"Foreign" me in Berlin

“There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign.”
― Robert Louis Stevenson

What does the word „foreign“ mean? It has different meanings: something abroad, external, international or also something that is not domestic. I experienced all of these senses being a volunteer in Germany.

I would like to start by telling you that even being in my own country Russia I felt foreign. I didn’t like my job and place where I lived; I couldn’t find myself in life. Everything seemed wrong and the highest motivation for me was also the wish of many other young people to move abroad. But I should mention that I wanted to go to Germany not because I wanted to move or I hated my country – not at all. I was always striving to spend longer time in a foreign country, to explore the mentality and culture, to be able to understand how these German people think. I was fond of the idea of volunteering which I imagined as the highest form of acting mercifully and morally.

I have been selected for the EVS in Berlin. Programme description: helping by the correspondence and organizing youth projects. I am extremely happy and delighted, a bit frightened how I am going to tell my chief at my job that I am going to quit. But I pass this and now I am ready to leave. My heart is beating fast and going to break when I see my mom crying at the railway station. Why? What for? I don’t understand why I’ve decided to do it and stay away the whole year from my family while I have never left them for so long. I feel much better after I had arrived. Berlin, friendly smiley people, pleasant smell in the air, warm weather! No cold winter, no rude passengers in the bus, no neighbors discussing you. Everybody in Russia thinks here it’s a paradise. Yes, it is. But just for a few days. After I get ill I realize what it means to be foreign. To be foreign in a German hospital when as soon as they understand you are not German, they treat you differently, neglectfully. To be foreign at your working place, when people not even notice how you disappear because you need to go to a doctor and can’t find anybody who can go with you to support physically and morally and help with the language barrier. To be foreign talking to the citizens who have stereotypes about your country and whose behavior changes immediately after they learn you are from Russia.

Looking back at all those moments I realize how uncomfortable and pessimistic I was feeling. I even wanted to quit but I knew what would expect me home - dissatisfaction with myself and questions from everybody: “How could you leave this paradise?” Hmm, paradise. This word was following me everywhere, haunting without letting to breathe. But really, I know the Russian reality and that “everything is so bad”, but I can’t say it’s the worst country in the world. I see that there are so many problems in Germany as well just the way of solving them is different.

After I had such a negative experience at the beginning I started to get used to the Berlin life and people. I opened so many amazing things and wasn’t pessimistic anymore. I realized that every country has wonderful and not so wonderful things. So every country is like your relative or your friend whom you love or hate, whom you accept with all the imperfections or you fight them. Your attitude to the place you live in can be a reflection of how you behave regarding yourself. In my case I didn’t like where I lived in Russia because I also didn’t like myself. In this situation I can find problems everywhere. Living in Berlin and having a negative experience at the beginning helped me to realize it. I can complain about many things but I also can make a first step improving these things.

In Russia people always complain about their reality and government but don’t do anything. I think it comes from the Soviet time when the government did everything for people: social help, entertaining, hobbies. People didn’t have to think a lot but they also were the same: the same clothes, the same flats, the same food. Now it’s time of being individual but people understand it wrong. It means for them being egoistic: to do everything only for themselves without caring for the neighbors and the environment.

I would like to say that I see how much people in Germany care for the environment, their houses, cleanness and order. I wish I could see it in Russia, in my city. I am not talking about everybody in my country, but what I saw in my city. At the same time I know that Russian people have so many amazing traditions, rich culture and open heart. I was surprised how many positive opinions I heard about my country from people who are supposed to be “foreign”. They have even better feedback than the Russians themselves. It made me realize that positive way of thinking is of great importance. We should pay attention more to the good things happening and not only to something negative.

After having spent many months in Germany I can say that “foreign” means to me “something unacceptable, something that does not belong to me”. I don’t feel foreign anymore in Berlin because I’ve adjusted to the living conditions and tried to understand how people around me think. But I still need to work on myself, accepting what I am and turning “foreign” inside to my “self”.

This volunteer experience allowed me to grow up and opened my eyes to many things. Every day is like something new, bringing various emotions and proving that things can’t be only good or only bad - everything that happens in my life has its meaning that will be clear to me in the future.