A war, a homeless and a blind girl

As we were hanging out, drinking wine and shooting arrows with homemade bows I felt astonishment spreading. Why did a Croatian man in his forties wanted to hang out with a 21-year-old unknowing girl?

As the day past we started talking about our very different families and upbringings. We talked about our fears, believes and perceptions of life. This was my first time in Berlin that I profoundly tried to imagine the life of another. 

We met my first day at my EVS project and went out the following weekend. I work at an inclusive all-day school, which means we have a lot of refugee- and disabled children. As the months went by these three situations particularly got stuck in my memory:

“Will your mom help baking for your birthday?” I ask, quickly adding: “Or maybe your father?” She looks at me answering in broken German: “My dad is dead. They took a pistol plaff plaff. “ She folds her hands in the shape of a gun: “Then we moved from Syria to Berlin.” She pushes her glasses back and tightens her pony. “For my birthday I will get a cat. A real cat that will be there every day I come home from school.”

A man with greasy hair stands partly hidden behind some bushes. As I walk by with a group of kids he has his pants around his ankles pissing on the wall. The children’s eyes’ widen and several burst out: “Eew.” A few start laughing. While I search for the most appropriate thing to say a girl proclaims: “It’s not funny! Stop laughing. It is not his choice that he is homeless.” I observe the faces around me change and one boy asks: “He doesn’t have a toilet?”

In one of the other classes there is a blind girl. My working place is divided in two by a street with cars driving by. Every time I see this girl she is having her blind stick in one hand and a girlfriend in the other. Without the blind stick I wouldn’t have been able to say who is who because it seems as if they arrange their outfits according to each other. Looking like twins this girlfriend brings her disabled friend every day safely from one place to the other. 

When I went on my preparing-seminar back in Denmark I must admit I didn’t give it much thought when the educators mentioned Solidarity as part of the goal of an EVS. I had my goal: I was going to Berlin. A city of cool parties, street art, punk and history. The children I was going to work with was so to speak my method to my goal. This is however not how it turned out. 

Deepening my relationship with the children makes me able to define solidarity:
Solidarity means that despite of different cultural backgrounds, experiences, nationalities and psychical conditions we try to put ourselves in each others place. Through solidarity we learn to value helping each and putting our individual desires second. Solidarity means that a man from Croatia and a girl from Denmark equally can expand each other’s horizon if they both show the needed interest.