Reading through my own blog (which I should do more often because I always find typos), I have realized that there is a serious lack of “daily life” details. I have written here a few times that I don’t just travel and have fun and that I actually do spend my time in other, valuable manners, but I haven’t actually given proof of that. The number one tip for job-applicants is to not tell, but to show, your skills at an interview. If this were an interview I would probably have not convinced you all of my “Not Just Fun” assertion. Therefore, I’d like to fill you all in on an extremely enlightening and worthwhile part of my university phase in Germany.
As a participant in my program I am obligated to complete 40 hours of community service. Considering what the country of Germany is giving to every member of my 75-person program, I find this little extra assignment completely reasonable. After easy completion of my 40 hours, I am so happy this portion of our side of the program exists, as it was easily the most fulfilling thing I have done in Germany since arriving.
With the help of my area representative, I heard about a soup kitchen run out of the kitchen of a local church on the south side of Bremen. After contacting and meeting the woman who started and to this day heads the non-profit, named “The Bremen Soup Angels (Die Bremer Suppen Engel),” it was agreed that I’d spend approximately 7 hours a week a the soup kitchen: Three hours on Monday morning helping to prepare the food and four hours Friday afternoon helping to distribute the food.
Like most soup kitchens, Suppen Engel prepares food for homeless or people in need. What makes Suppen Engel special and unique, in my opinion, is the fact that they go to the people instead of the people coming to them. How?, may you ask. Simple—Bikes. In Bremen, like in many cities across Europe, bikes are the preferred form of transportation. That apparently applies also to carrying almost 40 liters of boiling-hot soup, a trash bag full of rolls, a Tupperware crate full of buttered and meated- or cheesed-bread, a container of fresh vegetable salad, a container of fresh fruit salad and multiple thermoses of hot water and coffee. The bikes have been retrofitted with large metal baskets attached to the front wheels and then special little trailers have been outfitted to the bikes. It is truly an impressive setup and on my first day after having to ride a multiple-digit-kilogram contraption, my appreciation for the effort of the organization and those involved increased 10 fold. I think riding that bike for the twenty-or-less minutes required to go from Suppen Engel to the middle of the Bremen is a better workout than riding my bike through the pancake-flat streets of Bremen for the entire day. It was tough.
My morning duties included, mostly, cutting endless peppers, tomatoes, heads of lettuce, radishes, bean sprouts, spices, and you-name-it obscure vegetables for the green salad. The production in the kitchen of the church where Suppen Engel cooks is a very well oiled machine: One person cuts vegetables, such as huge cantaloupe-sized spheres of celery (I had never seen celery like this before), Brussels sprouts or broccoli, for the soup; one person works on the fruit salad; two or more people smear bread with butter (the amount of which I still find completely unnecessary) then add cold cuts or cheese; another helps me with the veggie salad and then there are always the floaters who grab a knife and chop-chop as fast as they can. In a matter of three hours all the afore-mentioned food is made, including a dessert on some days. This impressive operation happens four times a week and is all finished by 1:15 in time for the Bike Riders and Co., to dive into the somewhat hidden world of the Bremen homeless people.
Bremen is a city with between 500,000 and 600,000 thousands people. From this number, 600 are homeless. In Germany, if you are a citizen or legal resident of the country, you do not need to go hungry or be homeless. Every single legal German homeless person receives money once a month. Of course, these recipients should not be doing their grocery shopping at Whole Pay Check…uh, I mean Whole Foods, (which, by the way, is not in Germany), but they could theoretically make it by. While I did not ask any of the homeless people I met what their story was, I was able to gain from my fellow volunteers that Germany is plagued by the same poverty causing ways as America: Drugs, alcohol, joblessness and usually a dash of bad luck. Luckily, organizations like Suppen Engel and others are there to fill in the gaps.
My Friday afternoons spent standing around in front of the Bremen main train station, helping between 100 and 200 Bremen residents receive their perhaps only warm and nutritious meal of the day, were very rewarding and surprisingly so. I would not have ever expected to enjoy it as much as I did. One might have expected my experience and time with the homeless community of Bremen to be relatively sad, but it surprisingly was not. Sobering and humbling, it most certainly was, but not really sad. The people were always happy to see us and always very curious about why me and another PPPler, Nick, were volunteering. They were especially delighted and curious to meet an American, and a young woman at that, and were always filled with questions. I answered the same questions what seemed like to no end, but I also realized I did not mind. The people were truly enjoyable company, and furthermore, a huge part of everyday life in Germany is not running away from the fact that I’m American. I am doing everything I can to not stand out as much and mesh into the German society, but I also have realized I need to be open to the natural questions that pop up as a result of my nationality, and more importantly, not take offense to even the least thought-out questions. I suspect the homeless community is more cut off than any other from this cultural enrichment. I feel satisfied to think I fulfilled my volunteer roll in a slightly different way, but in the best way I could.
Unfortunately, now that my internship has started, I no longer have time to go to Bremer Suppen Engel, but it’s something I would like to continue if I ever find that I have a random Friday free. Everyone from the homeless community to the older woman to bosses people around and cleans up the kitchen seemed very accepting of me. I felt totally free through this experience to really experience and observe a new part of Bremen and also just be myself. I have never done anything quite like Bremer Suppen Engle and I believe it was something I needed to experience. This whole year revolves around experiencing new things and doing out of the ordinary things. My time at Suppen Engle was most definitely out of the ordinary and gave my ever-churning brain even more food for thought.
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