A toast to Klaus, Marlies, and Jessica (and Lars)

Well, yesterday evening I got to experience quite the German custom that strikes me as a little odd, because we hae no formal and informal form of address in English. Up until now, my landlords and I have always used the formal form of address with each other, although I have at least one meal with them every weekend, and we take trips together, which apparently has not taken place to the same degree with the other language assistants that have lived here before (why? because, obviously, I really am that much better than all the rest of them). Yesterday evening though, when I came over to ask them to turn on the pump so that I could do laundry (apparently we need some kind of pump in the basement for the washing machine to work. I don't know why, and it bugs me that I can't turn it on and off myself. But it means I have to go over and talk to them every so often, even if for no other reason) They invited me in for dinner, although I told them I had already eaten, and then we toasted to the informal you, and the official start of us calling each other Klaus, Marlies, Lars, and Jessica.(as opposed to Herr and Frau Florschütz, Lars, and Jessica). Apparently I jumped the gun a little since I was using the informal with Lars like, a few weeks ago, but he didn't say anything to stop me, and I thought that I could go ahead with it since we sort of vaguely fall in the same category of "younger than your parents but older than your children", or since neither of us have kids, Lars's nephew. This custom of toasting to the informal you is quite the tradition, but is dying out, because the informal is becoming more and more common place. I was told it was fine to go ahead and "du" all of my fellow teachers, even though I find it awkward, because I don't even know their names, and somehow to use the informal when you can't address them by first name seems very rude to me. I don't know their names because I forgot them as soon as they introduced themselves, so mostly it's still my fault, but still. Anyway, even though the formal made things a little awkward for a while there, I am glad I got to experience this tradition with people to whom it still means a lot.

Yesterday I was also at the 160th birthday party of the elementary school in the old part of the city. The kids gave little sketches showing the history of the school, and I was pleasantly surprised by how open they were about showing a lot of the more difficult parts of the school's history. One kid was hit in class for not knowing his times tables, at another point the school was really unsafe and dirty, and in another scene a boy tried to come to terms with seeing his father destroy a Jewish family's home. The part that was still pretty cheery was of course, the DDR time. There were lots of kids and everyone was happy when it was still East Germany. I wish I could see the 200th anniversary of the school, and see how its represented then. The one unspoken part of the whole program was, no matter how much people love this school (and they really seem to) they may close it next year, because there are not enough children in the region to keep the school going. It is the same way all over Germany, and is making things tough for teachers.

Alright, I am going to move on now, but hope all is well, and that you all write me when you get a chance!

Love, Jess