My voluntary year in Germany or how I changed my mind.
Only a description of my year in Germany, with my discovery, life experiences and ups and down.
That’s a real story. The life is like doing bicycle under a torrential rain. Sometimes you are thinking “I don’t care about rain, I can still go on” and then you get a drop in your eye. I didn’t really realize what it means at the beginning. EVS, “European Volunteer Service” a year in Germany;. In 3 weeks this year is over, and I am not the same person. My first day in Germany, I would have never suspected the half of the experiences I did. My first day, I went out from the train; my chef was smiling, waiting on the platform and my colleagues from Ukraine were holding a flag “Herzliche Willkommen Eloïse”. I was total over the moon; at last, after 18 years living with my parents, I was self confident and independent: I had my little flat, my job, I had so much energy and I was speaking to everybody “Ja ich bin Französin, ich weiss, icchh ab ein klein Akzent…” Oberhof is a village lost in the Thuringian forest with huge Christmas trees, I never saw so high trees before that. I will remember for my entire life; the second day I was only beginning my work at 2 p.m., I was tired but I woke up at 7 o’clock in the morning: I ran to a mountain called “Sneekopf” 16 km from my house. I was feeling myself so free; I could do what I want and when I want. I am such a person who has no limit; I’m always asking for more adventure and more adrenaline. I can remember that I was like a child; I wanted to test everything; and especially what my parents told me “be careful it’s dangerous”. Now I know that there were right for some points. I began with camping in the forest; it was a sunny September and it wasn’t so cold in the night; the nature was lush and beautiful, every 5 km I could find blueberries, blackberries and raspberries. I discovered every square meters of the forest; walking 50 km in the loneliest places, around a lake, meeting only 1 or 2 persons during 3 days. I knew that camping in the nature is forbidden in Germany, but I didn’t care. I even met the forester, and he asked me “Zelten Sie alleine? Haben Sie kein Angst?” and I answer “Es gibt kein Wolf, oder?” and he laugh and recall me not to make fire and to pick up my papers. Just one night I was “almost” scared; I was just about to go sleeping, my tent was on a lawn when I saw a big deer 6 meters from me. But it was as scared as me and run away. After that, I decided to check the surrounding and I took for granted that it was a place where maybe all the animals from Thüringen Wald are used to come together. Ok, maybe I exaggerate; but there were so many print and destroyed trees (they are used to make them horn) and I even find a piece of bone! I thought “Oh no, they are so brutal, maybe they will fight the entire night.” And it was too late for searching another place for my tent. So I took dead trees and put them in circle around my tent, I knew that it wouldn’t help a lot if they would decide to come, but who knows? Finally, I heard “BRAAA” the entire night, but I put my ear plugs and everything went right. In the morning I was feeling stupid “were you scared they could enter in the tent?”
Another time I went to sleep in the home of an old man. I was in Würzburg for visiting that beautiful city, the first day I met Georg (he is 72 years old and living alone), he had enough time for showeing me the old city with the castle and we spoke a lot and we became friends. For the night, I had planned to sleep in my tent in a little wood on the border of the city. I didn’t explain you how is my tent? My mentor gave it to me because she didn’t need it anymore; it’s an old and broken tent, I tried to fix it with sewing and with wooden piece for the stick. I had no mattress and no sleeping bag, it was on the 1st October and quite cold. It rained the entire night, I woke up soaked to the skin and with frozen feet. I walk to Georg‘s home and ask for a warm shower. The next day I slept in his home and honestly, camping is funny but sometimes you are really happy to have a bed!
For me it wasn’t a cultural choc between France and Germany. But I met one boy from Czech republic doing like me a voluntary year in Germany. I asked “and you, why are you making that voluntary year?” I will always remember his words; I can still hear his voice “because like this I’m sure to have something for eating and a place to sleep for one year”. I never thought that. During EVS seminars I was always realizing how different it can be in other country. I organized some “European projects” with my organization, and I had the opportunity to meet with a lot of people from others countries. And more I spoke with such people, and more I can realize the chance I have to be born in France.
Oberhof is very cold in the winter, I noticed it. I learnt snowboarding. Ok, I had a removal of tonsils, but I learnt snowboarding! The ski location is just under my home, so every day after the work I took a snowboard and walked 50 meters to the piste. And at the end of the winter I wanted to pay, but the nice woman told me “Du brauchst nicht bezahlen, es ist ok so!”. In Germany it’s really helpful to have a French accent! I went to Luxemburg by hitchhiking. I met a Grandpa, a young punk, two men from Romania, a black man from the states, and at last an entire family from Hungarian in a camping car. By the way, I think hitchhiking is a really nice opportunity for meeting new persons! But for the way back, my uncle said “it’s too dangerous for a girl, you can take the bus to Frankfort and then the train!” And what’s the result? The bus had a problem on the road, we wait 1 hour in a station and I missed my train, the second train was canceled and I came in my home 12 hours later. For hitchhiking it was 6 hours. I did so many things for the first time. My first boy friend, the first times I am flashed on the high way, the first time I smock a join of pure cannabis, the first time I think I’m dying, the first time I need an ambulance, the first time I’m feeling a deep happiness just because of eating bread with marmalade.
It was a Saturday night of May. I thought I was dying. Firstly a deep panic, I get crazy “I’m 19 fuck I don’t want to die!” and then (even if I could still hardly breath and that my heart was still going so fast and anomalous) I felt a cold calm in my head “Everybody is dying one day, my day came quite earlier, that’s all!”, just a terrible feeling of guilt because I was leaving my family. But I was calm, calm and guilty and sad for my parents. Then, I was driven in the hospital. After the injection, my body get calmer. When I understood I won’t die immediately, I cried. I remember I wrote. I wrote on a little paper everything what I thought during those hours; everything what I promise me if I would survive, what I would say to the persons I love for “last words”… Before that “accident”, I was always doing things in my free time; learning Russian and Spanish, having guitar lesson, giving French lessons, playing in a volley ball club, doing roller blade, bicycle… I would like to continue. But since, my heart is not always making “boum boum” but sometimes “boum psch”. Sometimes I try nevertheless to do some sports, and it’s making BOUM PSCH BOUM PSCH PSCH PSCH. Some nights I think I wont wake up. It’s not a comforting feeling. I had some crisis very extreme; I went to the home of my friend at 11pm, my AXA card in the pocket of my pyjamas, asking for sleeping on the sofa. Because in my home I don’t have any net for mobile phone and any internet connection. My studio is in a huge desert house, so nobody can hear when I’m screaming. Sometimes my heart is going quicker even when I’m doing no sport, I’m falling asleep and suddenly badaboum psch badaboum psch. Sometimes I’m waking up because I wasn’t breathing anymore, I can feel pain in the veins of my neck, in my lungs…
I’m just writing the facts like they are, I’m trying to remain passive. BUT. Sometimes I’m not able to keep it inside. My head explodes with scream of injustice. I had so many hopes for the future, I wanted to study biology, to become a scientist, I planned to save the Earth from the climate change. Sorry, you will die in terrible conditions; flooding, hurricanes, tsunamis… Bad for you!
I’m feeling like in jail. Usually I can keep the feeling of revolt in my mind, but sometimes I can’t prevent that hurricane to blow up in my head and run in my veins, I’m yelling “WHY? “ to the sky, my heart can’t stop the BOUM PSCH PSCH. My head is full of power, but my body is not enough. I’m dying under my fate. The tears are falling up my face, I hate that feeling of powerless, I can even not trust my own body, I stop punching the wall when I see little red points on the white color. Falling to the ground, trying to calm my little heart.
What is horrible is that I can’t say it to my family. I won’t worry them. I’m so anxious about the future. I’m not scared about dying, everybody is dying one day, I’m just worried about letting my family alone unless I promised them “I will come back in a year”.
So I found the limit of my body. I guess it’s pointless to say you that I have some regrets. I wrote a “farewell letter” to my family, to be prepared. Now I don’t have so much energy. I can stay hours just watching the rain through the window. Watching far away, above the trees. Watching in direction south-east. 1800 meters far from my family. Earlier I was living for the future, now I’m living in my memories. It’s kind of ironical. Everybody can understand how important a family is. It’s something you can’t replace.
Maybe I’m sad, maybe I’m scared, but I’m living, so I don’t care. In such evening when I’m thinking to my family, I fight against the tears as long as possible, I run as quick as I can to a lonely place under the trees, I burst; screaming, crying… And then I sit on the top of a mountain in the fresh grass and I calm down watching the stars and the moon.
So I’m still living, but I don’t know how long. I just hope I won’t die before seeing my family again, I beg my heart not to stop. But when the life is doing bicycle under the rain, maybe the death is like when you arrive home and when you can change clothes and drink a warm tee? Who knows?