The Uhlenhorst reunion

A Little Slice of Heaven

We first came to Germany 17 years ago, ten days after our wedding. Jost immediately plunged into his graduate studies and tried to juggle several part-time jobs while we renovated his grandmother’s apartment where we were living and I . . . I hit rock bottom! Those first few months were so hard, adjusting to a new marriage in a new culture and a new language where I had to operate at the effectiveness of a toddler. Except that toddlers are cute, and I was just big and—well, from the looks I got—a little slow.

Conny

It was right about that time that we were introduced to a little Free Evangelical Church that met in a slightly dilapidated townhouse near the shores of the Alster, the beautiful lake in the center of Hamburg. The church was looking for someone to rent an apartment upstairs that had belonged to the former pastor, and we were looking for a church and an apartment—perfect! We went to a service to meet the pastor and we were welcomed warmly. But then the tiny organ at the back of the sanctuary began to play and something started to happen which I gradually realized was meant to be congregational singing, and my terrible homesickness reared its ugly head and I just sat in my chair and wept. It wasn’t exactly the best renter’s recommendation.

Johann

Still, they were gracious (or desperate!) and offered us the apartment nonetheless, and that began a four-year relationship that proved to be overwhelmingly supportive and nourishing for us. Those 40 or so people in that little church truly became our family for those years. When Hannes was born they adopted him as the church baby and I rarely saw him when church people were in the house. We ate and played together, celebrated and cried together. We were an odd assortment of people of all ages and life stages and backgrounds, and we definitely weren’t perfect. But we worked hard at practicing what church was supposed to be.

Astrid

In 1994 the headquarters of the Free Evangelical Church decided that they could no longer keep subsidizing our little congregation, and against our wishes the church was closed and the building where we lived was sold. For us and some others this meant a move to a new neighborhood; for all of us it meant a scattering to different churches.

Jens-Peter

One month ago, though, at the end of the Easter vacation, we all got together again, after 14 years. A few organizers had used our return to Germany as a motivation to call a reunion, and more than 40 people joined together in the fellowship hall of another church in Hamburg to touch base again.

These strange men all became fathers together in 1990.
I think they're recreating a photo of their wives at that time
lined up with their pregnant tummies.

We ate together again—Margret brought her famous Schneewittchen Kuchen—and we laughed together and told about our lives. The hordes of little kids that used to storm our apartment and hang on our legs are all grown up and starting families of their own. Hannes is taller than most of the adults who had held him and tossed him in the air. Several of the older members have died; others are dealing with cancer and its aftermath.

Manfred

But like someone said, “This has got to be a little like what heaven will be like!” Amen.

Skiing in Switzerland

Hannes is airborne!

I ski, you ski, we all ski!

Ahh, the mountains of Switzerland, lightly covered in a new dusting of Easter snow. Blue sky and sunshine. A lake high in the Alps, surrounded by snow, with a gorgeous greenish blue color so improbably Mediterranean that I can’t describe it—can it be cyan? And then—skis?! Yes, they fit into the surroundings, but on my feet?! After 25 years?

It was true. Hannes had persuaded us all (all but Jost) to give it a try. The car was in the shop, so we took the merrily tooting Post Bus from the village of Brienz around the lake and up the narrow switchbacks to the Axalp, the mountain directly across the Brienzersee from Mom and Dad’s Swiss apartment. Here the locals bring their toddlers to learn to ski—changing their diapers and searching for pacifiers between sending them off for daring sweeps down the bunny hill. We felt a little sheepish about our awkwardness as we watched them careening down the slopes—but it’s a lot farther down to those long, ungainly skis when you’re more than two feet tall!

Hannes was a patient teacher after his instruction in the Czech Republic, and I was pleased to find that it’s a bit like riding a bike—it all came back quickly to me, all except for the muscle tone and strong knees I had when I was 20! The girls could probably have benefitted from a more professional instructor—and one who wasn’t related to them—but they got a taste of skiing that Hannes hopes they’ll want to refine in the Cascades next winter.

We participate in the Berlin Half-Marathon

Lauf! Du schaffst es!

You’ll have to excuse me for feeling a bit tired these days, but we just had the Berlin Half-Marathon two weeks ago and it’s taken me awhile to recover.

There’s something incredibly exhilarating about the atmosphere of 25,000 runners from 86 countries joining together to run through these cobblestoned streets with 150,000 spectators cheering like crazy. Last September we were on hand to watch the world record set in the Berlin Marathon, and it inspired us to be part of this more accessible goal this spring.

Our youngest cheerleader: her sign says "Run"

It started out early on a cool April Sunday with the roller-bladers, followed by the handbikers and wheelchairs. Then came the amazingly divine Kenyans and Ethiopians, and then the remaining 24,000 mortals consigned to run behind the gods. Those mortals like us.

Well, more like us—except that we were standing in our pajamas with cups of cocoa in our hands, cheering them all on from our fifth-floor balcony.

Our view of the marathon

Oh, wait—you didn’t actually think we were down there on the street, sweating and cramping and heaving? Ha! Surely you know us better than that! No, no, no—our apartment was on the running route, so we participated by cheering raucously from above the trees as they all ran past our windows. We had kept our noise makers and signs from the marathon last fall, so we felt quite official.

And once again we were inspired by the determination and sacrifice and pleasure involved in something so completely foreign to us and our cocoa/coffee-drinking bodies!

Jasper the intern

Let's all hum Pomp & Circumstance, shall we?

As part of the German school system, each 10^th grader in a college-prep school is required to have a two-week internship in a company of his or her choice. Our friend Charlotte interned with the "new music" radio station in Berlin; Mo got a position in Hamburg with AFS, an organization that prepares and sends exchange students. And for the last two weeks we've had our friend Jasper living with us while he participated in a translation internship with Jost.

Each morning they sat at their desks in Jost's office (also known as our bedroom!) and talked about the day's tasks, or Jasper listened to an impromptu lecture on the finer points of translation: localization, the use of technology, and the art of networking. And then they fired up their computers and got to work. Jost had fun having a sidekick for two weeks, and we hope Jasper learned a lot. He's a good listener and was eager and willing to put it all into action. German readers can check out the blog he kept about his internship at http://jasperspraktikum.blogspot.com/.

Here are Jost and Jasper at the graduation ceremony in our living room

We loved having him here with us for fourteen days--especially Hannes, who could temporarily assuage his lifetime regret that we didn't provide him with any natural-born brothers. You're welcome to come back any time, Jasper, and bring your family with you!

Jasper and his twin brother Mo (left) with parents Jan and Ulli

We've been robbed!

Momma said there’d be days--
I mean weeks--
like this . . .

Hmmm, how to say . . . criminally crummy? lambastingly lousy? repulsively revolting? simply Scheiße?

You be the judge: we rolled back into Berlin late Sunday night after an exhausting week of traveling during Easter vacation to find my laptop computer stolen, our belongings rifled through, the kids’ wallets emptied, all our documents strewn around the office, and a toilet full of unflushed feces. It wasn’t quite the homey atmosphere we’d been anticipating.

The next day an email arrived on Jost’s computer saying that someone had found Lara’s American birth certificate on a street in East Berlin. Jost’s birth certificate remains missing, but they thankfully ignored all our German and American passports, the kids’ Social Security cards, and our other birth certificates.

My laptop, of course, was the nerve center of the family, and I’m sure we’ll never see it again. All the photos we’ve taken this year in Berlin, all my email addresses and correspondence, all my clients’ documents and the hours I still needed to bill, all our snail-mail addresses, all our banking, tax, and credit card information—gone! A good argument for backing up regularly.

BUT, we’re still okay. True, we’re a little shaken up. On Monday morning Hannes said he’d be happy to get on an airplane and fly back to America that same day, but he came home from school on Tuesday cheerful and contented again. It’s been a frustrating experience for Jost to reestablish our office and configure my new laptop—as I write on Thursday we still have no Internet connection, which is a real liability with Internet-dependent jobs like ours. But again, we’re all okay. As Anna wrote in a letter to Grandma and Grandpa, “it’s just another new experience—a city experience!”

P.S. I’d be grateful for help in rebuilding my email address book. Could you please shoot a quick email message to kzetzsche(a)internationalwriters.com? (Remove the (a) and replace it with @, please.) No need to write a note unless you’re feeling especially communicative—but I’d love that, too!

New friendships

We get by with a little help

from our friends

One of the hardest things about leaving for a year was being separated from our good friends at home. But gradually we’ve made some friendships that are filling our lives with joy and already beginning to make us sad about leaving people behind yet again. Today we’d like to introduce you to some of our new friends . . . .

Anna has bridged the biggest language barrier to speak friendship fluently with her best buddy Jessica, a Polish-Portuguese girl who lives a few blocks away and is in Anna’s class. They love to dance and dress up together and babble away at each other so that I can’t tell who’s talking when.

Lara has a wild and crazy girl group that she hangs out with. Here are Verena (Chilean-German), Sophie (Turkish-German), and Lara (American-German) . . .

and here’s a pensive picture of Nuri (Egyptian-German).

These girls are always up to something and always seem to be having a great time. Right now they’re all applying to be accepted into high schools for their 7th grade years and enjoying their last carefree year of elementary school. (Have I mentioned how multi-cultural the kids' friends are? There's hardly a classmate who has two German parents!)

Hannes’s class at his sports school is very tight knit and he feels close to them all, but his best friend is Niko, a classmate and a basketball teammate. Niko’s parents are Polish, and he dreams of coming to America to play college basketball. I’ve got a soft spot in my heart for him because he likes my chocolate chip cookies!

Some of you may recognize the twins, Jasper and Mo, who spent a summer with us in Reedsport several years ago. They’ve come to stay with us several times this year, and Jasper will be coming again soon to do a two-week translation practicum with Jost. They continue to be among Hannes’s best brother buddies.












I had not really thought about making new friends this year—I knew we’d be catching up with old friends and investing in the children’s friendships. So the new friends Jost and I have made have been an unlooked-for and lovely surprise.

First among these were John and Hoi-ling, doctoral students of theology from Hong Kong who have just arrived in Berlin and are helping with the local Chinese church. Their professor was a classmate of Jost’s at the University of Hamburg. They come to our house on Mondays for dinner and German practice and fun fellowship (John does some mean card tricks!).


John and Hoi-ling invited us to a party at their church for the Chinese New Year. They had mentioned that there was a family of American missionaries working with their church, but when I walked in I was introduced to this man . . .

. . . Chuck "Chuckles" Rentz, my freshman college buddy from Seattle Pacific University 25 years ago! I think that’s the very definition of serendipity—or a divine appointment for renewing old friendships. We’ve had fun spending time with Chuck and his wife Jenny and their four children.

Each Wednesday since shortly before Christmas we’ve been going to a Bible study with a wonderful group of folks, all at least ten years younger and much cooler than Jost and me, but still they've welcomed and loved us! We eat together, sing together, study together, and have a great time. Here’s one of them, Sarah Kaiser, a jazz vocalist who comes over to play cards with us regularly.


And here’s Anna with the newest Bible study addition, baby Noah.

We feel so grateful for all these new (and old) friends who have filled our lives here with unexpected warmth and fun and fellowship.

The Saturday market

Let's take a walk!

This morning we strolled down from our house to the Saturday farmers’ market, one of our favorite weekend outings. Jost's photos will provide you with some impressions of our neighborhood as we walked to the market:

Here’s a first curious shot of his new shoes,

an odd pair of rectangular leather loafers

made by a venerable old German shoemaking company.

How will you all recognize him without his clogs?

Our street is lined with an amazing variety of small shops. Here are just a few. (Please remember that this is the real almost-downtown gritty city we live in as you join us!)

A Russian bookstore

An old mom-and-pop corset and underwear store
(well, actually I don't know whether they sell corsets for pop, too,
but you know what I mean!)

The neighborhood brothel
(“You come as a stranger, you go as a friend”)

Probably twenty hair-cutting salons with intriguing advertisements

The Lebanese (!) jeweler and his assistant.
He gives out cans of juice with pineapple chunks in it whenever we stop by.


Thai massage

Big Pimp Hotdogs??
(unfortunately I'm not making this up!)

African art

And finally the Saturday market,
a small village of canvas-covered stands huddling in the church square

There’s a wonderful assortment of almost every imaginable fruit and vegetable. Here Anna and I are filling up with a week’s worth of veggies from this Turkish stand.


Potatoes, potatoes, potatoes—a different kind for every different purpose

My favorites are the flower stands. The Germans really know how to make gorgeous bouquets. Here the salesman scolded us for not coming six hours earlier to get an adequate picture when the flowers weren’t nearly gone.

As we walked we sampled the strawberries from Morocco (3 boxes for 2 euro!), the fresh garden carrots, and some really yummy homemade Turkish delight.

But the best part was setting the table when we got home: homemade Dubai pesto, crusty bread, a couple of new kinds of wurst, and fresh garlic olives. And of course more of those delicious strawberries and carrots.

Treasure hunting

Way back during our Christmas vacation, we visited old Hamburg friends Judith and Til and their daughter Lupine in the beautiful city of Munich in southern Germany. We packed a lot of sightseeing into two very cold sub-zero days:

Anna and Lupine navigating
the crowded downtown pedestrian mall

. . . ice skating on the frozen moat of a castle built in 1385, eating at an ur-typical Bavarian restaurant (massive slabs of meat with canned peas and powdered potatoes), and admiring the famous Rathaus (the city hall) and the cathedral that were completely destroyed along with most of downtown Munich during the war and then rebuilt down to the last detail.

The Rathaus

The kids were especially impressed with our visit to the Schatzkammer, the treasury created in the 16^th century to house the jewels and treasures of the Bavarian royal families. Lara was our photographer during the tour of crowns, necklaces, scepters and balls, and jewel-encrusted toiletry cases.

A delicate queen's crown

Jost was so impressed by the visible weight and majesty of this king's crown.
These heavy things must have caused headaches!

And neck-aches!

Anna was so impressed with the jewels in Munich that she went back to Berlin and got her ears pierced!

Now she carries around her own treasury in those beautiful little ears!

The Wild Boar Hunt

Yesterday we went wild boar hunting.

Well, we need to be truthful here: Yesterday we went for a walk in the Grunewald, a huge coniferous forest that begins in our general neighborhood and stretches eleven square miles to the south and west. Like everything in Berlin, it’s filled with history: It contains the Teufelsberg (Devil’s Mountain), one of the highest points in Berlin, built out of the rubble of 400,000 buildings carried out of the city after World War II. Under the Teufelsberg lies a Nazi military-technical college designed by Albert Speer. The Allies tried using explosives to demolish the school, but it was so sturdy that covering it with debris turned out to be easier.

What made it especially interesting for the Zetzsche family yesterday, however, was the possibility of a wild boar sighting. Berlin is known as the one of the world’s greenest capitals, and as such has recently also become the resurgent wild boar’s playground. Apparently there are about 8,000 wild boars that make their home within the Berlin city limits year-round, and another 2,000 move in during the spring to have their litters in the many green pockets throughout the city.

Hmmm. This isn’t actually reassuring when you hear these beasts described by hunters as being among “the most dangerous of quarry,” “the size of a motorbike and with much the same acceleration,” and “able to rip up and kill dogs with no effort.” Maybe that’s why all dogs have to be leashed in the springtime when they walk with their owners through the Grunewald.

The Grunewald itself is an eerie place in the late winter. For those Pacific Northwesters familiar with the wet deep green of a forest of firs, you have to think brown: brown bare trees, a brown thick carpet of decaying leaves, brown paths of churned-up dirt. Not a green shoot in sight. To me it seemed, well, very brown. But Jost soaked it up, showing us the birch bark that could be burned even when everything else is wet, and Hannes speculated on the best den possibilities for the female boars (sows?). Anna stayed close to me and held my hand.

We didn’t see any, of course. And I left the camera in the car, of course. Leaving you to imagine those brown beasts lurking in the brown forest among the brown leaves.