As I’ve mentioned before, I live by the Onkel-Toms-Hütte (literally Uncle Tom's Cabin) subway stop and on Onkel Tom Straße (Street). According to Wikipedia, some guy named Thomas set up a bar in the area in 1885. He put in a number of huts in the beer garden, which became known as "Tom's huts." The name reminded people of the book, and later a movie theater and street were named the same thing. The bar was eventually demolished in the 70's, leaving the namesake to the street and U-Bahn station. Southwest of the city center, it’s a quiet suburb that is substantially different from many of the more happening places in Berlin. We have a few grocery stores, a bakery, two haircut places, and not enough restaurants.
The apartment, like the generic image of cabins I hold in my mind, is quite small. I often find myself negotiating tight turns, stepping over bed corners, and squeezing through doors that don’t open all the way because something is stored on the other side. Most of the tables fold up, and household items seem to fit like jigsaw puzzles on precious horizontal surfaces. Because of such limited spaces, things constantly get moved from one surface to another when a surface is called upon for the activity of the moment.
And I like it.
More than a house that holds your possessions and keeps out the uncomfortable elements, it’s the kind of home that lives and co-exists with you. Frau Scholz-Stahnke’s free flowing water colors cover the walls, jagged pink crystal-like rocks line the top of the living room’s main shelf, and candles of various shapes and sizes litter the house. Books, magazines, and newspapers are everywhere but never seem to remain in the same place. In her kitchen, she has honey from an Argentina beekeeper and jam from South Africa—things that she’s been all too eager to share with me.
Most of all, Frau Scholz-Stahnke is basically the best host mom I could have asked for. Some of my friends have never had a single extended conversation with their host families, and I’m pretty glad that I’ve had the opportunity to get to know mine. Frau Scholz-Stahnke was a teacher for 30 years, like my own grandmother, and her passion for learning is evident in all the books that fill the room I stay in—literature, science, alternative medicine, education, architecture, languages, and too many other titles in German that I can’t decipher. She’s down with an informed political discussion, attends seminars held at local universities, and tells me she’s working on yet another new language.
Even more telling is her attitude towards the future. She’s a grandmother who embraces the rapidly changing world. She once told me that she wants put to her all her “informations” on her laptop, so one day she can go without paper. She Skypes with her daughter in Sevilla regularly, uses email, and is a frequent Internet surfer. Read that again. She’s 65. How many grandmothers do you know who talk about living a paperless life?
She’s probably also fed me more food than any of the other host parents. Just now, she brought me a tray of Salbei tea, miso soup, her homemade cake, and a glass of red wine. She’s always offering me her homemade bread. There is also a brand new, unabridged dictionary-sized, vegetarian cookbook in her kitchen. I’m pretty sure she bought it in preparation of my living here.
When I got sick this past week, she blitzkrieged my cold with two kinds of Vitamin C tablets, gallons of tea with honey, homeopathic drops, warm lemon juice, salt water, soup, blankets, jackets, and socks.
Oh yeah, did I mention that all the host is required to do is provide a room and a place for me to cook? Yeah, Frau Scholz-Stahnke’s cabin pretty much rocks.
No comments:
Post a Comment