Thursday night we were going to have a last-hurrah at a pub called (I'll fill it in when I remember) near Karl-Marx-Allee. At half past six we met at Friedrichstraße and went to the pub. The program had started by going there (but I hadn’t attended) during the first week, so it was supposed to bring everything full circle. It was cozy, the walls old and we filled up almost all the space, if not just with our bodies then with our noise.
I ended up having extended debates with a bunch of the Alabama kids. It started with me discussing racism and beauty with one Carolina, a Mexican girl in my class who studies…political science or international relations? She was telling me how to be diplomatic "I respect your opinion, but I disagree" and me "but I don't respect their opinion."
"They just want their welfare checks. No offense Hannah, you're one of the good ones" and of course Hannah wasn't happy (that was from the first night at the Fritz, when I didn't go.)
And then Chris, who is from Alabama started in two, and another one was hovering and said “I can make you think what I think” and Chris said “oh, she’s a tough one.” I was just curious; these people live in the same country as I am but have a totally different perception of so many things. They would switch off after they got tired of talking to me, get themselves another beer. I rolled with it, seeing where it would take me.
They tried proving to me they were not racist. They also told me Black people in the North are totally different from Black people in the South, and were talking about “good” and “bad” Black people. I can’t even. And this is probably the more open minded, willing-to-travel group of Alabama University kids. It just baffles me. One of them even said that he’s taken a multitude of classes on the subject (the one that was cocky enough to think he make me think what he thinks. I honestly wonder if part of that was because I’m of the more pliable, fairer sex.) They aren’t uneducated, and I didn’t get the impression that they didn’t have any capacity for thought. They are the most foreign people I have met on this trip.
After I had tired them (and my vocal cords) out I finally spoke to the Russian kids in the group. I didn't realize they hadn't known I spoke Russian, I know Nikolaj did, but when he told them they had filtered it out, or thought he meant broken Russian. A girl who goes by Olivia had thought I was French the entire time. I talked a bit to Sasha (the oldest of the group,) who asked me, among other things, if anyone regretted moving to the USA*. And then again later I waited on the platform with them, Ivan had taken a beer glass with him from the pub, Nikolaj and Sasha and an Italian kid who knows Russian and Mario who is also Italian but doesn't know Russian. And others. There was a lot of last-moment-socializing going on.
*Dasha had asked me as well, and then Katrin- one of the people in the part of The Convent I live in now, also asked.
They went back Tierpark, Mario and I headed in the other direction towards where we live. He's one of the older people in the program, about forty, a likable translator and I had talked to him a few times before. I rehashed a lot of what I had been thinking about: language, culture, foreignness, belonging. The silt on that river never settles.
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