Nails, English, and Boondoggle

In reflecting on the past two weeks here, these three words seem to cover the essence of my newly established life here in Berlin – or at least the first two weeks of it!

Nails: Many evenings last week were spent carrying furniture up and down the steps of my apartment building, pondering how to put things together, and, yes, eventually nailing and screwing everything together. I had been able to buy a lofted bed from the girl who previously lived in my room, so there was no need to worry about a bed. When I arrived, I already had a bed to sleep in (which was most important to me!) as well as bookcase – an overall good start on a completed room. Now, after three evenings of bringing furniture in and out and an additional trip to Ikea with my pastor, a trip to the basement with my roommate, and an additional weekend of assembling furniture, my room is now complete with bed, bed-lamp, bookcase, chair, dresser, armoire, desk, desk chair, floor lamp, mirror and even two little plants that were kindly given to me by my pastor’s daughter. In the words of my Arabic tutor, “If you continue to acquire furniture at this rate, in two weeks your room will be overflowing.” Luckily, the plan is not to continue acquiring furniture – instead, I now have a complete room!

English: In the past two weeks I have become the clear favorite among the kids for all homework directly or indirectly related with English. Beyond homework, certain kids will now greet me in English or ask me to again help them remember the names of the different colors, the days of the week, and other foundational English vocabulary. What fun it is!

Many of the kids who come to the Kindertreff attend the same school, and many are in the same class. There is a large group of children in the same 5^th grade class who regularly come to the Kindertreff, which means that they also all have the same homework. So, from Monday, September 5th until Tuesday of this past week, I spent a good portion of my time at work helping these eight or so children memorize a paragraph about London which they had to recite this week. By the second day, I had also successfully memorized the paragraph, and am certain that I could have said it backwards, forwards, and in my sleep:

“London is the capital of G.B. and the United Kingdom. About 8 million

people live there. London is on the river Thames. There are many sights:

The London Eye, London Zoo, The Tower. The Tower is over 800 years

old. Most Londoners go by tube. There are 33 London boroughs.

Greenwich is a part of London. Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales,

and England belong to the United Kingdom.”

By the middle of last week, not only the repetition of ‘London….London….London,’ but also the poor structure of the given paragraph and the disjointed facts, which the children were required to memorize had started to get to me. I off-handedly mentioned it to my supervisor on Thursday and when the first child came in on Friday and she overheard him begin to say ‘London is…’ she gave me a sympathetic look and burst out laughing. The poor boy thought that he had made a mistake or mispronounced something and we had to assure him that everything was just fine. Luckily, all that practice and insanity paid off – the kids proudly reported their grades to me after they completed their recitations – most were As and Bs, grades which many of these children seldom receive.

Overall, the kids are really excited to learn and improve their English. Thanks to those who have sent English children’s books to me, the kids now have the opportunity to begin reading actual books in English. And next week, I will begin a weekly English club with some of the older kids. It is hard to say if they are more excited or if I am for the start of the English club, but we can’t wait. The club is something that I very much wanted to begin, and as of Wednesday we will have an hour once a week when we can gather together, speak together in English, role play, clarify grammatical questions, build vocabulary, and work on having fun in the meantime. I am anxious to see how the club turns out!

And boondoggle: Yes, it seems that the classic art of tying plastic bands into various braids and knots is not only a favorite past time of American children, but also that of the kids here in Berlin. For those of you unfamiliar with boondoggle, think of the long plastic bands that you may have seen functioning as key chains, attached to zippers of bookbags, etc. The translation of ‘boondoggle’ into German is an equally meaningless word, and here they are called ‘Scoobidoo bands.’ My supervisor had mentioned the kid’s new adoration for ‘Scoobidoo bands’ to me in July and I was completely mind-boggled by what these ‘bands’ could be. At first I thought they must have something to do with Scooby Doo, the cartoon character, but I was completely lost on what exactly the kids could be doing with Scooby Doo, a character who is known, but not especially popular here.

So. It came as a relief to me to discover that ‘Scoobidoo bands’ were something that I did in fact know, learned at the YMCA after school program as a kid, and am still able to do. What a relief! And so, the last two weeks have been spent either teaching kids how to boondoggle, being in charge of distributing and allocating the bands themselves, or working to make my own. In two weeks, with little effort, I have accomplished a key chain, a bookbag zipper boondoggle, and have started at least two others – today, I even learned how to make a chain with six strands, rather than the classic four. At this rate, perhaps my room will just fill up with boondoggle projects even if I stop collecting furniture!