Impressions from the meeting in December 2005

The first lap of the meeting 2004/2005 by the name of “mauernüberbrücken” was as successful as the others. I think the theme and the whole concept to be a really good idea to realize.

May be the concept is a reason for more or less contacts this year, but at the moment it´s bad to judge, probably it wouldn´t be right to commit. In the end it´s up to the members and their sociable communication.

Personally I was able to get quite positve experiences. Communicative possibilities followed, even they didn´t end in ideal results all the time.

Actually I´m in touch with some persons of the Israelie group. It was really surprising, may be amazing considering our impressions – such amount to declare some people as fun-tourists.

Because all of my contacts report on their thinking and the following acting were changed, concerning acceptance and understanding for other people.

The project has consequently fullfilled one of it´s purposes, at least I think those developments as purpose. However, I´m aware that nobody is allowed to force people another opinions, but their human values can be completed yet. For sure, it´s doubtful if everybody was reached, because the feeling of some club-tourists isn´t completely gone, nevertheless they have to be. Besides we should try everything to reach them, even participants being demotivated can be disturbing too.

In this respect I have to add the size of the whole project-group was a more disturbing factor. I mean, with eighty persons it´s nearly impossible to realize the ideas.

Mostly there´re problems while sombody wants to give his opinion on something and that´s exactly an important part.

If that´s not possible, because the speaker is drowned out by other loud voices, it can´t be the idea. I can only suggest splitting the whole group in two parts or more, or to select the people in writing expectations. The latter would still have the sense to exclude the mentioned fun-tourists, because the real interested party is revealed by it´s arguments to fly, or rather finally to bring themselves to write these arguments.

It´s true, that people might be kicked by this process, that would have changed because of the project and coorperated really effective.

Furthermore I´m a little bit sad not seeing concrete results. Propably the reason is our own way of working (refered to the interviews) and the fact that the results were the preperation for the final result in 2005.

Inspite of the bridge of hope is really important, even the symbol is a little bit weared out.

A result I prefer is something that can be take with all senses. A quit good example are the wooden stakes in front of the Friedrichsgymnasium.

That´s why I´m so glad about designing the toys, that will give us time for our creativity, creative urge and power, so we are able to present a interesting and attractive work within the weeks from march until april in Israel and Palestine.

(Sorry for the instructive tone, but these things buisied myself.)

Bütti

When our guests from Israel arrived in Frankfurt (Oder) at the 9th of December, I was very excited, because I didn’t know what was going to happen. I already was a host, but that was 3 years ago. I hoped that I could get to know new people, who could tell me something about themselves, their country, their culture and their religion. I had also the expectation to get to know the people of our group.

After some activities to get to know each other I met my guest Lital, and I was quite sure that my expectations would become true during this week, because of her open-mindness and interest. While we had dinner we were talking about our families and found her hometown in a map. We talked about some in my opinion tender subjects, like the Middleeast conflict. Impressing for me was her openhearded but firm opinion, what I often search for. Anyway, there were no problems of understanding.

Unfortunately we hadn’t much time to get in touch with the other guests. The Israelian students had a guided tour in the jewish museum and visited the “Reichstag” (parliament), that’s why we had to defer our talks at the short trip by train. While our guests visited the “Reichstag” I had the chance to talk to the people of our group, because I knew them only from seeing. I got in touch with Pia, Luca and other students im my age and I hope I’ll get to know the others at the trip in springtime. After we had lighted the candles of the Chanukka-candlestick, Lital showed my family this custom again - while she lighted the candles of the candlestick (a present for my family) she was singing a song and told us something about that. It was great to show her some Christmas customs at the same time.

unusual cold... Israelian and German traditions

Unfortunately the 4 days in the hostfamily were too short. At the Eurocamp we had the opportunity to get in touch with the whole group. But because of important tests and not existence of a driving license it was difficult to come to the Eurocamp and get into the workshops. I liked the workshop about the toys for learning something about the owner and his story. I didn’t think that’s possible to touch so many aspects for our main project.

“Goodbye”presents for remembering

this week and the new friendship.

The farewell was hard, because I didn’t know if I’ll see Lital and the others again. I didn’t know at this time if I’ll be allowed to visit them.

Finally I can say that my expectations mostly become true. Of course I couldn’t talk to all people as long as I wanted - that was impossible in one week - but all people I’ve met closely have been in my mind and I’m always happy to hear from them.

What I liked most about the meeting with our Israelite friends was not only that I´ve been the first time in my life in the Jewish Museum in Berlin or these group discussions or the things I learned and got to know during the workshops. Important to me were the conversations we had in the evenings in smaller groups. I learned there a lot about the Israeli society, about how they see Germany, for example, and I learned about their fears and wishes. The best example for those conversations I kept in mind was a talk I had with my two guests as we came home from a meeting with the others. There was no one who told us to talk now about the problems in Israel as it was in school after we saw the film. We just started to talk about the boyfriend of one of my guests who is in the Israeli army and then we talked about how they feel in Israel and what they`re thinking of these conflicts in Israel. What I learned this evening was not only that it`s not right to blame one side for what is happening there (as I never did) it was that the most important things in this conflicts are the emotions of the people and as I tried to imagine what this girl is feeling 24 hours a day it was very easy for me to understand her point of view. Of course I knew that some of the things she said were wrong but I was able to understand why she said this all. She asked me to give a solution for this conflict – but I wasn`t able to. In this moment it was very hard for me to believe in peace for this country. And that`s why I´m glad to go to Israel in march – maybe I`m going to find there some answers for myself. That`s why I took part in this project – I wished for me to learn something.

The second thing I sure will keep in mind as one of the best memories of this meeting is that I got to know my family from a very different side. I wont`t forget the feeling I got as we sat at the table to eat lunch with our guests and my family and my father wasn`t able to eat his lunch because he asked all the time things about Israel. This made me feel very great, because (maybe as everyone) I was a little bit afraid about how it would be at home. But in the end I can say that all was very good.

What disappointed me a little bit – and maybe this was because we met a new group – was that it mostly seemed to be a funny class trip to Germany and not like a serious project. I really liked the group but I missed the feeling the other groups had the years before. Something was missing and that made me feel a little bit sad.

But maybe this will change when we fly to Israel to visit the group and get to know them better.