So why do these people put their stuff with my stuff? Is it about disguising what they're eating and using? I know they're American, because I can see soda cans in there and German soda comes in bottles. We happen to live near two American families who could be the culprits... but actually, after the last time when they put out the bag of underwear and old clothes that the recycling guys obviously didn't take, they did come take it back and I think I saw it along with all the other crap the people on the corner have along the side of their house. I am grateful that the garbage guys did not leave me a shamenote regarding the contents of "my" yellow bags ("Gelbe Sack" is what the cool kids say). I actually saw one on a bag at someone else's house once. Shudder!
The Mystery of the Invisible Animals: We live very close to a big old barn and small pasture. It's not quite kittycorner, since houses are built randomly and not according to a grid, but it's safe to say this barn is "off to the left" about 100 yards. There are a lot of barns in the village-- having a barn in your yard is pretty much the pre-1900 equivalent of having a garage in Höheinöd, and since most of the houses are plenty old that's obviously a lot of barns. Very few of them actually have animals in them, though, and the one near us appears to be abandoned altogether. Off the top of my head, I can only think of two that have a couple of horses and there's one sheep. The villages in this area are surrounded by hills, forests, meadows, and farm fields (pretty much in that order). Farmers appear to live in the villages and then drive their tractors out to the fields every day-- what they're keeping in the barns is often farm equipment. I can't tell what they're growing, because it usually just looks like nicely tended grass to me-- but I'm a city kid, you know.
The gist of this is the "no animals" thing, because frequently I see these old German dudes driving their little tractors around the village with big trailers of manure behind them. Where is this manure coming from? Why are they driving it through the village? How is it possible that almost every day the entire village smells like poo? WHO IS POOPING?
Here's the second weird part about what I have to assume are Germany's Invisible Pooping Animals: These people eat pork for breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert, and probably bedtime snacks. The pork I've bought here always says it's a product of Deutschland. I have yet to see a pig in Germany. How is it possible that Germans are each eating what has to be the equivalent of thirty whole pig carcasses a year and there are no pig farmers? The only farm animals I have seen appear to be like pets, or lawn control or something. You'll see two cows in a random hillside pasture, or a couple of goats in someone's yard. Maybe I'm overly optimistic, but they don't really look like food.
The Mystery of the Staring People: One of the first things we noticed when we got here, and one of my most persistent complaints, is the staring. Driving down any road, the people on the sidewalk will stop whatever it is they are doing to stare at you. People having a conversation will stop, turn, and stare until you have passed. Old lady washing her front steps? She's staring. Gramps walking the dog? He's staring. So is his dog. In fact, I drove past a dog laying in the middle of the road one day who stared at me as I slowly drove around him and then he got up and walked away. Kids at the bus stop? Definitely staring, in that way that makes me dislike youth for being too saucy. (Germany appears to be made up of like 90% old people though, which is maybe another mystery altogether.) On a street that Tom has labeled "the projects" there's a whole table of people that never work and are always there, all day, waiting to stop what they're doing under their party canopy to watch me pass. And it's never a friendly stare. It's a stare like they are watching you, examining you for potential rape-face, and memorizing your license plate to share the other villagers on monthly pitchfork-sharpening night.
One semi-entertaining thing about discovering random elements of German culture is the way some of it survives in my own German-heritaged family (and this probably goes for many of my friends too, since I also think of it as part of MN/ND culture). Like the way German meals seem foreign and fun to some people, but to us it just sort of feels like eating at someone's grandma's house. Or when I see the crabby-faced old people glaring at me from their yard and I think of how the surly old Schmidts on my street growing up always glared at me just like that when I'd ride my bike past their house. Even the way my dad will always peer out the window to say "who's that?" when anyone walks down the street before declaring them "hoodlums" evidently has its roots in our German genes. Yet it's obviously different in some way, because I find it very unpleasant and menacing. I'm not saying it's because I look at these old people and think to myself, "your dad was probably a Nazi" or "did West Germany have the secret police too?"... but actually it is.
So, what is to be done about these mysteries? Jacob just read some Encyclopedia Brown books and said that he was good at figuring them out on his own, and I've read tons of mysteries myself. Usually mine are about British murders or Marple types with cats, but there are a number of friendly cats in the village and I think we could make do. Or, as seen on a gate by the bus stop.....
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| I believe this translates to "Detective Club". |
1 comments:
Mystery of the staring people: next time they stare, smile and wave your hand excitedly like you've just seen your long-lost BFF. The look you'll get is priceless.
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