Unfortunately, I think I got a cold from several hours of working in the snow without proper snow clothes, which were too heavy to bring from home. So I stayed home from Esther's birthday party on Saturday because of fever/cold/congestion/miserableness. I also still need to finish the details on the Brandenburg Gate.
On Sunday, I got up extra early to catch the bus to church so I could be on time to the early-morning ward choir practice at 8:30. I looked at my cell phone, and it was 8:09 as I left my apartment. According to the bus schedule, the bus came at 12 after, and the walk to the bus stop only takes 2 minutes. Unfortunately, as I was still walking to the street in front of our house, the bus blew by. Shoot. I don't think time follows a linear progression on Sunday mornings.
The fast and testimony meeting was also a little unconventional because a young man was leaving on his mission in two weeks,and was asked to bear his testimony as his departure talk. His mom got up after him, and proceeded to tell the entire audience about how the future missionary had a reading handicap, but was able to improve somewhat by reading the Old Testament.
Thanks, mom, for not embarrassing me at my farewell:)
I later talked to one of the members in the ward, and she told me "I didn't think it was weird.. Everyone knows he has a reading handicap." I think this highlighted a difference in American and German cultures. In Germany, people have handicaps. They get a special card that says that they are handicapped, that lets them ride the bus for free and get reduced tickets to concerts and stuff. They go to schools for handicapped kids, and fill jobs for handicapped people. My impression of the way things were back home is that even in the most painfully obvious cases of a person being handicapped, every measure is taken to make them not seem handicapped. If a child can't read well, it is never referred to as a "reading handicap" and the child never has a "reading disability". He might have "a hard time reading" or be a "slow reader" but never anything more. Except for extreme cases, children are sent to the regular elementary school, and are incorporated into activities. A child in a wheelchair plays soccer as a goalie for her team. Slow readers are given shorter passages to read aloud in class, and receive extra help with their reading to help them improve. The handicap is rarely verbally acknowledged, although teachers and other students go out of their way to try to make up for the handicap.
I'm sure many people look at this American treatment of handicaps, and find it ridiculous. People shouldn't have a fear of acknowledging the handicap. It shouldn't be treated as a taboo topic. It should be accepted and dealt with.
Anyway...
The second counselor also got up during the meeting and congratulated the young man. He went on his mission during the East Germany times, and told us that his mission started pretty roughly. He told us how he had bought a train ticket to his destination, but was disappointed to arrive at the train station and realize that the train wasn't running that day. He wasn't sure what to do. "There weren't any telephones, and a telegram wouldn't be delivered until the next day." WHAT? This guy must have gone on his mission in the 80s, before the reunification in 1990. And they didn't have any telephones? And still used telegrams? The telephone had been invented for over 100 years! T1 carrier systems were around in the 1960s, which was also when the first email systems showed up. It was yet another time for me to count my blessings for not being raised communist.
That night, we had game night at our apartment, and only 12 people came. It was actually pretty chill.
After game night, I tried to text my dad to ask him if he wanted to skype, but got no response. So I headed with Jordan over to Jessie and Eric's apartment to watch the super bowl. Jessie and Eric are such studs. They are both from Berlin, but had hotdogs and rootbeer and cream soda for the superbowl festivities. Oh. And koolaid. I miss grape koolaid. Jordan and I contributed rice crispy treats. With nutella topping in the shape of a football.
While we were waiting for the game to start, I brought up the telephones in East Germany thing, and they reaffirmed that it was really like that.. each town only had a few telephones. Imagine trying to watch the super bowl per telegram...
"Saints: third and goal on the 4. Stop."
Shortly after midnight, the game started. One station showed the game in English, and another showed the game in German. According to Eric, the German ones probably thought that everyone was watching football for the first time, and spent the whole time explaining the rules. We mostly watched the English one.
There were only a couple of bad things about trying to watch the superbowl here in Germany. First, the classic super bowl advertisements were scrapped. All we got were SportsCenter spots that were really dumb, and an advertisement for a London-based sports attire clothing outlet. And promotion for the Duke/UNC game which will air sometime this next week at 0:00 GMT or 1:00 CET. The second bad thing was that during The Who's half-time performance, there was about a 5 second lag between the visual of him singing and the sound. It was pretty disappointing.
And then there was the classic German twist on the super bowl presentation. We tried to switch to the German airing of the half time show to see if they had the lag problem too, but we were disappointed to find that they were airing a half-hour program from a brain doctor who was commenting on the results of concussions and other head injuries on the brains of football players. It made me smile. Football tackles were shown, and then it would flash to a black-and-white x-ray vision of the skeletons of the football players, and their necks would whiplash wildly, with red lightning bolts that were supposed to represent pain and brain injury.
But, it was good evening. We headed to the train station after the game, and because the train resumed service at 4:26am, we caught the first train of the day home.
Unfortunately, we were awakened the next morning at 8:00 by a manual laborist upstairs, who had been hired to torment the souls of men at ungodly hours with his loud racket. The neighbors are finishing the apartment upstairs so they can rent it out. Right now, the planks on the floor are warped and uneven, so the laborist takes a big spinning grinder about the size of a washing machine, gets it spinning, and grinds down all of the high spots. Of course, nails would hurt his grinder, so he has to stop every couple of minutes to pound nails down. So much for sleeping.
1 comment:
Hey Kendell,
the young man with the reading handicap is my little brother. I am proud about him. It was never easy for him to have this reading handicap neither was it for my mother who was fighting for him during his school and study time so that he can reach the things that he has to reach to be independent and successfull in his life.
When I was younger I was sometimes ashamed to have a brother who is not able to write his older sisters name correct until I realized that his intelligence has nothing to do with reading or writting. When he started seminar his reading became better of the regulary practice and I saw that he is stronger in so many other things than I. I know if I would be him having those handicaps I would have given up.
My mom was pregnant with her first child when the doctor came to her to recommend abortion cause the baby might be blind or mentally retarded. I am thankfull for my mother that she told the doctor that she will give a handicapted child the same chances to have a life and the same love than a "normal" child. Otherwise I would not be sitting here right now!
Actually who has no handicap? Everyone does! Who is perfect?
And when we want help, when we want to overcome our handicap we need to admit that we have that handicap otherwise no one can help us.
It's the same with the Lord when we want him to help us we need to admit our handcaps, weeknesses or sins.
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