Monday 24 October 2011

First Few Days

Ok...its Monday and this morning I had frei (free) so I went exploring Teckels on my own. I have since my first night gone on a few little walks (Spaziergang) with the Bewohnern and Chirstina my lovely Romanian housemate. She has been very helpful at explaining the ins and outs of die Arche to me while I wait for my official orientation and anmelden in Tecklenburg tomorrow with the volunteer coordinator for our Gemeinschaft.

I feel like I have already gone through all the emotions / up and down feelings that we talked about in orientation. From Honeymoon to asking “what am I doing here.” so now that that is all out of the way I can get to work right? Haha. Its been an adjustment for sure. I have been in Europe officially for a week today and its my third full day in Teckels. I enjoy being immersed in German but I do get frustrated when I have to ask someone to repeat themselves more than once or I can't explain something myself. (Its hardest when I want to tell a joke and it comes out wrong/too slow/i get really puzzled looks) My break today was good because I got time to put things into perspective write a sad poem in my journal and move on.* I also got a chicken sandwich at the Backstube. It was frozen I'm sure but I haven't had chicken in a while so it was nice. One of the weekend assistants is Vegan and a good cook...I can't believe how much I enjoyed the tofu dinners we had...but sometimes you just need some cooked animal flesh.

The other night we watched the Chronicles of Narnia. I made popcorn on the stove top that was just ok but everyone said was really good. It was a great night and I felt like I found a niche in the group (even if its popcorn lady), but I still have a lot to learn (ich sage immer, "Ich lerne noch.") I have yet to do a real full days Service and find my groove aber so weit so gut (but so far, so good).

I have Dienst (service) this evening which means I help set up for Kaffee und Kuchen and Abendbrot (dinner...but quite literally its just evening bread) and then we have a prayer circle. I don't know the songs yet but I'm learning. Last night there was a student prayer service in Münster that I went to with some of the Bewohnern and Assistants that was a similar deal. Lots of songs (many in English, go figure) and a few readings. It reminds me of Hunter's justice prayer group at Canisius :D

*no poetry was actually written see this link for more explanation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnvgq8STMGM

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