Tales from Germany

A "normal" German Advent's wreath "T he layers of meaning in a new society are never explained explicitly to newcomers and sometimes I wish that I had been handed my bible of In Germany thou shalts and thou shalt nots as I crossed the border. Our first Christmas was one case in point. Christmas is a serious, more contemplative time here and full of old traditions. During the season of Advent, every German family has a pine wreath with four candles on it. On each of the four Sundays in Advent, the family sits down for afternoon tea and Stollen—the traditional fruit loaf, eaten only at Christmas time—and another candle gets lit, until all four are burning on Christmas Eve. It is a wonderful tradition but not mine, and my children have suffered from their non-German mother’s inability to “bastel”—to make things with one’s hands—and to make an Advent wreath ourselves. Our first Christmas here, my husband decided, as the German contingent in our marriage, th...

Seldom before in my life have I experienced how from the depths of despair, life can suddenly turn around into pure joy and pleasure and fresh experiences completely wiping away all bad memories that have gone before. The mayor of Florange and our daughter (in white) laying a wreath in France on Remembrance Day 2009 A n ordinary November week started with A., the French exchange pupil we hosted in September , writing to our daughter, saying she would refuse to have anything to do with our daughter Rose once she came to France. It was only days before Rose had to go and stay with this family. The visit was part of a regional Schumann exchange organised by the Education Departments in the four bordering countries and is meant to foster inter-regional understanding. We were aghast by the turn of events . Even more hurtful was watching the toll it took on our daughter. Both we and her French teacher kept on telling her, not all French are like that. So while all her close friends were p...

W e as a family had to this week painfully experience how an intercultural, inter-regional pupil exchange between our daughter and a pupil in the northern French region of Lorraine, barely 60 kilometres from Trier completely collapsed. For 12 days in September, we played hosts to a homesick 12-year old French pupil from a migrant family in Loraine. We thought we did our best: investing time, energy and money to make her time in Germany special. Every day there was an activity: an outing with French and German pupils or visiting some of our eight UNESCO World Heritage Sites. One day they had a home-made pizza and film party with 12 French and German girls here in our house. On the Saturday we did a day-trip to Eltz Castle, 100 kilometres away. (c) Anli Serfontein 2009 Eltz Castle After receiving no thank you note from her, she deemed it fit to write my daughter an email this week, less than a week before my daughter was to go to France to tell her how she hated her time with us, that...

The World Athletic Championships in Berlin which ended last night should have been a moment of triumph for South African athletes, giving their best performance since returning to the international stage in 1991. Yet bigotry and nastiness of the highest order marred it for those athletes who have spent days and hours to prepare. Sitting in Germany this week, I was getting thoroughly sick of the narrow-mindedness of so many. A lot have been written about Carsten Semenya but I would like to add my few thoughts. She looks like a man her accusers say: I worked as sports stringer for Reuters and SID (Sports Informationsdienst) in the early 1990’s in South Africa. The then long distance star of the day, Elana Meyer also had no breasts, a boyish figure and boyish facial features. She did however have a domineering husband who acted as her manager, which I suppose acted as an alibi. Today she has remarried and has a baby. Maria Mutola, the 800 metre Mozambican star was also not that feminine...

The annual Olewig Wine Festival in Trier, Germany's oldest town is ending tonight. Once again we celebrated at Weingut Deutschherrenhof. Where else? Good music, good wine, good food. Ate lovely vegetarian Flammkueche. This is what I wrote in my book about it. On the left vineyards of Olewig. Annual Olewig Wine Festival: “In the last few years we have preferred to sit in the garden of the wine estate Deutschherrenhof, belonging to the family Schieben-Oberbillig. The wines are excellent, the cuisine good and the music is normally to our taste. The problem with German wines is that they are so completely confusing. In South Africa my favourite wine for many years was a Boschendal Blanc de Blanc or for special occasions a Backsberg Chardonnay. With the French Huguenots bringing the wine culture to South Africa, I have no problem choosing a good French wine. But German wines, even after thirteen years of living in a wine growing area, giv...

Sunday the 24th of May The faithful gather for outside the Roman Cathedral, dating from the fourth century, in Trier. (c) Anli Serfontein, 2009 Bishop Stephan Ackermann, Germany's newest and youngest bishop, exists his official residence to go to the Cathedral for the official ceremony. (c) Anli Serfontein, 2009 L ooking for a shady place to sit down in Trier on a hot Sunday, the church bells started peeling at full volume from all directions. Trier has more churches on a square kilometre than any place I know, but today was different: The new bishop of Trier, Stephan Ackermann was being inducted. And that is when we ran into a procession of Roman Catholic priests and bishops. In the hot-humid early summer air ancient traditions mixed with modern times. The procession was headed by a priest carrying a huge old Bible. All the great religions of the world are based on scriptures and this symbolised 2,000 years of Christian tradition. We are just small cogs in the wheel of time. Trier...

„Basteln, Wandern and Putzen” is the name of the second edition of my book in Germany. The name comes from a chapter in my book listing the things I negatively associate with living in Germany. "She pokes fun at her own inability to spotlessly clean her house, make anything with her hands or go on compulsory but torturous hikes - all prerequisites to living in the country", the publicity blurb said. With some wonderfully warm days here in Trier, the wandern (hiking) season is truly upon us. With May and June full of public holidays, the season is traditionally opened on May 1, when families go on loooong hiking outings with friends. It is definitely a group activity, which involves a picnic or a meal somewhere. As I wrote in my book I am completely allergic to this type of activity. As I sat on my stoep with my laptop last Friday, Labour Day, trying to overcome my writer’s block and write in some wonderful spring weather: group after hiking group went past our ...