July 25: I have not travelled widely in Germany. I am finding a beautiful and friendly country with a strong culture and lots to share. At least part of the reason I haven’t spent more time here is the language. There’s something about words like thisisthedoortocomein that put me off. But I have found that people are generally kind; if you make the effort, there’s usually a shared vocabulary and pantomimes that get me what I want.
What is harder to accept is the loss of self that having no language brings on. Language is a powerful tool to convey who we are: our views, our experience and our sense of humour all convey important aspects of our character. Without a way of taking part in that social interaction through language we are isolated and cut off. I may get lunch and the outlines of what is going on around me but without a way to take part, I’m essentially an observer, and probably a bit suspect at that.
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Where are the police ? Admittedly, I am travelling a little off the beaten path but I think I have seen perhaps 3 police cars in the last week. Living in a busy city and having been fed a constant stream of nonsense about imminent attack by radical weirdo’s by our beloved leader, I’m accustomed to routinely seeing police on patrol and in cars. Not so here. That said, there is an obvious and strong belief in the rule of law. When driving in the country, traffic moves at the limit and usually not a lot more, and when coming into even the smallest town, all of the traffic slows to bang on the 50 km/h limit (in some cases 30 km/h). There are no gangs roaming the streets and armed thugs driving Citroen Traction Avant aren’t robbing banks. People seem to be going about their daily lives in a peaceful way and society seems to accept that they can do that without the police watching their every move. Refreshing.
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This part of Germany is quite agrarian, a fact with which my nose becomes intimately familiar several times a day. I can now
say with certainty that cow shit smells the same here as in Canada. Like the old debate about whether German dogs would understand Canadian dogs, I expected it to somehow smell different. If the French have terroir to describe how the growing conditions affect their wines from one clos to the next, wouldn’t the same be true of cow shit ? Cows eat terroir after all. Maybe my nose is not yet adequately attuned to the subtleties between one cow and the next.