And Once More Employed

Disclaimer: I may have been a little bit of a downer in this entry. I wanted to let you know where I’m at after Day One, an honest reflection for our nearest and dearest.

Today was the first day of work for each of us. I have mixed impressions, though as an emotional pragmatist I often do. My experience here will be very different than it was at L’Arche for a number of reasons, and I expected this. Wittekindshof is a much larger community than L’Arche, with about 2500 “clients.” Most of the residences are large buildings, set up with wings like a hospital. It is not the familiar, comfortable setting of a L’Arche home. Then, there is the verbal barrier, as each “client” has an individual language and range of ability; I experienced this at L’Arche, and knew that as a foreign speaker of German, it would be even more challenging here. And, after spending over a year at L’Arche, even the term “client” rather than “core member” sounds removed, cold. I expected these differences, though. What bothered me really was that my boss in every introduction included “she can’t understand everything I’m saying.” Funny, I understood this degradation each and every time. I tried to politely counter this assumption in various ways, by telling him that I studied German for six years, that I studied abroad in Potsdam, even agreed with him eagerly when he told a coworker that he could understand a lot of English but was always nervous to speak it. I told him it was the same for me, and thought hopefully that he would then ease up on his assumption that my German skills were lacking. I suppose this is the curse of being shy/introverted and just not having the urge to say much. I process much but express little overtly. So he has presented me with a challenge for our time here: I need to assert myself and gather confidence in my spoken German. Perhaps it will also be good for me to attempt to conform more to German culture during our time here. I try to be polite and worry about others’ feelings, but Germans manifest politeness differently. Their culture is more direct and things that would be offensive in America are merely statements of fact or feeling here, not meant to upset. Maybe this is why he so openly said that I didn’t understand what he was saying; maybe as a German he would not find this insulting. Perhaps, then I should be more direct in telling my boss to shut it and trust that yes, I do know German. And while I’m in this tender place, I will remind myself that when I met my supervisor on Friday, his supervisor told me that I had perfect German grammar, and what better compliment could there be to me?

And now some other, miscellaneous reflections:
Despite his instant knack for rubbing me the wrong way, my boss does seem pretty nice. He said that he told his girlfriend what Dan and I are doing and that they found it very courageous of us to come to Germany and work with them. He also said that they would like to have us over sometime if we wanted. (Excellent, as we have no friends.) All of the other coworkers I have met so far seem nice, too, and are mostly mid-20s to mid-30s, so there is potential for friends. I will have legs of steel by the end of our time here. My work is 15-20 minutes away by bike, with a decently long uphill grade each direction. Luckily, the longer is on the way home, so I can get as sweaty as I’d like on the way back. I think it was a good decision to have my top layer in my pocket for the ride there, though; I was plenty sweaty when I arrived at work. I am happy for the ride; I get grumpy without a workout and complained many-a-time last year that I couldn’t exercise enough in Tacoma. Here, I will have to. Plus, the scenery is nothing to complain about. The whole ride is through countryside, with green rolling hills and fall leaves barely gripping the tree branches overhead. The houses are mostly brick with a scattering of half-timbered gems. It’s the kind of setting I fabricate when I daydream of a quiet life. I’ll try to remember my camera next time =)

And, as I wrote all of this, many German words came to me before the English did, which I will take as a very positive sign! There you have it!

Love,
Bryce