German Connection

by ROBERTO BORGES (Brazil)

Making a local connection Germany

By the first time she could express those feelings to someone that she shared the same blood. I was happy because I was understanding her, even with my English still developing and with her effort to hold back tears. She told me about her life full of questions, her search for identity. She said she often felt different from friends; sometimes she felt she didn’t belong to the place that knew; other times she felt alone, even beside her parents and brother. I was sitting at her side, stared into her eyes, listening her attentively, damming an immense desire to hug her and say something that could remedy all negative feelings that she had. Because that moment, the whole trip had already been worth it. I was in Europe because I was selected for a month course about "Public Management for Competitive and Innovative Cities". It was in Krems, a small city distant 75 kilometers from Vienna, Austria. The weekends were free. I’ve spent one of these weekends to visit my aunt who lives in Heimbach, a cozy village near Cologne, Germany. My grandparents had eighteen children and she is the youngest. In the face of difficulties they passed in the interior of the state of Maranhão, the poorest state of Brazil, some children have died. Perhaps hopping she could have better luck than the siblings, my grandparents gave her to a German couple who couldn’t have children. My grandmother let them take her on condition that she knew that she had a family here in Brazil. She was taken as a baby, just three months old. Satisfying my grandmother's requirement, the nuns who intermediate the donation always visited her and showed photos and gave news about her Brazilian family. After thirty years, she decided to meet her family personally. Of course, we felt a great commotion and happiness. We couldn’t communicate with her very well. She didn't know how to speak Portuguese and we didn't know German. She spoke English well, but at that time, no one in the family spoke English fluently. I worked hard to become fluent. After a while, it was my turn to visit her, in the land where she was raised. She picked me up at the airport. To get to her car faster, she invited me to jump over a small fence instead of taking a longer way. It was strange to see a "German" breaking rules. She said with a gentle smile "I have Latin blood". When we get to her home, I asked to take a shower. Her husband was surprised by the request. Nobody would ask for a bath at that time of night in the late European autumn. After the shower, we went to dinner. Her husband had gone to sleep because he would wake up early to go to work next day. We had dinner talking about my trip and my course in Austria. After a typical German dinner, we put the dishes in the washer and while we waited we had that heart touching conversation. In the next day we stroll through the region. We visited her parents in law. We went to her adoptive parents' house. We went to the city in which she grew up. I could imagine her as a child, playing in those streets, playing with the brother that her parents managed to have after adopting her; I imagined her as a teenager, studying at that school; I imagined that family gathering in that Church for Sunday Masses, or spending some moments of distress in that hospital. Sometimes we travel to see places, sometimes to meet people, to know local stories. Sometimes we travel to immerse in ourselves soul, to know ourselves better, to know a part of our family’s history, which was hidden in a distant place. I brought in my baggage the satisfaction of that fantastic experience. More than a local connection, I did a connection between past and presente; between two families in two distant countries, between two hearts that, even after the hug of goodbye, are getting closer and closer. Maybe one day I'll put this whole story into a book.