Planes, trains... Thanksgiving 2015

There are tons of movies about Christmas, about Santa and elves and coming home for the holidays. There is only one real movie about Thanksgiving: Planes, Trains and Automobiles. It's important to watch this film if you are not traveling for Thanksgiving (to be glad you aren't) and especially important if you are an American trying to celebrate Thanksgiving in a foreign country (as I am). It's also important in our house because it's one of Brian's favorites. I guess I love it too - when Steve Martin makes it home for Thanksgiving dinner, I cry every time.

Like all classic movies, you can find its characters somewhere in your life. This year I found a couple of Del Griffiths of my own. In case you are not familiar, Del is a traveling shower curtain ring salesman who has nowhere to go for Thanksgiving. The pair of Dels at our dinner were not shower curtain ring salesmen, but teachers, American teachers at that. When you know that an American is going to be alone on Thanksgiving - even in a place where no one celebrates it - you'd have to be even meaner than Neal Page to not take them in.

Thanksgiving celebrates all that is good and idealistic about America. Sure, the Indians and Pilgrims may not have been as peaceful as the story says, and I know they didn't eat Buterball turkey. But the idea that we celebrate together despite all the things that can drive us apart is more important than green bean casserole. And truly, consciously, being thankful for all the great things in life means more than whether your pumpkin pie is any good. There are a lot of aspects about the United States that I'm not proud of, but I am proud of this holiday. I like to explain to people that we - Americans of all religions and cultures - celebrate gratitude and unity on Thanksgiving. I know you don't see it lived out in the news every day, but we still can hope.

Neal Page would not have made it to suburban Chicago without the help of Del Griffith, a burned up rental car, a bus, a broken train, a cancelled flight and a meat truck. So bringing a couple of Dels into our Thanksgiving party helped Brian and I to make it a little closer to home too.

The attack that wasn't

Until last week, I could hardly imagine Hannover as the center of a terrorism scare. Hannoverians take an odd pleasure in lamenting how boring and unremarkable their town is (that's the subject of an upcoming post). But our sleepy little city made international news on Tuesday night. The German and Dutch national soccer teams were scheduled to play at the Hannover stadium, and Angela Merkel was coming to watch. Given the attack on Paris just a few days earlier, security was tight and people were nervous. And with good reason - an ambulance filled with explosives was found nearby and police received a threat of a bomb somewhere in the stadium. Players and fans were evacuated. No game was played. Another tip pointed to a bomb on a train at the main station. Police shut down part of the station and found a suspicious package.

No one was hurt, and no game was played. I don't know who won in this situation. Was it the good guys, because no bombs exploded and everyone went safely home to bed? Or the terrorists, or would-be terrorists, because they disrupted our peaceful, boring, lives? Because they shook up our town and got in our heads? Terrorists seem to have super power capabilities to be everywhere and nowhere. They have no territory and their enemies can be anyone.

The stadium is just a block from our school. Understandably the kids, families and staff were worried. But there was no reason to stay home - you're not safe there either. The only way to react is to do all the little things you usually would in your sleepy city - to go to school, play soccer, take a train somewhere. That's all you can do.

I was actually in a few airports on Tuesday night. I flew to Edinburgh for a school counselor's conference and didn't know about the developments in Hannover until I landed. I don't know anyone who was evacuated from the stadium or whose train never left the station. And so the news about Hannover is something that could have happened, but didn't. Even though the events of Tuesday night happened right where I live, I feel distant from them. I wish the same sort of distance to people around the world.

Missing and being missed

Hello again, dear readers, how I've missed you.

Since we last spoke I've been in Texas, Kansas City, Baltimore, Washington DC and back to Hannover. It was a strangely relaxing trip the US that was not actually a trip home. It made me appreciate the value of just sitting around with people who are family and people whose connection is harder to pin down but are just as much a part of our lives. Several of them are very tiny people.

I also received an imaginary cardboard check, visited the state department rubbed a few elbows on behalf of Play Global.

So, back in town and over the jet lag, today was my last day teaching grade 6-8 Spanish. I've learned a lot over the last couple of months, but I do not call myself a teacher by any means. Much like living in Germany doesn't prepare you to go anywhere less organized or safe, teaching at the international school does not prepare you to work anywhere where the kids are difficult or unpleasant or rebellious. But I will miss the little goofballs.
And, judging by the homemade cake and the sweaty pre-teen hugs I got today, they will miss me too.

On the road

I am traveling and will post again soon. Check back in November and I'll have something for you!

Hungry to be noticed

The European refugee crisis that was all over the front page a couple of weeks ago is now mysteriously absent from the media. Did it go away? Was there just nothing new to report? Or did our collective attention span run its course?

I won't answer that question, but there is a group of people in Hannover who don't want to be invisible. A few months ago, I wrote about the Sudanese migrants in Refugee Protest Camp Hannover. They are here without a status, not deported but not given a place to live or a right to work. They are squatting, basically, in a nice part of town, living in tents and trying to get refugee status from the state government. No one has arrested or deported them. No one has given them rights either.

This week they staged a hunger strike outside the Staatskanzlei, where the governor works. I knew this not because I am that connected with current events but because I ran right into it. The state government building is on my way to school and the Sudanese guys were all set up on the sidewalk Monday morning. They were there Tuesday also. On Wednesday, I stopped to talk with them. It was day three of the hunger strike and a few of the 45 men were looking, even for people used to living in the elements, pretty worn down.

I asked if they had talked to anyone from 'in there' (as I pointed to the Staatskanzlei). The man who seemed to be in charge said that some people from their group had gone in and delivered a letter explaining their case. Someone from inside was now supposed to come out and address them. I wished them luck and asked if I could take a picture. They wanted to make sure I got the government building in the background. I mentioned the blog and said I'd write about what they are doing.

According to a local news article, the Sudanese want to have the same status as people fleeing from Syria, who are classified as refugees. They have also pledged to continue the hunger strike until October 23rd, nourished only with water, tea and cigarettes. It baffles me to think how that is even possible.

And as I pedaled past on day four of the hunger strike, my belly full from breakfast at home, my heart sank a little. It was hard to believe that these people would be heard by the officials from 'in there'. They have no rights, no power, no money, no political clout. There is not a Sudanese community in Hannover pulling for them. Sleeping under tarps beside their protest signs, they are fighting to be noticed.

The Sudanese protesters do have a few friends in town, and a Facebook page, of course. A recent post mentioned that the protesters need: "water, tea, sleeping mats, sleeping bags, their rights."
As a foreigner myself, I don't think I can help with that last one, but I might drop off some tea on Monday. I wish the Sudanese guys, and the other refugees coming to Hannover, a roof and a full belly and a chance to be noticed.

Recent photos

Here a few photos I have taken lately:

Powdered wig, tri-corner hat, motorcycle jacket. Taking a smoke break on a 17th century fountain in Hannover

Grand Theatre in Groningen, Netherlands

Train station and some public art, Groningen, Netherlands

Farmers and agricultural workers protesting the drop in dairy prices, Hannover (note the man in the pig hat)

A sticker on a light pole brings some hope.

If you remember the watch tower post, here is the Döhrener Turm decked out in ivy.

Right on time in Hannover

When you live in Hannover, there are only two places to meet up with people: under the horse tail or at the clock. You could choose somewhere else to meet, but that would be unusual. The idea that everyone in town uses just two meeting spots is one of the reasons that Hannover, despite its big city aspirations, is really a small town.

Unterm Schwanz is the way to say under the tail, which only makes sense if you know you are at the train station looking at this statue:

I wrote about the horse and his rider Ernst August a couple of years ago. Go ahead and read about them if you want, but now I'm going to tell you about the clock.

The Kröpcke clock is on the busiest pedestrian corner in town. It's between the opera house, the train station and the main shopping streets in the city center. The spot is named after a guy named Kröpcke and his cafe, which is still a perfect place to sit outside and watch all the commotion. Mr. Kröpcke opened his cafe in the 1870s, and the city built the clock about ten years later.

Notice the Nazi flags waving on either side of the clock

During the war

While most of Hannover was leveled during World War II and half of its residents lost their homes, the clock survived. It ticked away among the rubble until the 1950s happened. The city planners wanted a modern, progressive city and there was no place for  19th century clock. So they built this one:

It stood until 1977, when Hannover realized that mid-century design wasn't cool anymore. A replica of the original clock was built in its place and is still standing today.

Public clocks are everywhere in Germany. If I had been a watch-wearer before, I would have stopped by now. There are clocks on church steeples, above banks, sometimes just on the street corner as a public service. There's no excuse to be late. In case you are not looking up, somewhere nearby a church bell rings every fifteen minutes. Germans are punctual, and almost everything here runs on time.

People complain about the DeutscheBahn arriving ten minutes behind schedule. Apparently they have never tried Amtrak in the U.S., or the Hershey train in Cuba. I wanted to ride the Hershey train through the sugar cane fields of the old Hershey plantation, but there's no way to know when it will arrive and some days it doesn't show up at all). This is why, as I may have mentioned before, living in Germany doesn't prepare you to live anywhere else in the world. In most places people, and trains and buses, are sometimes late (but hopefully show up on the same day).

I most recently waited at the Kröpcke clock for two people who come from the polar opposite - culturally and almost geographically - of German punctuality. Olga from Colombia and Surama from Cuba are hard-wired for la hora Latina. Latin time runs anywhere from 10 to 45 minutes later than German time. If my Latina friends call at the time we are supposed to meet and say, "I'm on the way," that means they are about to leave the house. Since I'm chronically 5 minutes late (sometimes a little more), they make me look good.


I wonder about the people hanging around the Kröpcke clock. If everyone arrives on time, then nobody in Hannover would stand by the clock for more than 43 seconds. Are they showing up early? Are the friends they plan to meet not German? What's going on?

The friends I was meeting, despite not being German, showed up within the hour. We all laughed about it as the clock ticked away behind us.

From the left: Olga, me and Surama