This is a page from my notebook. I thought it was funny that it said 'Hamburger' and 'Nom' (which means 'Nominativ'- but I was amused....)

And this is a story about some of the interesting people I met while doing my German course.

I did two parts of a German Integration course starting last November and ending in March. It was 200 hours of German learning which was every morning (mon-fri) for 2.5 hours, and I learnt a lot. But one of the things I thought was most valuable about the course was the people I met with every morning. To help you understand, there's a few things that determined the kinda people who were in my class.
1. It was an integration course, not just a language course.
2. It was in a city just outside of Frankfurt which is known to be occupied by a lot of immigrants, especially Turkish.
3. It's a Visa/residency requirement to do 800 hours of German Integration learning.
So there were a lot of people who had come to live in Germany for a better life, and they had to do the classes in order to stay. I was the only one who chose to do them, and I was the only young woman who wasn't married. It confused the others a little bit, I think, that I lived with my boyfriend and I was just living here for the experience, not forever.

Anyway, the coolest part about it for me was that I got to go and learn and hang out with around 20 people of all different ages from all different countries and backgrounds and beliefs, that I would never have had the chance to meet with before. I made friends with people who I could only have slight, awkward conversations with, but we were all in the same boat language-wise and it was so interesting. I just think it's really cool to have been able to make friends with people that can't speak my language, and I can't speak their language, yet we could still communicate (kindof!) We laughed and hand signaled and did quick charades if we didn't have the German words to communicate. Everyone was so kind and sharing, and would offer food around to everyone, even if it was just a banana that they'd break pieces off of. And there were 5 pregnant girls! Out of 20 people. Seriously, it seemed like everyone was pregnant!
I wanted to share some of the personalities I met and made friends with over the 12 weeks. I wish I could have talked to them all in more depth, but here are the short stories of my Deutsch-Kurs friends:

 • Fedaije, the fifty-something year old Muslim woman from Macedonia with a papery old woman voice I'd only ever heard before in movies. She's as cheeky and giggly as a schoolgirl, with such an infectious smile, and I always thought it was cute her husband walked her all the way to the door of the classroom (up the lift too!) I thought maybe it was a cultural/protection thing, but after a few times I realized it was just love! So cute.

 • Sevgi, the tupperware selling Turkish mum was kinda the 'class clown'. She went back to Turkey for a few weeks to get microderabrasion and came back saying she was going next time to get Botox. And a new, younger husband! She made one of the young, pregnant Muslim girls teach her how to tie a scarf to cover her hair in a pretty, alternative way (she doesn't wear one anyway) and even though she had light skin would always touch my cheeks and say "Zoe, du ist sehr weiss!" (You are so white) One day she said, "Zoe, you aren't married? Then I want to marry you!! No, just kidding, I'm not a lesbian." She crashed her car a little bit one day and borrowed my phone in a panic to call someone, then a few days later when we had to say what we wanted to do as a job she said "Driving Teacher" without realizing the irony. 

 • The 19 year old Turkish missy, Semsey, who was 6 months pregnant when we met, and I thought she was making it up! Seriously, no bump and some of the other things she would say made me doubt her a little bit.. As time went by, we became buddies (she actually gave me a juice box on the second day! Kindergarten cute!) and I realized she was pregnant, her bump started to pop out of her glittery English-slogan tee-shirts. She still managed to wear cute pink and blue heels until she was 9 months pregnant, when we would tell her "We have the same size bump, but it's just from breakfast!" She'd always give me a cheeky wink and show me videos of Turkish pop-star hotties on her iPhone. And German dubbed Family Guy! She wrote with a candy pink pen and taught me a few Turkish words, which I've forgotten...

 • Nikola, the well dressed guy my age from Bosnia (with lots of nice shoes!) He's really smart and had a good job and a young wife. The ladies treated him like a kid brother and would tease him (especially on Valentines day!) and make him blush. I had a look at his Serbian/German dictionary one day and had to give him the "Whoa….I have no idea what any of those letters are!!" look/explanation. He then looked at my English version and shrugged, "Yeah, same!" It must be so much harder when the letterforms/alphabet is different.

 

 • Emine, the 'Class Mum' from Morocco was hilarious, she would sing songs made up on the spot and make inappropriate jokes all the time! On Valentines Day she was talking about "Spazieren mit mein Mann" (Stroll with my husband) "Und dann Später ins Bett!" (And then later, in bed!) We all fell apart giggling, shocked this came out of a sweet, funny old woman (with 12 kids!! Twelve!!) Then she said "What did your husband give you for Valentines day?" to pregnant miss, who was struggling a bit to understand….. then "Oh, your husband has already given you a gift!" and grabbed her inner thigh!! Where miss went, "Oh Mein Gott!!" (Omg!!) and blushed, giggling and finally understanding. When we were learning the names of body parts she also asked the teacher "Wie heißt das?" (What is this called?) pointing to the cartoon mans crotch. 

 • Amela, a young girl from Serbia who came to Germany to get married, was pregnant within a month of marriage. She was excruciatingly slow compared to the rest of the class, but I sat next to her for the second 6 weeks of the course and realized she was just a regular young girl trying to learn a language, but in a different alphabet. Like learning new letterforms at the same time. I helped her as much as I could and we'd give each other puzzled looks and laugh when we were stuck trying to say something to each other. When I asked her what she wanted to be she said "A hairdresser" (She has amazing long, dark brown natural hair) She also taught me the Serbian word for Umbrella, but I've forgotten what it was…

 • The pretty, spirited girl my age from Lithuania was Dovile, who worked in the city as at an Italian hairsalon and was the only other person in the class who spoke fluent English. She met her boyfriend in Frankfurt and they spoke English together as he didn't know her language, and she his. She was the closest one to my lifestyle and it was nice talking to her in English. Then she stopped coming to class, I assume it's because she was always working. 

 • I sat next to a Muslim girl from Egypt, Nesma, for the last 6 weeks. She was SO lovely and kind, and pregnant too! Her whole family still lived in Egypt, and she planned to go and visit them with her new baby in a few months time, but lately realized it wouldn't be a good idea. I asked her if her family were OK there, and she said they were. She would correct my German answers if they weren't right, and we would try and ask about each others lives and background as much as we could manage in German! She said she wanted to be a doctor, I hope she gets to be one day.

Just by sitting with all of these people everyday I learnt alot about different cultures, religions and challenging cultural stereotypes. And I think that is probably more important than any Deutsch I learnt in the course.

I hope you liked reading about my Deutsch-Kurs friends, I'd love to hear if anyone else has made friends with people they never thought they'd have the chance to meet? 

P.S. All these pictures are from my school worksheets, we had some fun ones! Plus.... if you speak Deutsch and my sentences are wrong.... ooops :p

Zoe xo