Hey, this week is Chaos Communication Congress! But before I go, I wanted to visit my mother and brother again – I have missed them a bit. So I took the U35 from my student apartment to the central station Bochum to get to Gelsenkirchen via Essen. As usual, when I was at the central station of Essen today, people asked for money. Of course there were people standing with cups in their hands to suggest asking for a few bucks. They didn’t actually ask, because it is illegal in Germany to explicitly (verbally) beg for money.
Someone said something to me I didn’t understand, as I was concentrated on something different, to which I responded with “Yes, please?”. She was surprised and said “Oh, Really?”. I was confused. As I figured out, she was asking if I could buy her food. Plain and clear – that’s it. That is uncommon. The next thing that happens is, that a semi-official looking man, possibly from Deutsche Bahn, halted his hurry-walk for a second, to speak to her from the side. He came rather close with his chin to her head. With a clear and sharp voice he said to her something like “If you want I can bring the security, it’s forbidden to beg people for money!” Regardless of if it is illegal to beg or not, he basically threatened her.
She asked for food. Well, so I asked what she needed while I looked around and at some food stores, wondering which might be a good fit. “Lidl”, she said. Honestly, I didn’t expect that. I thought about the fast food asia store or the fish store or the fries store – but nope, Lidl. And honestly – between all the thoughts I had – there was also one like “Well, I might also come cheaper out of this then”. We slowly started chatting. After we entered the store I asked again, what she needed. The first thing she grabbed was toast and she told me about her kids. She asked if buying Nutella (chocolate hazelnut spread) was okay, before she grabbed that as well.
While a few things here and there were carefully added to the cart, I carefully asked a few questions here and there. I learned that she immigrated from Romania and struggles with registering at the official work agency (“Arbeitsagentur”) to work legally. She mentioned that her German language skills were not sufficient, but I found that her English skills definitely were. After I told her that immigrated families I know didn’t even speak English well, she told me that she learned a bunch of languages in Romania. I don’t remember anymore, which languages she knew, but she counted a bunch of them and I think that her language skills should not be a barrier to an entry into work. Maybe it is a confidence issue, maybe she didn’t meet people who could introduce her to a fitting proper workplace (like at the work agency).
What I learned as well was, that her son’s “Happy Day” was coming up in 2 days. So of course we added backing cacoa, vanilla extract, and a pack of sugar. Although she has to beg and endure threats of legal consequences to even buy a bit more for the Happy Days of her children, she says that her life in Germany is still better than the difficult situation in Romania, where she left parts of her family behind. This woman in her 30’s fights not only for survival but also to provide their children some dignity and a cake for their special days. During the struggles and hatred she faces, she stayed very polite and expressed thankfulness and repeated a million times: “Thank you, mister!”
She asked and repeatedly thanked for what we consider basic stuff:
- “Chicken”
- “Cherry tomatoes”
- “Fair-trade baking cocoa”
- “Beet sugar”
- “Eggs, free-range, pack of 18”
- “Vanilla sugar”
- “Food coloring”
- “Ring salami”
- “Vanilla extract”
- “Premium salami”
- “Nutella”
- “Shredded coconut”
- “Ground almonds”
- “Blanched almonds”
- “Croissant nut nougat cream”
- “Butter toast”
This story impressed me and made me think a bit. How she begged for food, was threatened, and just tried to get basics & her child a cake. How much effort she puts in to get and provide what is natural for most of us. It also made me reflect on my experiences: I never lived materialistically wasteful and remember how my mother did also spend so much more energy to make my brother and me happy. One lesson of my mother later struck again: “Never save on food.” I am still learning that for my own household but also hope the food I did spend on, for the woman I met, did make her and her family happy, at least for a few days. And maybe she remembers that and does not think that every one wants to threaten her.
And that was only one story. Only one woman I met. How many people begging for money did you see this week? What about homeless people? This experience and some chats I had in the past inspire me to listen more often and to share their stories. Often, stories I listened to were emotional but basic. These are not science fiction stories, but experiences we can relate to. Struggles so basic, that we can only have empathy.
The social problems our society and our people have are often quite abstract in talk shows and in way to short and surface-level news reports. And we store this content in our brains but can not really comprehend it, because it’s so loose. So in the good case, the people on the streets (homeless people for example) are still just a faceless group, a city appearance we got used to and can not connect to. In the bad case, we develop prejudices and blame them for their experiences – which, remember, are basic struggles we can relate to in some way.
It’s time to get the unheard stories out – of the people we ignore, but have much more in common than we realize.