, the Germans start anticipating Santa and his reindeer before November hits double digits. Here in Magdeburg Winter came as suddenly as the Christmas season. The relatively mild temperature dropped to below freezing several days ago and has just begun to crawl back up. For two straight days snow fell in huge flakes without sticking and by the third day, perserverence prevailed; an inch of snow covered on the ground and still has not melted completely.

As my fellow zookeepers know, although the snow is beautiful and serene, it isn't exactly a keeper's best friend. Hose nozzles freeze, animals' water dishes freeze, and keeper's fingers freeze. This week I was involved in the task of moving some of the animals to their new, better insulated winter homes. Storks and turkeys were next on the list. How are storks and turkeys transported to their winter homes, you ask? Let me tell you...

Sometimes during the course of my days with keepers (thanks to my still somewhat lacking language skills), I have NO idea what is going on. Occasionally I jump on the back of the keeper cart with everyone else and think to myself, "Gee, I wonder where we're going? And what will we do when we get there?" In this case, the answers were that we were going to the exhibit with the storks and turkeys and once we got there, we were going to chase them into corners and grab them. Apparently this is how one moves storks and turkeys. After a lot of flapping and gobbling, I ended up hugging a rotund male turkey to my side, with his long tail feathers fanned out in my face. And he was heavy. We rode the keeper cart to the new enclosure, and any visitors who happened to catch a glimpse of the cart at that moment would have seen quite a sight--five zookeepers, each with huge birds tucked under their arms. Gert, who was carrying a stork, called over his should to me, "Now don't even think about eating him, American!" The thought had not crossed my mind.

Around the Zoo

Although I have many anecdotes from my personal life to relay, (like how I just got the internet yesterday, or how I have twice now pretended not to understand German in order to avoid men who were asking me out) I feel as though I have been neglecting explaining the animal side of my job. So here is a smattering of my experiences at the Magdeburg zoo.

I think it is fair to generalize that zookeepers the world over are not people people. That's why they work with animals. The Magdeburg zoo is full of keepers who have been keeping for decades; they are staunch, no-nonsense professionals, not all of whom are thrilled to have me around because I represent a changing tide not all are ready for. These keepers like to stay behind the scenes and while they take wonderful care of their animals and exhibits, they have no desire to do presentations or speak with the public. I completely expected this, and I know enough about zookeepers to know that the way to their hearts is through their animals. For the most part the keepers didn't know what to do with me at first. I have been spending time following other keepers around in order to get an idea of how the whole zoo runs so I can work with as many of the animals as I will fit into the kindergarten curriculum. It is time-consuming and means that there is always something new. On one of my first days doing this, I followed a man with piercing blue eyes and an earring. He said almost nothing while we worked and then suddenly after three hours of cleaning enclosures side-by-side, he said "Ich heisse Rene." I was so shocked that he was addressing me that my reply was the German version of, "Uh...what?" He repeated himself and this time I understood. After three hours of working with me, this man finally said, "My name is Rene." I said, "I am Suzanne. Nice to meet you."

Ususally I do not get to participate in veterinary procedures, but I have had the opportunity to be present for a few. One day I happened just by chance to see three. First one of our kangaroos (don't worry, Mom, it's a small kind, not the six-foot red kangaroos you're thinking of) had an abcess that needed to be treated. I helped restrain the kangaroo, which stood only about three and a half feet tall, but of course that thing could KICK. Fortunately the veterinarian speaks English well and could tell me exactly what to do. The soft, thick fur surprised me because from a distance kangaroos look smooth and sleek to me, not fluffy. But upon closer inspection, this kangaroo had plush fur and very athletic muscle density. The second procedure that day was a treatment for a green iguana that needed an x-ray. The green iguana, being much smaller and less active than a kangaroo, seemed like it should be a cinch after what we went through with the thrashing, spindley kangaroo. I was wrong. First, two keepers climbed trees in the iguana exhibit, which was precarious enough, but to add a further element of danger, the one who grabbed the iguana then had to climb back down without being bitten by the iguana who was acting very much like a frantic fish out of water, flapping his whole body all over the place. Thanks to good forsight the keeper was wearing leather gloves for this task; the iguana latched onto one glove so furiously that he could not be pried off. We took the x-rays with the glove still in the iguana's mouth.

The third veterinary procedure I watched that day was performed on a juvenille red river hog who had been bitten on his stomach by another hog. If you are not familiar with red river hogs, just imagine a warthog the color of an Irish setter and then imagine he has giant ears with bushy tufts of hair on the ends. Now imagine that there is a large, stoic German man sweet talking this little pig while petting the anxious animal from six feet away using a broom. Really, this was genius. The vet needed to see the underside of the hog, but because he was injured, the hog wanted nothing to do with this and barked and snapped when the vet came near. So, to calm the little guy down, the vet took a broom and stroked the pig to quiet him enough that he would allow someone to get a good look at his wound. I don't think the sweet talking had any effect, but it was funny to hear.

Some observations abbreviated for the sake of time:

Asiatic lions are SCARY. Unlike African lions, who often are calm and tolerant, Asiatic lions are very aggressive toward keepers. The male at Magdeburg emits a deep rumble from his chest constantly if keepers are near, and every now and then he lunges at the gates, bellowing like the innocuous MGM lion would sound if you accidentally had your TV volume turned up way too loud. Even when I knew he was going to pounce toward us, it was difficult to ignore the gut reaction to run away, back up, or at least wince. This animal is a perfect example of why a forgetful keeper is a dead keeper. We check all our locks three times. Always.

The Germans desire for order extends beyond punctual transportation to their zookeeping. The German keepers have (what I think is) a strange compulsion to clean the outdoors. On more than one occasion I have had a German zookeeper follow behind me and re-rake places I have already raked. Don't they know more leaves will fall tomorrow? At the same time, I seem to clean the indoors TOO thoroughly for them. They always stop me and tell me it's good enough.

Wubbo is a 22-year-old chimpanzee. He likes people-watching, bananas, blowing kisses and plastic containers. Also, Wubbo likes me. The keeper who raised him, Sonja, spoke with me (in German) about this. After I had worked all day in the ape house she said, "Wubbo likes you. He doesn't like everyone, you know. Sometimes a new intern or trainee or anyone comes in and he gets very upset. He lets you watch him eat. With you he is very calm." Wubbo has diabetes and let me watch while Sonja tested his blood sugar. When Wubbo was finished, he received a pear for his cooperation and his mate, Nana, who does not have any blood sugar condition but wanted a pear of her own, offered her foot to be pricked and tested as well. Sonja obliged and Nana ate her pear.

At Magdeburg zoo there is always some kind of poop to be stepping in. It is not a matter of if but a matter of when, what kind, and how much. I do not reccommend Asiatic buffalo.

In my previous zookeeping work, I had to do a lot of chopping up of small rodents, chicks and horse meat. After a while a zookeeper doesn't think twice about snipping off tails and heads and doesn't ever cringe at the cracking of tiny spines. But I never had to actually slaughter the animals myself. They always came in compact frozen bags. The Magdeburg zoo raises all of its prey animals and feeds fresh meat to the carnivores, which means of course that someone has to kill the meat first. In the middle of our day, Sonja explained to me that we had to go to the kitchen to get the food for the animals. This meant that the sweet lady who wanted me to tell her all the names for our cleaning tools in English was going to bash in the heads of a line-up of 30 small animals. And she did.

When I started working in Germany in September the weather was beautiful. Today it snowed. It was the Seattle type of snow where nothing stuck because the ground was too wet, but it became suddenly evident that winter is here. The zoo provided me with a uniform to wear so I don't look like a random teacher jumping over fences into enclosures, but if the zoo's uniform stock is any indication, there has never been a Magdeburg zookeeper as small as me. Hence, my uniform is a spiffy matching set of hat, sweatshirt, polo shirt, khaki pants, thick winter coat and rubber boots, all several sizes too large. So, just picture all of the previous things I mentioned happened while I was wearing clown pants.