die kleine rote Tasche

by Carlos Manzo (Mexico)

A leap into the unknown Germany

Shares

Little I knew, sitting alone in the waiting room at the airport, expecting for my five yet unbeknownst colleagues to arrive, that the trip to be done in just a couple of hours would be something that would really occur to anyone. Thirty hours after taking off from Guadalajara, arriving at Frankfurt to see our next plane to Berlin fly away without us was unexpected. Ignorant travelers like we were must happen all the time and yet Lufthansa's crew were understanding and helped us booking our next trip just an hour later. Exhausted from the trip, we reached Berlin but our final destination was hidden in a town just still a couple of hours away. Finally arriving at the flat and being left to our means, we encountered our first real challenge: live with five other strangers in a place that would be suitable for a maximum of three people. Food supplies left for us would last about two days at the most and, as we learned later, the closest convenience store was 6 km away. We had no means of transportation and no Internet service had been arranged yet. Our good-natured a brushed off that uneasy feeling of mild betrayal and instead we were thankful for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and went to heavily sleep in an unbearable mattress. Sunday came and we managed to walk to the city center 6 km away. It never occurred to our minds that Sundays, and especially during winter, nothing is open or anyone wants to be on the streets. Everyone would rather stay inside drinking home-made Glühwein, maybe Netflix and chillaxing. Yet while strolling around, through this ghost town, something unexpected happened. A Spanish-speaking German! That's not wild, they actually are good with languages. No, the strangest thing was that this German family knew us! She approached, greeted us, said she expected us to meet her husband soon and hopefully they would invite us to their home once the weather changed. Astounded as we were, not five minutes later, another Spanish speaking guy approached and said almost the exact same thing! We just were dumbfounded... What were the odds? How could this be? What is going on with this town? Again, we took it lightly and the rest of the evening went as planned, without any other surprises. And as inevitable as it was, Monday came. The first day of our internship. Six Mexicans in a German company with little to none knowledge of the culture nor the language. It was dreadful... Just after a little introduction to the company, some paperwork signing, and receiving the uniform we were separated into the areas we were supposed to learn. I was lead into the Production area and it is how my own story began. Shortly after my boss guided me through what seemed to be like a maze, with a thousand doors leading to a thousand different places, climbing up and downstairs, coming in an out, meeting hundreds of people with strange names at once. I could not have ever memorized so many paths and people. And it seemed that I would be lost if I wanted to return to the office for my very needed jacket in a cloudy freezing February midday. We were standing next to a cooling machine, and he was explaining how it worked when it happened: it broke down. My boss, being a bad-ass as he was, jumped inside and started yelling: "Bitte bring mir die Tasche." "die Tasche?" - I ask, wildly confused. What the eff is a Tasche? I say to myself. "Ja, die kleine rote Tasche." Little I knew, just two days ago, waiting at that airport, that trying to be helpful would not do at all, at all. With some luck, I managed to find the office where we started off, running through the thousand doors. I saw it, grabbed it and grabbed mine too. It was cold after all. Then sped back through where I came. Panting, and proud of myself, I hand him his jacket... Never will I forget, not even with Alzheimer visiting my memories, the furious face letting me know that "die kleine rote Tasche" is a damn red bag [of tools].