35 years because the fall of the Berlin Wall: How I discovered to respect America | EUROtoday

We had saved up the cash we would have liked throughout our group service to trade it for vacationers checks from American Express. We had packed the backpacks as much as the permitted flight weight of 25.00 kilograms. And we picked up our visas on the department of the Embassy of the United States of America on Clayallee in Berlin. The course of felt one thing like enlisting within the National People’s Army, solely with out the visitation of the genital space.

So now my buddy Lorenz and I had flown throughout the Atlantic to New York. We took the Staten Island Ferry previous the Statue of Liberty, had been threatened by knife-wielding junkies within the subway, and visited the glittering golden inside of a high-rise {that a} sure Donald Trump had constructed. According to the newspapers, the person was on the verge of chapter.

It was nearly two years because the wall got here down. But in New York I used to be accompanied by the sensation of unreality that I had felt time and again since November ninth. After all, till I got here of age I lived with the understanding that I’d by no means have the ability to see any of this.

And now I used to be right here. In America.

We purchased a automotive on the youth hostel, whose deal with I nonetheless bear in mind by coronary heart (nook of 103th, Amsterdam). The two Munich boys who had come over from the west coast with it had their return flight the following day. For as soon as, the Ossis had been in a greater negotiating place.

We had been lower than 20 years outdated and had by no means closed a deal. Now we paid $2,000 for a fairly run-down Oldsmobile that shimmered brilliant blue.

If I ever felt utterly free and self-determined, it was in that second. Everything was open, all the pieces appeared potential. It was euphoric – and fairly scary.

I’ll always remember driving the automotive by way of the canyons of Manhattan amidst an countless stream of yellow taxis whereas Lorenz seemed for the doorway to the Lincoln Tunnel to New Jersey on a kind of free vacationer maps. Two years earlier we had gone to high school within the GDR. Now we had been driving throughout America with no plan and no rattling web. Gasoline was a greenback a gallon.

On a chilly and grey November night, with the second anniversary of the autumn of the Berlin Wall approaching at dwelling, we left the interstate to search for a spot to spend the evening. The campsites had been closed and we did not wish to afford a motel; the funds was $10 per day per particular person. So the one factor left was the automotive, which posed a sure danger: the day earlier than, in Virginia, the freeway patrol had rudely woken us up in a car parking zone.

It was already darkish as we explored the town whose title we had by no means heard earlier than. But that is what occurred to us in most locations. We simply wished to discover a hole in a residential space the place we might spend the evening inconspicuously.

As we drove by way of the streets, we handed a brightly lit church, and Lorenz, who was a frugal pastor’s son, had an thought: We might ask the pastor if we might sleep within the car parking zone.

So we overcame us and entered the church, which, to our shock, was full of individuals. The pastor got here as much as us and we talked about our issues with purple heads. The good man instantly stated sure – however requested us to attend the service first.

The individuals we sat with smiled curiously at us. They had been Baptists they usually sang so much and loudly. Finally, the pastor gave a sermon through which we heard the phrases Wall, East Germany and Samaritan with our information of GDR English. He then requested us to face up and introduce ourselves, whereupon we mumbled our names and had been applauded wildly.

Later individuals crowded round us. Several individuals invited us to dinner in a wordy method, with one older man seeming notably assertive. He was there together with his spouse and 16-year-old granddaughter and stated there was loads of area in his home and dinner was already prepared. Praise the Lord!

And so we turned visitors of Myrl and Margaret Moser in Greensboro, North Carolina. They lived in a typical, indifferent terraced home with a big storage, in entrance of which the US flag flew. Myrl was a retired Marine Master Sergeant and had served in Korea. Margaret labored as a nurse and was energetic wherever potential, together with her church, nursing organizations, and the Daughters of the American Revolution.

They had been very spiritual, very conservative and really patriotic. They had, after all, voted for George Bush (the one and not using a W) and begged us to not go to the toilet in our underwear at evening due to Jennifer, the pubescent granddaughter.

The subsequent day once we discovered oil leaking from our automotive, we stayed. Myrl insisted. He eliminated the leaking oil pan, took it to a store the place it was patched and soldered, then reinstalled it. We stood subsequent to them and handed out the wrenches.

Only after nearly every week did we proceed our journey, with good needs and loads of provisions for the journey. I felt ashamed. My picture of the USA, I needed to admit, was not solely formed by Karl May and Colt Seavers, but additionally by propaganda that portrayed America completely as an aggressor and sophistication enemy, as a chilly, capitalist nation stuffed with injustice and oppression .

Now that we had been there, we met quite a lot of Mosers, though we did not depart this solely to likelihood. Greensboro had – how do I put this with out sounding too calculated – nicely, impressed us. In the months that adopted, we drove to many a church and even innocently requested for permission to sleep within the car parking zone. And every time we had been welcomed by individuals whose home the US flag flew in entrance of their home or whose hallway had a signed greeting card from Ronald and Nancy Reagan hanging of their hallway.

Later I used to be within the USA a couple of instances and studied in Louisiana for nearly a yr. And after all I additionally noticed the ugly America, the segregation, the violence, the poverty. But nonetheless, my respect for a rustic that has been making an attempt not simply since 1989, however since 1789, with this uncomfortable and unpredictable democracy, through which there isn’t a proper or flawed selection, however a free selection, grew steadily in me.

This week, on Wednesday morning, when it was clear that Trump can be US president once more, I considered the Mosers in North Carolina. I discovered on-line that the county that Greensboro is in was 60 % Kamala Harris-elect. I’d have preferred to name Myrl and Margaret and ask who they voted for.

But they died a couple of years in the past. They now not needed to make that selection.

You can discover all of Martin Debes’ beforehand printed columns right here.