Snippets: 'Mesing' you and Laternenfest

Hello, all. I hope that this finds you well. As you can see, we are "mesing," Alan. He's in Alaska doing Reserve duty and gets back the day before Thanksgiving.

School daze: Meggie seems to have magically adjusted to her school in the last two weeks. I have overheard her having full conversations in German with her friends. She has cottoned on to the similarities between English and German, so if she doesn't know a word, she just inserts the English--sometimes guessing at the German pronunciation, sometimes not--and keeps on trucking. It all comes across somehow. She is learning completely by osmosis, so she doesn't even know how much she knows. Laurel is still getting used to her new digs. But the language doesn't seem to be a problem. She is mimicking the other children and communicating with her peers just fine. It's the schedule that is causing her trouble. She can't seem to get back into the habit of napping--although she really needs to--because everything is so new. Once she starts napping again, I think her day will start to go more smoothly.

Laterne, Laterne: Germany is a Christian country, and there is no legally mandated separation of church and state. So schools conduct religious instruction (protestants and catholics have their own, and others take part in "ethics," which is a study of world religions and basic philosophy). This also means that almost all federal holidays are religious (Good Friday, Pentecost, Corpus Cristi, etc. all are holidays for Germans) and religious festivals are celebrated in schools. For many centuries, children across Europe have been celebrating St. Martin's Day, which is officially on Nov. 11. During the week of the holiday, most young schoolchildren make paper lanterns and parade through the streets, singing songs about lanterns and about St. Martin, a Roman soldier who, according to legend, cut his cloak in half and gave a piece to a poor beggar, who revealed himself in a dream to have been Jesus. Meggie came home singing a song about St. Martin "und der arme Mann" (and the poor man).

My pictures of this festival are terrible. But the children paraded through a park--Laurel with an electric tea light in her lantern and Meggie with a lit candle--and sang songs. Later, they all ran around in the dark, going generally wild and whooping at each other. Sounds good to me. It is nice to see that the girls have friends and are comfortable among their peers.

Here is Meggie's video introduction to the lantern festival (Laternenfest). You can see how she is now switching back and forth between German and English. I am speaking German to her here, because she only speaks German when it is spoken to her. We speak English at home, but I thought you'd like to see how she is progressing, so I spoke German to her to get her to reply in German. Laurel would have been in on this, but she was so tuckered by the lantern parade that she fell asleep. She's out like a light.

And some not-so-great pictures of Laternenfest:




Teachers reenacting scene of the poor man and St. Martin.

Dignity: More significantly for Americans, of course, Nov. 11 was also Veteran's Day. I couldn't bring myself to post, because there was nothing I could add to what others had already said about this year's Veteran's Day--tainted by the deadly attack on Ft. Hood. I think, though, that what I will always remember is the virtue and selflessness with which many of the victims and bystanders reacted--tearing off and cutting their own uniforms to fashion tourniquets for their comrades, including their attacker. I will never forget the dignity and honor with which they comported themselves.