Arriving in Germany

Arriving in Berlin, Germany from Bangkok on May 11, we stayed a few days with our good friends, Maren and Feurio in Dresden. They have two kids, 12 and 14 years old and live in an apartment building in this city on the Elbe River in the former East Germany. Dresden was the site of the horrible allied bombing during the war that killed 10s of thousands of people of which Kurt Vonnegut wrote “Slaughterhouse Five”.
My father met Maren’s father (Walter) in 1968 on a visit to Berlin, his former hometown that he fled in 1934. Walter is a doctor and he and his wife Goodrun became very close family friends whom my parents visited quite often in the 70s and 80s. In 1987 Walter was able to visit us in San Francisco. Many were surprised he was able to get permission under the Communist ruled German Democratic Republic (GDR). Since the wall came down and Germany was reunited, Walter, Goodrun and Maren and her family have visited us several times in California, and Maren and Feurio and their children lived two years near Atlanta, Georgia where Maren taught in a high school for two years.

We spent two very nice days with Maren and her family. Maren teaches English in a public elementary school in Dresden and she invited Ana and me to be guests in two of her fifth grade classes. She introduced us and had the kids (about 25 in each class) ask us questions. The kids were very polite and asked many questions about our lives. In each class we also got a question about Obama and responded that while we have been supporters people need to watch what he does now and organize to make sure he does the right things because he is under a lot of pressure to maintain the status quo.

The physical conditions and technical infrastructure of the building on this particular school site were not on a par with most U.S. public schools I have seen. However, the beautiful surroundings with ample green space is very impressive and the children seemed happy. The lack of diversity among the students, compared to California schools, is very apparent. Even though Dresden is not a major German city, I am surprised to observe how rare it is to see a person of color in the streets of Dresden.