How Apra amazed us with her German

We have been in Germany for about three weeks now and obviously, we have had a lot of different impressions! I thought you might want to know a bit about what we experienced so far.

First of all, what everyone starts their conversation with: the weather! When we arrived, it was 7 degrees centigrade in Frankfurt. We took our socks and jackets out of the suitcase before going home so that we would not feel cold in the car. Yesterday we drove home from a program with 37 degrees centigrade! In between, we had wonderful sunny days and some days with rain, clouds and very cold wind. It is Germany – crazy weather does not surprise us anymore!

After a few days in Wiesbaden we started towards the South where we had our first program in Diessen at the Ammersee, a beautiful Bavarian lake with a fantastic view towards the Alps. After that we spent some time visiting Ramona’s family in Munich and Augsburg. After some great time with them, we came back to Wiesbaden, only to spend the past weekend 150 kilometers further south-west, for program in the Saarland. So we had a good share of travelling already and tonight we will go further: in the evening, we have our flight to Spain, to Gran Canaria.

On this route, we have already met a whole lot of friends and family members and it is wonderful to connect again with all of them in person instead of just over the internet or phone! We laughed, cooked and enjoyed a lot and of course everyone was eager to see how much Apra had grown and learned since they had seen her last.

The greatest thing is that her German has improved tremendously! Ramona always talks German with her, so we knew that she understands everything, even though she did not often talk in German. She talked a lot during the day but mostly in Hindi. In the first week here however, she did not only meet German friends but also got to play with several German children and suddenly she was chatting with everyone in German!

Apra talks so well that I have already learned a lot of new words from her and frequently have to ask Ramona for the meaning of one word or the other. Even Ramona is often surprised though – ‘Where did she learn this word from?’ is a question that I hear quite often these days!

We believe that the way how Apra is used to live in the Ashram environment gives her an extreme benefit while travelling with us: she is so used to seeing new faces that in any new place, she can adjust quite well to the different people surrounding her. While she is naturally shy in the beginning, it usually only takes one or two hours until she happily joins a friend, an unknown person except for the fact that he or she is ‘a friend of Ma and Pa’, for going to the playground or for shopping. Of course, it helps if that person happens to have a dog close-by!

Let’s see what awaits us when we reach Gran Canaria. Also there, our friend Betty will welcome us and together we will have program for the next three weeks. We are already looking forward – of course to working but also to watching Apra play in the sand and with the waves!

Tomorrow I will tell you about our trip as well as our first impressions!