Posted on September 15, 2022
My Life Before The CBYX Fellowship
I came here on impulse. I mean, when you spend the last four years seeing the city you were born in make headlines day after day, it’s kind of intriguing. So three months after high school, I packed up my bags, and found myself on the southern border to see the reality of immigration for myself. I was now back home in El Paso, Texas.
Months earlier, this was not the plan. Originally, I was pursuing an application to a military academy – the denial letter cut that short. I didn’t have a backup because I wasn’t interested in attending a normal four-year college. I had a desire to work and to learn more about the world. I needed time away from a classroom and to take my curiosity to the source of what I was so deeply interested in.
For so long, immigration and refugee resettlement was where my captivation stuck.
November of 2019 is where this story begins. When I arrived in El Paso, I found the organization Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center and soon after, became their Communications Coordinator.
When I tell you I loved my job, I mean that with everything in me.
I was the team’s videographer, graphic designer and photographer, documenting the work of immigration attorneys, advocates and asylum seekers from all over the world. I was there towards the end of the Trump era to the beginning of Biden’s, allowing me to uplift the work of our teams’ efforts in DACA, family separation, detention, citizenship and so much more.
Reporter Maria Hinojosa from NPR’s Latino USA speaking with Las Americas Executive Director, Linda Rivas, regarding the powerful story of our client – a mother and daughter who are subject to the Trump administration’s border policies forcing them into ongoing violence.
Graphic Deisgn over the whistleblower case in Georgia where women inside the Irwin County Detention Center were being forcibly sterilized as they underwent hysterectomies without their consent. Nurse Dawn Wooten thankfully filed a complaint leading to the break of this story.
I have this rule for myself to “take life one year at a time.” I want to stay in the present of whatever I’m doing, and only focus on my goals for that year solely. So, a few months after my first year at Las Americas, I decided that I wanted to see more of the world and do something similar, but also something completely different.
So I hit the internet.
I followed this YouTube duo for the longest time called, Damon and Jo. They are now making separate content but at the time they had a blog called, “Shut up and Go” (the blog, unfortunately, is no longer running). It was a place where creators could share travel stories, experiences and tips on accomplishing your dreams and seeing the world. One of the blog posts I ran across had a title along the lines of, “How To Get Out of The US For Free or On a Scholarship.” The blog mentioned WWOOF, Workaway, Au Pair, Fullbright and then Congress Bundestag Youth Exchange. I read the description for that last program, thought it was interesting, applied, got accepted and the rest I will be telling you right now.
I emailed Damon and Jo and Damon responded with words of wisdom I still think about to this day, with the decisions I make.
Side note: my CBYX friend bumped into Damon in Paris during our year abroad, and told him how grateful I was for this message he sent me three years ago
A little girl sits next to her friend in a shelter in Juarez, Mexico
Playing with the kids in a Juarez shelter. A gave one little boy my camera to practice taking photos with
What Is The CBYX Fellowship?
Congress Bundestag Youth Exchange (CBYX, German name: Parlamentarisches Patenschafts-Programm or PPP) is a government sponsored fellowship through the US State Department and the German Bundestag to spend one year in Germany. This Fellowship has three departments, a high school program, a vocational program (catered towards more like a gap year) and the young professionals program (catered towards those right out of college). I was a fellow of the Young Professionals program.
For those applying for an upcoming cohort, be sure to check out my application tips!
This fellowship is set up into three main phases: Language School, University and most importantly, your Internship. By March, all 75 participants selected receive their congratulatory emails. You then can deny or accept and hopefully, if you are one of the 75 you accept, because this will be one of the most enriching years of your life.
Arriving In Germany
On August 1st, 2021 I found myself in Germany. This was my first time in Europe. Shortly after landing at the Frankfurt Airport, our 75 person cohort was divided into respective language school groups. I said my goodbyes to the girl I met from my state of Washington who got placed into the Radolfzell school. I also said my goodbyes to the girl who I shared my interview with as she got placed in the Saarbrücken school, and I left with all new and some fairly familiar faces to my language school in Köln.
My introduction to Germany was: bikes, beer and spaghetti ice cream.
Kölner Dom
Köln, Germany
Köln is a city that was bombed heavily during World War II therefore a lot of the buildings are old infrastructure merged with modern-day architecture. The locals call it one of the ugliest cities in Germany, but the aesthetic honestly was a vibe I didn’t mind. Bikes filled the city, and they safely shared the sidewalks with pedestrians as their half was marked with red bricks.
Directly out of the Hauptbahnhof (train station) I was greeted by the city’s Dom (cathedral) which you must earn your keep and climb all 533 steps before you leave. The gothic architecture added to the setting feeling that I was, in fact, in Europe.
Me snagging a Berliner as fast as possible
CBYXer Zoë, holds everyone’s beer because we were unsure if we could go inside stores with them. Turns out you can.
I was legal to drink in this country and the culture was so destigmatized to alcohol. People were drinking on the streets openly, not in an obscene way, just, normally. I still never got used to beer though, rather, pass me the Aperol Spritz.
Spaghetti Ice Cream
Vanilla ice cream being pressed to make Spaghetti Ice Cream
Once I met my wonderful host parents. They took me out that evening to get the German specialty, Spaghettieis (spaghetti ice cream). It’s vanilla ice cream pressed in the form of noodles, topped with strawberry syrup, some shavings of coconut or so to look like cheese gradings and topped with a wafer as a breadstick. They eat that up, and rightfully so because it’s really good.
Language School Phase
During this phase, I took learning German very seriously. Contrary to popular belief, not all Germans speak English. Many just never learned or they’re just shy about it and don’t want to. So, you have to start learning fast if you want to eat, figure out where the bathroom is and to take care of yourself. Even using Google Translate wasn’t helpful in the beginning because I had no idea how to pronounce anything.
Language school is five hours a day, five days a week for two months straight at the Carl Duisberg Centrum. Our language classes were split by language level. So I was in a class with people who knew nicht. Our classes were also joined from people all over the world, mainly students who also realized that Germany will not cut you any slack if you only know English, you have to be conversational in this language.
Classmates! Both girls on the end are part of CBYX, the one directly next to me is a PHD student from China
It was a unanimous consensus that our language school was incredibly helpful to our language progression. Our teachers were so interactive in their styles and it really set the foundation so quickly for me in a way I have never had before when learning a new language.
The only thing that was a little annoying was the fact that the Germans stand by this concept of “Lüften” which is opening your window to get fresh air into the room. However they believed that it was needed to keep the COVID out even as summer was slowly transitioning into fall. So the classrooms were sometimes freezing.
There were 35 of us from our cohort placed into Köln and they were just wickedly smart – goofy. Everyone had such a unique past and it seemed like fate that the people picked this year were here. Your language school group is where you’ll meet some lifelong friends and some people who you’ll consider your rock for the duration of the program.
Don’t underestimate the support you’ll need during this time abroad, friends truly get you through the hard times of this program.
Language school is a time for you to only be present with where you are and what you’re doing now. Treat it as your summer camp. Have fun, go out, be silly because it may be a while until you get this kind of freedom with so many cool people ever again.
German Park Culture is elite. In many cities, you’ll find a popular park where groups of freinds go to hang out at any hour of the night. It’s a safe and super fun activity
An elaborate mock friends-wedding organized by CBYX fans of the lovely couple
An impulse head shave in the middle of Köln at midnight
Photo: Sam Jacobs
Zoë the dog petter. Learning the vital lesson early that “Darf ich Ihren Hund streicheln?” is can I pet your dog. However she found out quickly that if the last word is pronounced wrong then it sounds like hit/strike so people would retract their leash and say “what do you want to do to my dog?”
Photo: Mckinleigh Lair
Studying German articles at a cafe just to only use ‘die’ for everything
Photo: Zoë Shannon
Crew Photo
When craving southern food in Germany turns into Alex and I organizing a southern potluck inside his host moms 2 bedroom apartment
Host Parents PT. 1
I truly attribute how great of a time I had in Germany because of who I was placed with. My host parents were amazing, kind and lovely people. They were a couple, Carina and Andreas who lived in a dorf outside of Köln. They were both in the education field and each world travelers. They had a big house with a beautiful garden of flowers and fresh vegetables that we ate from regularly. Their love for exploring the world and meeting different cultures inspired them to have international people live with them regularly. They split their house in two, allowing for half to be theirs and the other half as apartments for students.
My Host Parents and I
During this time, I had three roommates.
Sitting in the audience for the Wendy Williams of Germany
The first one was a German girl who worked as a productions assistant for a tv show and she gave me a pass to come on set with her to a late night talk show for the channel, Stern TV. We sat in the audience that night and my host mom texted me saying she saw us on TV.
My other roommate was a girl from India and she was like the mom of our apartment half. She cooked amazing food, all traditional and handmade Indian recipes, and we were able to share dinners all together some nights with Carina and Andreas.
Potluck house dinner nights
Vinyard region near Cochem on the Mosel River
My roommate and I
My roommate and I
My last roommate was a girl from South Korea, and we ended up traveling to different countries for each other’s birthdays, which was a great experience.
Carina and Andreas were essentially my personal tour guides while in Köln (Carina also was a tour guide at one point in her life too!). One of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen was this vineyard region off the Mosel river called Cochem. The Mosel connects to the Rhine River in Köln and this area has one of the steepest hill regions for growing grapes. It was a sight I have never seen before and I was living my German dream of beautiful houses sitting against a blue river surrounded by rolling green hills.
Photos of my travels with my Host Parents
In the country side of Germany, there would be chicken farms and we were able to pull to the side of the road and purchase recently hatched eggs from an egg vending machine. Again, I’m doing a lot of firsts in this country.
But just like that, two months go by and the language phase is over. I was transitioning into the next phase of the program and moving to my new and final city.
Second Phase: Arriving in Leipzig
The CBYX program is designed to place you in a new city as a means of giving you the best opportunities for your internship. It’s also the city where you will be taking your semester of university classes. For our cohort, we didn’t find out our final placement city until about two weeks before the end of language school. You could imagine us shaking in our little boots waiting for our confirmation calls.
Beginning of the 5 hour train ride across the country to greet my next host parent with the, “Honey! I’m home!”
My new host mom, Julia
Kale harvested from the garden
I arrived in Leipzig on October 2nd and was greeted by my new host mom, Julia, at the train station. I kept a diary during this time – here’s an excerpt from my first weekend.
At 8:30 pm I was greeted by Julia, my new host mom at the Leipzig main station. She works as a translator/interpreter, from English, French, and a little bit of Russian to German. She’s a freelancer working mainly for patent companies and tutors children regularly in German.
The next morning, she had an array of breakfast items on the table: German sweet and savory breads, cheeses, jams, soft boiled eggs, teas, and coffee. We ate and cleaned up so we had a chance to go harvest vegetables from her garden. Julia doesn’t need a car in the city, but when needed, she rents cars that are scattered around Leipzig through an app, kind of like electric scooters in big cities nowadays. We drove 10 minutes to the outskirts of Leipzig to a community garden where we gathered three giant tote bags worth of chard, onions, peppers, kale, broccolini, zucchini, and kohlrabi. Once home we fed my other siblings: two bunnies – one black and one white with black spots named Guard and Bunny. “The duo is called Bunny Guard, like body guard”, says my 9-year -old host sister Charlotte. On Sundays, my host mom usually tutors children, but it was canceled on that day so she took me to the nearby lake instead. In the evening, we ate dinner and watched a traditional German crime tv show, Tatort, on the couch until the show lulled us to sleep.
Host Family PT 2
Once again, my host family situation was another win. I was 2 for 2 in the Host Family department. Julia and I were essentially sisters this entire time. While we could’ve occasionally spoken German, like the program intended host stays to be like, I still had plenty of other times to practice.
She was an amazing cook and we shared all meals together, each preparing different recipes. However, her specialty was in baking – there was no going hungry in this house. Beautiful cakes and desserts for the entire eight months. I told her that my favorite dessert is tiramisu and she baked that for me one day and told me with her “polyglotness” that it’s Italian for “pick me up” because of how delicious it was. It was the cure for any hassles after a long day.
Julia preparing a tiramisu
Julia and I, the dynamic duo
Foodie Highlights
One thing to know about Julia is that she loved to meet people. Julia always loved learning about different cultures and practicing different languages and connecting with people from all over the world. So with around 70 Americans running around this country, plus people I met along the way, our apartment turned into a hostel.
A page from the goodbye scrapbook I left for Julia at the end of my year
Sarah and Nora in the middle of the Nicki Chorus
My host sister and Nora dancing to Nicki Minaj
One of several slumber parties
Holidays
When it came to the holiday season, Nora, who was another CBYXer placed in my city and one of my closest friends I made during this time, was the mover and shaker of having Thanksgiving dinner that year. With 14 people marching down the streets of Leipzig, with potluck items in hand, Thanksgiving in Germany was a success.
Leipzig sunset during the winter. But don’t be fooled seasonal depression hit hard. This was near 4pm.
Christmas Day in Germany
Christmas Lunch, but the meatless version for me!
Thanksgiving in Germany
For Christmas, we traveled to Julia’s parent’s house, who lived in a town called, Brandenburg. Germans have this very cute tradition of always having coffee and cake ready for guests invited to their homes. And with the holiday season, cakes were on over time.
Homemade cakes with coffee almost everyday during Christmas time
German breakfast – Genuinely craving the bread and the Frühstücksei (their soft boiled egg popularly eaten for breakfast) right now
Prepare to have this alcoholic eggnog known as Eierlikoer, brought out too many times during the holiday season. Especially when no one asks.
One last praise for Julia. She also ran the underground railroad at one point. Nora’s host family situation wasn’t ideal. So after an altercation, Julia had Nora live with us for a month until she was able to find a new apartment because returning back wasn’t an option. In Julia we trust.
In the winter time the bunnies hang out in the living room.
But bunnies chew all low hanging wires. Nora was putting her robotics education to work the entire winter
University Phase
Everyone, with the exception of four of us, myself included, were college graduates. So this school phase is more like learning for the sake of learning; there’s no stakes involved.
You are enrolled in a degree track that Cultural Vistas (the administrative head) initiates on their end. However, whether Cultural Vistas even puts you in a program that is in your field or places you in a school that offers that said degree program in English (if you’re not fluent in German) is a different story. If you don’t like the degree field that they placed you in, you can change to whatever track you want, because you are literally just shadowing the classes the entire semester. It’s a matter of emailing the class professors and telling them your situation for shadowing and you’re good.
I was placed at Universität Leipzig and I switched my major from Mass Media Communications to Political Science because the classes offered in my original track were only in German. I knew personally, I was not ready for that. I remember on the first day of school, one of my friends called me talking about how her first day went. She said she enrolled into an all German class because she considered it to be a good way to practice. However when the class started by asking each student to introduce themselves, she logged off the zoom call and never went back. Only attend an all German class if you’re comfortable doing so!
I began my classes in winter, around October and I had Nora with me the entire time. We signed up for one Bachelor’s course, two Master’s courses and a German language course. You’re required to take 4 classes in total and one of them can be a language class. Most of our classes were seminar style, meaning, fewer people, ranging from 12 to 25 students per class. I really liked when it came to discussions; it was more intimate and less intimidating.
Our classrooms were filled with students from all over the world who were Erasmus students (the EU’s form of student exchange), with peers from France, Spain, Hungary and so on. Nora and I were the only ones from the US that we met during our time there.
One of my favorite classes was called European Democracy Promotion. We discussed subject matter around how Europe is promoting its democracy onto other nations in an effort to ‘save them.’ One class discussion that I really enjoyed was surrounding the idea of EU membership. How, in order to keep their reputable image, the EU doesn’t allow certain countries to join so they can retain importance and exclusivity. I really enjoyed the thought provoking conversations we had in that class and the critical thinking that had to be done to assess if this was for the greater good. This class is what ignited my interest in attending college after my year abroad. The critical thinking about world events and classroom discussions I was having with my peers lit up a passion in me that I hadn’t felt in a while.
Besides that one class, my other three were very dull in comparison. I truly didn’t like the style of teaching. It was outdated in the sense of you essentially taught yourself out of a book. German class scheduling was also really infrequent. Essentially, every class is only held once a week. So to fill your schedule, you must have about eight classes a semester. I didn’t think that was helpful for retaining information because of how little the class met. Professors almost always left when class was done, they didn’t stick around to talk to you or answer questions. Other CBYXers said that it was common for professors to be consistently absent in general. The class presentations were very immature given these were 18-25 year olds. I’m curious if German students are given speech classes in their high school curriculum because many didn’t know the basic rules of it. Presentations went on for an exhaustive amount of time in a very monotone voice with a powerpoint slide filled with over 20 bullet points. The culture of teaching unfortunately turned me off from wanting to go to university in Germany.
Lock down hit us by November, so classes went online after three weeks of being in person. That made the university experience even worse as your chance for making friends on campus vanished. The seasonal depression during this time coupled with a lockdown, was one of the hardest points in this program. The language classes we took through our universities also couldn’t compare to what we were receiving at our first language school. It was very poor teaching and again, only once a week. I think this phase would have been more beneficial if it was like an extended language school phase.
Internship Phase
By early February the internship phase starts. In my situation, I didn’t get my internship from one of the 10 applications I sent. Instead, I received my internship through a contact. In this program, you have people know as Betreuers in your placement city, who serve as mentors. They’re there to help you get adjusted to Germany and assist you in any way possible during your time in this program. My Betreuer, Jens, was awesome and amazingly talented. Jens was a documentary filmmaker, storybook writer and in a reggae band. When I reached out for any contacts he might know of, he told me that his band once performed at the fundraiser for an organization called Mission Lifeline and Jens gave me the email address for the Executive Director. From there I was passed through a couple email chains that ultimately allowed me to have a coffee meet up with a person from their communications department. One Saturday morning in December, I got the call that they would love to have me on their team!
I was producing content in the form of short term videos, like Instagram Reels and also creating graphic designs.
Graphic design for thanking donors in their aid towards Ukraine
Graphic designs for donation webpage
My time with Mission Lifeline, took me to the island of Lesvos for about 10 days. We were visiting what was once known as, Moria, a camp that held over 17,000 refugees. But in 2020 a catastrophic fire hit the camp forcing all to leave. Marc is a videographer and photographer on our team and is the only one with us who got to see what Moria looked like before the fire. He walked us through the abandoned camp, pointing out spots in the grass that once held a market, a school, a family he once knew among the thousands living in makeshift tents. There was no other person here except for a man living in a dilapidated van along the edge of the field. He was a refugee from Bangladesh and all his paperwork, including his passport, burned in the fire. The Greek government has shut down all refugee camps on the island and constructed what is now known as New Moria, and is under control by the Greek government, hidden by a wall from the public.
The last two years for Greece has been pivotal. A country that once held almost 20,000 refugees is now down to 1,700 as many have moved to mainland Greece and other European countries to continue their pursuit of asylum. Countries such as Libya and Turkey are in agreeance with the EU to contain migrants fleeing. Essentially funding them to halt migrants fleeing their countries. In Libya, for-profit detention centers are the death sentences waiting for them where sexual violence, arduous labor and death occur.
Our job on the island was to be there on a journalistic standpoint. We visited the abandoned shelters, forcibly evicted by the Greek Government when the New Moria camp was established. Inside, we found journals and other personal items that had to be left behind.
An abandoned building stands high in the middle of Lesvos’s capital, Mytilini. The words “Close Moria! Smash Fascism” are spray painted in bold, black, lettering across the face of a building overseeing the Mytilene harbor. I asked a local why this wasn’t painted over by the city for what could be considered an eyesore. They said because people on both sides of the immigration issue both agree to ‘close Moria.’ We were told to go to the north end of the island to the town of Mithymna where the “life jacket graveyard” laid. From photos back in 2020, there used to be two huge mountains of lifejackets left over by the migrants crossing from Turkey. When we went up there, the lifejackets were gone. It’s currently the city dump but the government moved the lifejackets somewhere else. Only a few locals lived in trailers next to the piles of garbage and had their livestock of sheep eating from it. On our way back to town, we passed the Greek police keeping watch on the hills above, to see people coming from Turkey by boat.
Abandoned building in the center of Mytilene. Locals say, people on both sides agree to ‘close Moria.’
Life Jacket Graveyard. The mountain of lifejackets were no longer there, only few remained and were scattered around the junkyard.
At The End of The Day, I Am Leaving Germany Stronger Than I Came
Confidence
There’s something so empowering about showing up to a country where you literally don’t know a single word of the language and coming out of it a year later now conversational. It’s a matter of trusting yourself. Living in Germany I had to ask for help so much more than living in the US. Because I was unfamiliar with how their country worked. Be it transportation, or weighing items at a grocery store, or reading my menu. I was so vulnerable. I relied on asking strangers to just give me a little push in the right direction and having to take control the rest of the way. I had to be open but also strong enough to stand my ground and not get taken advantage of in my situation. I was forced to learn and adapt quickly.
Traveled The World
I went to 12 countries within this year and met amazing people from all over the world. I have so many stories of love, loss, luck, happiness, and excitement that my camera roll is bearing the biggest burden. I hope to talk about those more in future blog posts.
Lisbon, Portugal
Skakavac Waterfall in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Change of Habits
Coming home a year later, I am not the same person as when I left. This expanded to many aspects in my life to being more environmentally conscious, to my love for biking, to speaking up for myself more. I am allowed to change and to think differently because there were so many things about living abroad that made me want to live differently and what I felt like was better for me.
Facebook Marketplaced the new whip
Met Amazing People
What is so amazing about this opportunity to live abroad for a year is that your circle starts out small. Maybe you leave your hometown, or a job, or school to take an opportunity like this – not really knowing what’s ahead. You’re used to a routine and a familiar life but you give that up. You give that up and you take a chance. And once you take that chance your circle gets bigger, your perspective widens and your way of thinking changes. Your standards for yourself change, you want different, you want better because you saw what was possible outside of the bubble you once lived in. And what this year abroad does, is it casts nets, or a lifeline rather, to people all around the world who meet you, get to know you, like you and want to support you. This program changes your life and the opportunities that lie ahead might not be apparent right away but they will manifest in ways that only time will tell.
I Have Three Main Take Aways From My Year Abroad
1. Live Your Life Like It’s A Sitcom
Live your life like it’s a sitcom, and by this I mean, find the funny in the stressful, ordinary parts of your everyday routine. Life is more fun when you don’t take it so seriously. My best story for this developed from a friendship I made during the winter time. My gym was closed for the past three months due to the lockdown. I was forcing myself to run outside and that ultimately allowed me to meet Horst. He told me that at 82 years old, this park was where he ran every morning. He said he would be happy if I wanted to join him. So I did.
We began this routine of meeting about twice a week and it was the start of a really nice friendship. We exchanged stories about each of our lives, and each run took me to a new part of the city I never explored before. Then things got a little rocky. In one of our email exchanges, he was telling me about something and then ended his email by saying, “I’m glad to have met you, you are just my type.” I was confused by what this meant because my first interpretation was this was a flirtatious remark. However, it didn’t make sense for Horst as he has been nothing but pleasant and respectful towards me. He was always safe and kind. But when I turned to my friends for a second opinion, they were more skeptical and were convinced that this was not an error in translation, but rather an unwanted approach. The next morning we staged an intervention to end our friendship.
One of my first runs with Horst. Also, stopping was unacceptable on my part – I earned my runners lungs.
At 9:30 am I had a team of two friends: one for translation and the other for back up incase things got worse. And I was the bait. We jogged the 12 minutes to the park where we meet for training, and in the foggy grass field I saw Horst making his way to greet me with his normal big smile. We all said hi and I stood back and waited for them to introduce themselves under aliases. My friend later explained she felt disarmed by his kind soul, went off script and told Horst everything about herself. He walked with us as we headed to my designated spot at the park where I performed circuit workouts on the park bench. He was keeping us laughing and making conversation with the three of us when my friend, who was fluent in German, separated him from the group. She tells him that the last email was inappropriate and that he must leave me alone and to not bother me anymore when he sees me. Horst got very confused and embarrassed about the confrontation and simply says, “I wish you well Paige” in the saddest way possible and walks away in the same manner. An excerpt from my journal wrote,
Like the sitcom my life is, before I was able to say anything back to him, two blind people walk in the gap left between him leaving and where we were standing. They were asking for help to get back to the walking trail. I helped redirect them while the ache in my heart hurt for Horst.
Later that night I felt incredibly bad about the whole thing. I have never felt unsafe around Horst and I still felt his comments were not intended to be harmful. I thought our friendship was worth saving and I needed to explain why I felt the need to confront him. I sent him an email that night explaining how I felt his words were flirtatious and how my friends were just looking out for me. I told him I’m sorry if he felt embarrassed and it wasn’t my intent to hurt him. I said meet me at the park tomorrow morning to talk. The next day, he greeted me with a hug and a long breath of fast apologies and explanations that he never meant for his words to come across that way. He explained he felt terrible when my friends called him weird, and hopes I will never see him in this light. He helped me understand the misunderstanding by saying “Paige I am 82 years old, I am from a different generation than you and when I say you are just my type, I mean your character. You are the kind of person I want to have in my life because of the person you are.” Our friendship was rekindled and we continued to run around the city together, go to symphony concerts and enjoy picnics with his wife in the garden.
Running around Leipzig with Horst
Symphony Concert with Horst
2. Give Happiness and You will End Up Happy
In Germany you have to learn to give first in order to receive it back. In a culture where few people greet you or talk to you and acknowledge your presence, if you know those simple acts of kindness makes your day better, then do it first. Say hello first, ask how a stranger’s day is first, compliment someone’s outfit, and acknowledge the people in your neighborhood. Those things only help everyone involved. My best story for this is when I started hanging out with an elderly German woman. If it’s not clear, I really rock with the elderly in this country. I called her Oma which is German for grandma.
This fellowship requires 40 hours of volunteering to be completed by the end of January. I was ready to be the photographer and run the social media of my host sister’s choir concerts, but all of that was canceled with the lockdown.
One late night curious brows on a dating app, had me come across a 7-foot tall basketball player in a city about three hours away. He was half Cameroonian and half German and since I’ve never seen 7-feet in real life, I swiped right, we both matched and we started talking. Dating apps are based on location and mainly only show you people in your area and the guy told me we matched because he was in town visiting his grandma. His grandma is a German lady in her 80’s, her husband from Cameroon died, and when she was about to follow her son’s move to go back and live in Cameroon, he died suddenly too, forcing her to return to Leipzig. Every month her grandson takes a trip to Leipzig and spends a weekend with her, but the majority of the time she’s alone in her apartment. I offered to be the person who could just hang out with her twice a week, cooking her food and playing cards as a way to ease some of that loneliness. This would be the volunteering needed for my program. And from then on that’s what I did.
Would I say it’s as cute as it sounds – no. She’s very depressed from the lonliness. She can’t move without a walker so she never goes outside especially during the winter season. She lives in a semi-independent nursing home and while home nurses check-in and help with basic cleaning, that and a few friends is about all the human interaction she gets.
Oma and I
Celebrating an early Christmas dinner
She always tells me ‘Paige,’ but pronouncing my name as Peach, “du freust mich” meaning, you make me so happy. I have been reading this book called, “Tuesdays with Morrie” where a former student of a professor named Morrie was diagnosed with ALS and is slowly dying from the disease. The story was captured from the student’s point of view, where every Tuesday he would visit Morrie, and Morrie would in his last days give his final lessons as a teacher but surrounding the topic of life and accepting death. As part of the book, Morrie said that he doesn’t know if he could’ve been as accepting and less spiteful of his future if it wasn’t for his family and the people he had around him. And I think that’s what Oma is missing. A family by her side. I understood this and I really felt how sad this could be. So if I can be there to redirect the conversation to something that isn’t about her saying how lonely she is, and I leave with her in a better mood, I’m happy to spend my time doing so. Our relationship lasted well past the 40 hours and we still message on Facebook.
3. Don’t Dim Your Sparkle As long as It doesn’t Hurt Anyone
By this I mean you don’t need to assimilate completely to a new environment if it takes away from what makes you happy. If you like saying hi to strangers, laughing out loud, smiling to people on the street, wearing bright colors, wearing your hair a certain way, and makes you feel confident and happy, then do it. If you’re not hurting anyone by the actions that make you, you, then don’t worry about standing out. The people who are attracted to your authentic self are meant to be in your life and they will gravitate towards you.
This year was one of the best moments of my life and if you get the chance to take a risk like this, do it and don’t look back.
Nora and I saying goodbye to Julia and Charlotte at the train station