{Of Animals & Cheese}

May-day at the Wilhelma Zoo & Botanical Gardens, Stuttgart:

On a recent trip to Stuttgart, we spent May-day making our way to one of the few open attractions in the city. There is just something about going to a zoo... especially when you have a partner like my Dutchman who takes as much enjoyment in the sights and sounds as I. We can only imagine what it will be like with little eyes to share all these created wonders with! We plan to go back someday with a picnic blanket and lunch in tow so we can see the whole zoo as well as the gardens. I'll never forget the orangutan's eyes though... the saddest, most patient things you'll ever see. 

Suddeutscher Käsemarkt (South Germany Cheese Market), Gailenkirchen:

We enjoyed this market so much last year, that we decided to go again with some guests to revel again in the sharp smells and flavours of cheese. This year was drizzly but that didn't dampen our time. Because of the prices at the market (its really more of a craftmanship fair) we don't come away with loaded hampers, but one can sample and one can also pay 2,50 for a raclette bread, whose grease running down your chin makes the experience more than satisfactory! Every year, the market is held at the local Freilandmuseum, a land museum that takes people back to Germany's 1500's with its original buildings and furniture. Not only does the market sell cheeses but also wines, fresh produce, ice creams and food vendors as well as plants. I came away with strawberry mint, fruit mint and my one and only tomato plant. We wound up our muddy visit with a peek at the local piggies in their pens. Perhaps, we shall return next year and make this a family tradition? At least, Peter would like to attend the Butchery Fair come autumn when those little pigs are grown... 

Raclette bread

The local breed: Hohenlohischer Landschwein 

 

 

In the forge

{Week 26}

Week 26

The weeks just slip by... they like to do that, you know. Everything has been quiet, except for the child within who has really discovered the joys of a schedule. Kicks being around 6 in the morning, accelerating around 9 - 10 am (in German class), only to begin again in the mid-afternoon with some stretches in the early evening and our day usually concludes with a late party at 11 pm. 

We are entering into the third trimester, which is hard to comprehend. Cuddling a baby from church this past Sunday however, helped me begin to grasp the near-reality of motherhood. (Thank you, Baby Richard!) And our desire to see this little wonder of us entwined just grows stronger and stronger...

At a local "cut-your-own-tulips" field this past week

{Eucharisteo: II}

Eucharisteo {Thankfulness} :

~ for husbands who go on business trips and return only to remind one how lovely it is that they are in this world

~ for birds who sing with all the might their little bodies can muster

~ for emptiness that helps us appreciate future full

~ for Asian babies who stare with almond eyes

~ for petals, blowing in spring-time winds

~ for planned adventures and a hand to hold through them

~ for expectations brought low, only to be raised

~ for smiles, the language of the world

~ for the smell of rice on the stove

~ for sweaty soccer shirts and the man that dirtied them

 ~ for dear faces, that can be seen though so far away

~ for reasons to celebrate

~ for dirty dishes, because they can be cleaned

~ for freckles, and what they say about the weather

~ for anticipated, life-filled littleness, waiting to be held

~ and lastly, for the beauty and variety of this Earth and its representation of the Creator

{Week 25}

Week 25

Crumb-catcher

Maternity sewing projects

After long years... a final convert (due more to excellent vitamins than to a fervent appreciation. But it's growing on me...)

Week 25: the best of belly weeks... it was comfortable, workable and becoming. It was also a quiet week, as Baby F. conserved energy during those peaceful days for the growth spurt that signalled the end of week 25 and the temporary end of any grace that I ever thought to possess. *insert "Elephant March" here* (although others, less critical than myself, still assert that there are vestiges of it left)

Now Little is back to bumping and flipping, at times tap-dancing on the right side... his/her side of choice! And the doppler on my belly today reassured us yet again, that within beats the most beautiful little heart that ever was.

Events of the Week:

~ first at-home check up from Birgit the Midwife
~ a visit from the Dutch grandparents
~ toes that are no longer visible
~ the beginning of German class & hopefully Baby's osmosis thereof
~ the end of coat-buttoning (with blouses being a long-gone
impossibility!)
~ Baby's first (albeit prenatal) museum visit 

{Remembering: Dachau}

April 29, 1945: American forces liberate the prisoners of Dachau Concentration Camp, Dachau, Germany. Among other monstrosities, 30 boxcars filled with decomposing dead. Remember.

The horror of what they found led American GI's to blindly kill 122 German soldiers and guards out of anger and guilt for the atrocities in front of them. Remember.

American soldiers forced the German townspeople and suspected Hitler youth into the camps to see what had happened in their backyards. In some towns, U.S. forces even had the locals rebury the dead in individual graves. Remember.

Liberation day

Dachau, made for approximately 5,000 prisoners, held 67,665 as the end of the war drew near. Remember.

Dachau was in operation for 10 years. Remember.

Dachau held political prisoners of war, Romas, "asocials", Jehohvah's Witnesses, homosexuals and later, Jews. Remember.

Propaganda was so thick and evil, that high officials of Germany and even international media ingested it, making Dachau out to be a dream facility of swimming pools, daily exercise and hygiene, and the teaching of craftsmanship in different trades. Remember.

Not only was Dachau a work camp, but it eventually had its own gas chamber and crematorium for the sick and weak. Prisoners were told of showers and met eternity. Prisoners were hung in front of the cremation fires and disposed of. Those left behind had to see the smoke of the chimney stack. Remember.

Medical experiments were conducted on prisoners to benefit the German troops and hundreds died or were permanently crippled due to their effects. Remember.

The number of the dead will never be known, although 206,206 were incarcerated. Between 1940 and 1945, 28,000 were among the registered dead. Remember.

I write of these things because we don't remember. There are those who say it didn't even happen.

Those who lived through this very hell on earth and those who remember seeing its darkness aren't here any more to remind us of history's reality.  

The reality of: humanity degraded, lives stolen never to be returned, the image in Who they were created ignored and blasphemed, discrimination practiced, and animality placed on those who had real dreams and hopes and plans, souls disregarded.

Yet when we forget, when we choose not to remember or perhaps, don't think to remember, repetition occurs. It is occurring, peoples of the earth, and we sit and ignore it though it is in our own backyards. 

I could have posted graphic pictures, images that rend the heart in two to think of the reality captured in time. I haven't. Go look for yourself. Remind yourself of what can happen when a government and leadership control supreme and the media dupes populations with agendas, meanwhile thousands upon thousands have the respect, honour, rights and greatest gift of life, stripped from them while we stand in silence.

Yes, remember Dachau. Remember its prisoners and dead. Remember the American forces who, through determination, blood and sweat, opened the gates on that day 68 years ago, giving hope to survivors. Remember the other Allied Forces who helped make the liberation a reality. 

Remind your children. Let them remind their own children. 

And never let this taint your views of the country that holds these camps and the people who lived in their shadows, whose government perpetrated this great evil. In so doing, you judge yourself as even now, your own governments silently head in the same direction and you stand silent.

"Work makes you free"

Room of interrogation

Political prisoner cell

"Home Sweet Home" inscribed by prisoner

Dachau bunks

A face to remember

The "shower room" (gas chamber)

Dachau's alley

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it - George Santayana

Spring comes even to the darkest of places

I believe in the sun
even when it is not shining
And I believe in love,
even when there's no one there.
And I believe in God,
even when he is silent.

- excerpt from poem written in a concentration camp, author unknown