Week One in Berlin

Our life in Berlin is going smoothly. We still have a lot of paperwork to deal with, but we are doing a good job of keeping on top of it all. And by "we" I mean "Erik" because my German is terrible. Especially my bureaucratic German. Vigo's life has been filled mostly with school this week. He managed to dodge the jet-lag bullet for the most part and made it to school at 8:30 am our second day in the country (8:30 am here is 2:30 am in Boston).

On our first day in town, Tuesday, Vigo wanted to go and visit his new school. He understandably was a little anxious to see the place where he's going to be spending most of his time. We showed up at a good time. All the kids were out in the yard, playing. The yard has several trees in it, all of which are open for climbing. One tree has a rope ladder and a tire swing hanging off it. There's also a cool playroom made of twigs, the classic favorite Pile O'Dirt, a bunch of boulders (one of which is shaped like a giant toad), a sandbox, and various ropes, straps, pieces of wood, and some old wheels some kids have built a cart onto. After about five minutes of hiding behind my legs, the teacher pointed out some older boys up a tree and Vigo ran off to join them. We let him stay about 10 minutes up the tree and then went home when the kids all went back into the classroom.

One of the best things about this school is that they spend a lot of time outside. All of the kids have recess three times a day. The playtime is considered as much a part of the learning as the classroom time. The children invent all kinds of elaborate scenarios and games together outside, without being directed by the teachers. Last year, we were told, the first graders started a little shop in the sand pile, selling and bartering stuff they found in the playground. At first the older kids managed to pretty much cheat the younger kids out of their good stuff, but quickly the youngsters got wise and began to run a harder bargain.

My favorite thing about the school is that there seems to be no homework. As I understand it, they believe that there should be a clear separation between school and home. Parents don't come in the classroom (parents are all over the school doing various work tasks--we all have to give six hours a month to the school, but not inside the classroom), and the classroom doesn't come home. Tuesday evening, Erik went to the parent information night and I stayed home to put Vigo to bed at the right time. He fell asleep on the couch reading a book at about 7:30.

Our second day in town was Vigo's first day of school. We got him there almost on time, at 8:30. We picked him up at 4:00 and he said to Erik, "you know, I think I'm already kind of used to this school." At home he complained that he was the only one in his whole school who doesn't understand German and after dinner he and I sat down with a picture dictionary and learned some words around the house. His favorite word was das Fenster (the window). Vigo told me that he thinks the school day is too short and asked if we could go earlier.

On our third day, we got to school on time for real. I put in a few hours making photocopies and binding booklets in the office while Erik went to do some administrative stuff. I saw Vigo in the hallway a couple times. I spoke to his Principle, who told me that Vigo was frustrated during the German part of the day because he doesn't understand German yet. The Principal asked me to try to help Vigo to not be so hard on himself. After all, he is not the only kid in school who doesn't speak German. I asked the Prinicipal to maybe introduce Vigo specifically to the other kids who don't speak German because one thing Vigo had told me the day before was that he was the only one who didn't understand everything. I also volunteered to fill a little gap in the morning daycare between 8:10 and 8:20 every day. This way Vigo can have his wish of coming to school a bit earlier.

Erik had mentioned that he was worried that we might be perceived as overly-commercial Americans because Vigo has Disney co-branded Crocs and a Star Wars Backpack. I figured that might be true, but didn't really care too much. When I picked Vigo up after school that day, I grabbed his bag and went looking for him in the school yard. He was up a tree again. While I was standing under the tree waiting for him to come down, Oliver said to me, in the cutest little-kid English accent ever, obviously very impressed, "Is that a Stah Wahs backpack?" He came over to get a closer look at the marvelous shiny Darth-Vader zip pocket and started a little conversation with me about his favorite characters.

Vigo, like us, is very interested in having the right things and doing things the right way at school. I sent a pencil box we had to school, trying to be frugal, and that evening Vigo explained to me that it was not an acceptable pencil box for German school. The German school pencil box zips open and has individual elastic loops to hold about 20 pencils and markers, a ruler, an eraser, and a pencil sharpener. We went to a to a tiny store with about twice the inventory of a Micheal's stuffed into it and it took Vigo 20 minutes to choose the right pencil box for himself.

On our fourth day, Friday, Vigo and I left home at 7:30 in the morning so we could have a nice, leisurely walk through the park to school. When we got there at 8, he went to the big kids room and I went in the little kids room, to greet the first graders as they arrive. The kids are adorable. When there were only three kids in the room I made an error in judgement of getting into exchanging paper-airplane-folding techniques with one little boy. Unfortunately, eight more kids arrived who were also very interested in folding paper airplanes. The folding part is a very nice, focused, calm activity. I even got the kids to decorate their planes. Unfortunately, I left just as the test flights began, leaving the daycare teacher with a chaotic situation on his hands. I apologized lamely on my way out the door.

We had been told that on Fridays we should arrive at 3:45 rather than 4:00, so that Vigo could show us his work for the week, in the classroom. This is pretty much the only time parents are allowed inside the classroom. Erik and I are even more eager than Vigo is to do everything right at the new school, so we rushed our grocery shopping to get to school in time. When we got there, all of the kids were outside. We spotted Vigo sitting around a tree stump with three little girls, pulverizing smaller rocks with larger ones. I went toward him and the first thing I said when he looked at me and I saw his face transform from happiness to crestfallenness was "You don't have to leave yet."

This being the first week of school, the teachers weren't organized for the weekly work-showing, so Erik and I waited outside until 4:00. After dinner we played a game where Erik and I wrote German nouns on cute little tags I had leftover from some project a long time ago. These are white paper tags with a loop of string attached. Vigo took the tags and strung or taped them on the objects they correspond to around the house.

When we got home, I said to Vigo, "I see you made some friends at school."
"No," he replied.
"But what about those girls you were playing with? Lioni and her sister?"
"Those aren't friends. I only was playing with them."
"Sure," I said, "Of course. It takes more than that to be a friend. What do you
think it takes to make a friend?"
Vigo thought for a minute and he replied, "About three days, I think."

The school is so far really great. Vigo's favorite class is pottery. In fact, he has discovered a real passion for clay and we got him a 6-Euro block of clay from the art supply store so that he can design and build a scale model of his future bedroom. Swimming lessons are a regular part of the curriculum, too. These begin on Monday. Another interesting detail about the school is that the kids are all
supposed to have slippers to wear inside the school. Many of the kids have Crocs for inside and tennis shoes for outside. We have to get Vigo his indoor shoes or slippers this weekend.

Saturday, our friend Christophe came to visit from Paris. Erik's sister Iris, her husband Dan, and her cousin Ingo all came over to (sort of) celebrate Erik's birthday. We went out for Thai food and had a good time. I brought Vigo home to go to bed at about 10 and everyone else went out in the rain.

Today, Sunday, we went to a cultural center built inside and old factory. They were having family day. We bought Vigo a mountain bike at a yard sale there. Erik and Vigo are at an adventure playground now, probably playing with fire. So far, after one week, we all like Berlin a lot.