Elephant Baby

I just beat the elephant in being the land animal with the longest time of being pregos. Yup, my three years (plus) of gestation out does their wimpy 22 months hands down, and yesterday my colorful 14 p. 3 hr. cuddly baby finally saw the light of day. We’ve had a name for a few weeks now, and if you’ve kept up, you’ve gotten the “birth announcements” in advance of the big day and know that we our calling our latest offspring “Brunch-n-More, for body and soul."

Fourteen of us ages three to 43 gathered in rooms we are renting from the CVJM at 10 am yesterday for a continental breakfast, good conversation and a messy adaptation of musical chairs. Everyone got to mix his/her own unique color of choice (no two people could have the same color) and choose a painting utensil (bottle brush, paint brushes, basting brushes etc.). We each started off at a blank Din A3 page and after putting our name on it, had about 5 minutes to begin a picture while music was playing in the background. Each time the music stopped, we rotated to the next picture and painted for a couple of minutes. We did this until we each made our way around to all of the pictures.

As you can see, the pictures are bright, colorful and unique. What one might not see at first glance, however, is what the pictures and indeed the process tells us about our social interactions, the fact of life that we are not an island, not solely responsible or “in-charge” of what ends up on the canvas of our life, and that, whether we want to be or not, we are sometimes major, sometimes minor contributing artists on the canvas of other people’s lives. This was frustrating for Charis, soon to be 12 yrs, who started off with a pretty concrete idea of what she wanted her painting to look like. When little Constantine came and painted a big blue blob on top of her little pop art people, she felt that her picture was ruined. For me it was no new revelation that Charis would have the hardest time of everyone “letting go” of control and finding beauty in something outside of her own narrowly defined objectives.

It was interesting to see that some chose loud colors which they used plenty of, some quieter, warmer colors, which they used more sparingly. Some responded more to what they were presented with in the painting already, choosing to “fix,” enhance, react to, continue something that was already going on, while other’s contribution was an object or pattern carried out through each painting. I believe this says a lot about who we are and how we interact with others.

It was also no surprise to see that the smaller/younger the children were, the less concrete their contributions were and the more “space” they took up on the page, the more likely they were to ignore whatever else was going on, and seemed intent on just getting as much of their color out there as possible. And I have had my years of my “painting” being dominated by the blue blobs!! It takes a real artist to work with those, find the balance of letting the blue blobs fill up space, and helping them to notice the beauty of the other colors and that those other colors need some space too without suffocating the artistic exuberance of the blue blobbers. That takes a lot of creativity and Grace, a lot of grace.

I just finished Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott, which I was in the thick of Sunday afternoon after we got home from Brunch-n-More. I have to quote one of the many cool things she says in trying to describe her understanding of Grace. She writes, “Grace is the light or electricity or juice or breeze that takes you from that isolated place and puts you with others who are as startled and embarrassed and eventually grateful as you are to be there.” Thank you Ms. Lamott for that bit of color, that brush stroke which describes so well what I’m hoping Brunch-n-More might be. People coming out of isolation, learning to “paint” with each other, give each other enough space to be, but not too much space to monopolize and become mono-color. I guess we do the best we can and hope that when the music stops, we will all get to take a very bright, colorful and unique painting home with us.

I Just LOVE People Like This!!!!

This guy is just bursting at the seams with creative social projects.  He started a Ricksha-service, and then turned it over to students.  He came up with a bicycle version of the ice-cream truck, and turned that over to someone (with MINT-CHOCOLATE CHIP! a rarity!).  He has worked as a spinning trainer.  He was taking a course to be a city tour guide, when he got the idea to rev. up Augsburg’s image by initiating the worlds longest city tour!  It lasted 2010 minutes (basically the whole weekend) and was a huge hit.  He organized a semi-successful program for the youth of his area who could earn points for doing helpful services around the neighborhood, doing chores for elderly neighbors, clean up, various things, and then be able to “spend” those points at different stores in the neighborhood.   All this from a banker turned stay-at-home-dad! And I haven’t even gotten to the part that really gets me excited!

Living in Oberhausen, a neighborhood in Augsburg, where people from over 70 countries live door to door with little interaction between them, Bernd Beigel was wracking his head trying to come up with ideas of how to help especially the women overcome their isolation and become more integrated into their multi-cultural neighborhood within their new country.  He held language courses using methods similar to those of TEFL (using pictures/photo, real life trips to stores, doctors), and although they were well attended, the women dispersed back into their own isolated worlds after the course was finished.  Looking for something that would offer these immigrant women an integrated community over a longer time-frame, he found it in the one, world-wide common denominator: food!  The one thing that connects women everywhere, so Beigel, is cooking!  

Advertising in neighborhood kindergartens and schools for recipes from their home countries for an international cook book, and volunteers to form a cooking group to test the recipes, got a resounding response - over a 100 recipes, of which 60 recipes from 30 countries were published in the Oberhausen 5 Star Cookbook.  But this is only the beginning of the story!  The group of 15 women who formed the cooking group to test the recipes displayed such enthusiasm, initiative, team spirit, and appetite for learning new skills, despite the language barriers, that Beigel sought ways to expand the integration project.  The women were trained in the “how to’s” of a professional kitchen in a rented kitchen, and with the city’s Social Minister pulling a few strings (are we ever sad that he was replaced when the new elected mayor took office), they began cooking lunches at the main school in the neighborhood for well over a 100 kids and locals every weekday.  The Kulturküche (Culture Kitchen) was born!  

The 15 women from 9 different nations working on a part time bases, with two working full time, have since expanded their range and now include cooking for a second school, an afternoon Cafe, a Jam (as in strawberry) factory, and a professional Catering-service! (The one we engaged for Jonathan’s Confirmation Lunch).  The whole project just thrills me to death, because it brings together so many things that are close to my heart and addresses the particular social problems that have been becoming a growing concern to me.

I mean, way to go for bringing together compassion (seeing, and being moved, stirred to action by someone else’s plight or suffering) and creativity (out of the box problem solving, trying something new)!  What a rare breed!  Here is a man who had eyes to SEE these otherwise invisible women and the conflicted situations they are in: NO money, completely isolated by a language barrier from the host culture as well as the multiple cultures around them, often left alone with their children, and little to zero self-confidence or independence.  These women needed to learn German, gain at least some financial freedom if not full independence, regain their self-confidence and be included in true community.  And that is exactly what this project enables.  

Mr. Beigl makes a conscious effort to organize the cooking teams into a good mix of nationalities, trying his best to avoid putting more than one woman of a nationality together for the same shift.  This way they are forced to use German as the common language for communicating.  Katja had been in Germany for years when she began at the Culture Kitchen one and a half years ago, and even Mr. Beigl wasn’t aware of just how little German she understood when she started.  Thanks to the safe group of women, who were more or less in the same boat, and a language dictionary, she now has a good grasp of the language and is improving her skill steadily.  Finally being able to communicate with offices, schools, doctors, sales people herself, instead of being dependent on her husband and children, has not only given her greater independence, but has boosted her confidence and self-esteem as well.

A Turkish woman, perhaps in her mid-forties, is now able to afford what for many years seamed an unreachable dream: getting her drivers license!  Both the learning material for the extensive theoretical exam, as well as the many hours of payed lessons behind the wheel in preparation for the practical exam can run up to a couple thousand Euro in Germany and were well beyond her family’s budget.   Seda is not only proud of herself for accomplishing this long sought for goal, but she is also enjoying her new found freedom and independence.  A woman from South Africa is saving money, in order to return to her homeland, now that her husband has left her and their four children.  Two and half months ago, Mr. Beigl was approached by social services and asked if he would consider incorporating a war trauma victim from Serbia into his colorful catering service.  (Sergio) makes the first male employee in the Kulturküche and is already well integrated into the group of women.  

Because Beigl’s main focus is to address what he sees as the social concerns in his neighborhood, and less on just generating profits, his hiring and scheduling practices veer considerably from the beaten road of the “anything and everything for profit” corporate practices.  For starters, hiring a bunch of people who can’t talk to each other definitely won’t make the best sellers book of must do managing tips.  But the women, most of whom have children, also enjoy flexible schedules and a relaxed work climate, so that when their children are home from school or need to go to the doctors, the mothers can easily switch shifts or bring their kids to work with them, finding odd jobs for them to do as well.  Child labor?! Not in the least.  I am growing increasingly suspicious, that the separation of work and family life that has prevailed in our industrialized era is an unhealthy dichotomy and is one of the major contributors to many of our societal ills.  But that is a blog for another day.  For now, I see the opportunities and the climate that the Kulturküche is offering the women in this multi-national community to be strengthening and empowering the family rather than putting a strain on its vulnerable seems.  

And the Bavarian Minister of State for Family and Community, Christa Stewens, seems to agree with me.  She presented Bernd Beigl with the Bavarian Award of Women’s Advocacy for Best Practice last October.  And wouldn’t you know it, tho Beigl’s initial motive was not to start a lucrative business, the idea of an international catering service seems to have filled a gap in the market here in Augsburg.  The Kulturküche has several engagements weekly to keep track of, and is continually expanding its range.  And the Banker turned stay-at-home dad is not close to being out of ideas.  Not only is he hoping to expand the Kulturküche to another neighborhood this fall, but he is also looking for a location to open up an international cafe, where the cultures can find not only a place to meet, but also a space to embark on an array of other crafty projects, a sewing group being one idea of many.  

I am putting this guy on my Boaz list.  (if you haven’t a clue what that might be, you’ll have to blow the dust off your Bible, or go buy/steal one, and read the book of Ruth in the Old Testament).  Since Boaz is probably my favorite dude in the bible, this is a pretty honorable list, and in all honesty, not too many people have actually made their way on to it.  But Bernd Beigl is on it for sure... I just LOVE people like that!!!