Tales from Germany

This week again brought the realisation how we have completely come to accept a Europe without borders and the enormous advantages of such a Europe. In the run up to the NATO Summit, Germany reactivated its border controls with neighbouring countries and those of us living in border areas felt the effect. Yet it is only 14 years ago this month that Schengen came into operation and the border controls between EU countries fell away. The first borders to go were between the Benelux, France and Germany before in the last decade most others followed suit. For me, as a South African, it brought so many advantages and freedom! When I first arrived here in 1995, I needed a visa for Luxembourg – to put in petrol or go to the post office or the cinema. Yes it is true! And every time we drove over to Luxembourg we had to grab the purse with Luxembourg money. And if we drove a bit further to shop in France we needed three purses and three currencies for a day trip. Living only 15 kilo...

The art of breadmaking and baking in this country is on par with their engineering skills. German expats and those of us who have lived in Germany for years, all miss German bread once we are out of the country. It is one of the first thing German expat communities do when they are abroad, set up their own bakeries. My husband had his best ever pretzels outside of Bavaria, at the German bakery in Cape Town. Now one thing that the German bakers even do better is to take a bread recipe from anywhere in the world and turn it into a masterpiece. I spent weeks in Tuscany trying to find a Ciabiatta that was not dry and tasteless. My favourite in this area is with feta cheese and olives on top. Add to that a glass of red wine and it is a meal. Or take baguette, which is big in our area on the border to France. The bakeries here have all sorts of healthy baguettes with muesli, with all sorts of nuts and corns, with cheese. A feast! And on Fridays I buy organic health bread from the market here...

The Leipzig Book Fair which started yesterday is a real feast for authors and readers. Unlike Frankfurt which is THE International Book Fair for rights, Leipzig has a Carnival atmosphere and is designed for readers to hear, see, meet and even touch (well shuffle and push past) authors. It is tangible and real, whereas Frankfurt is haughty and more for agents and publishers and VIP authors and DEALS. 1,900 (mostly German) authors are reading at the Fair and all over Leipzig, as part of the “Leipzig liest” – Leipzig Reading -festival. The organisers are expecting 120,000 visitors and there are exhibitors from 38 countries. I displayed my book From Rock to Kraut there (that's me and my book), last year just as it came onto the market. Well, display is a great word, it was sort of hidden behind a bookcase at Books on Demand’s (BoD) stand and they probably did not think that I would travel across Germany just to check it out . But if you pushed a few people out of the way ...

The Leipzig Book Fair is a feast for readers and authors. It has a magic, carnival-like atmosphere and is not as haughty as Frankfurt. I will be at the Fair on Saturday 14th March. Last year I had my first taste of Book Fairs in Leipzig and took this impressive picture. The German Edition of my book Basteln, Wandern and Putzen : From South Africa to Trier - Living among the Krauts , will be on display with Vito von Eichborn's Edition BoD - Hall 3 D 200

I am a theatre buff and some of my earliest childhood memories are of being taken to the theatre in Johannesburg. One of the joys of living in Germany is its rich theatre tradition. Even a small city like Trier with its 100,000 inhabitants has a small tripartite theatre. However despite the money being spent on the physical structures, I believe that the vast majority of German actors are lousy. The biggest torture for anyone coming from the Anglo-Saxon world is to watch original English-language plays being performed in German, especially Shakespeare. As far as I am concerned most German actors just can’t do Shakespeare or any monologues. If they are angry they scream and if they are emotional or moved they whisper that you can’t hear a word of what they say in the third row from the front. I don’t know whether it is the language or their training but German actors just don’t know how to use the variety in their vocal cords. They obviously have never been trained in the subtle differe...

The Pope, or I should rather say the German Pope, caused the Germans a lot of headaches this week. The week started off with the influential political and cultural magazine Der Spiegel putting the Pope on their cover, saying a German Pope embarrasses the Catholic Church. They went further to dissect him and his views in detail. The problems the Germans have with this conservative Pope, is that denying the Holocaust is a serious punishable offense in this country. It seemed that years in the Vatican had made the Pope forget this fact. Why else would he have pardoned a Holocaust denier? In fact he was called the Panzer Cardinal by his detractors here in Germany long before he became Pope, because of the way he bulldozed through his conservative theology. By Tuesday last week, the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel entered the fray more or less telling the Pope to sort out the mess. She got a lot of flak for that, but she had to save Germany’s reputation. This Pope was d...

Doing a story on a conference on Christian persecution worldwide, but specifically in Iraq that was held in Trier last weekend I could not help to think who caused the problems. Speaker after speaker, including many German Catholic Church leaders and lay people, warned that Christianity in Iraq is faced with annihilation and that little is heard about it. During the civil war that erupted between the Shiite and Sunni Muslims in Iraq after Sadam Hussein was overthrown from his post as Iraqi dictator in 2003, Christians were often caught in the middle, participants were told. Before the U.S.-backed forces occupied Iraq, 1.5 million Christians lived there, but today it is estimated only about half a million are left. 40% of the refugees in the neighbouring countries are Christians although they only made up 5% of the population. "Fleeing cannot be the solution to the problem," declared Marie-Ange Siebrecht, head of the Asia-Africa Department of Aid to the Church in Need. ...

We are living in the land of Goethe and Schiller and more recently Heinrich Böll and Günter Grass – both worthy Nobel Laureates in Literature. But there is no official body saying that a child should have been introduced to certain authors by a certain stage. Recently an Irish mother told me how her daughter's German class full of 17-year olds, was asked who Goethe was and 75% of them have never heard of him. I am not even shocked anymore by the ignorance of pupils who selected German as their main subject. After ten years at school, my daughter had read one poem by Goethe and one play by Schiller. Pandering to the needs of the youth, some teachers try to read modern German texts that in many cases disappear again after a few years. A nation of ignoramuses is waiting to be let loose on the world. When I was getting worked up about the ignorance about Goethe – my daughter was in the tenth grade and sixty percent of young people never get beyond that grade, my husband admitted that h...

This is where I live Since being founded by the Romans in 17 BC, Constantine the Great bestowed Trier with its Golden Age; Karl Marx was born here and the apostle Matthew is supposed to be buried here; while the French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre was here as a Second World War POW, and William Turner painted it. This has become my home: Germany’s oldest town with its Catholic conservatism, its staggering beauty, its steep vineyards, its Moselle viniculture and traditions, the Roman ruins scattered around every corner and its architectural sins dating from the sixties right through to the present day. I have developed a deep love for the region. That includes an appreciation of the Moselle cuisine and steep viniculture and, after the high pressure, quick-paced life in Johannesburg, its charming, laid-back lifestyle. And trust me the living is good ! We live the vineyard seasons . Big cities are still fun to visit - but to live in, no thanks!