Never Dive into Rivers: How I broke my nose in Germany

I was studying abroad in Germany and I was desperate to be back in a boat. Living in Humboldt County-- aka Six Rivers-- for so many years had spoiled this little whitewater kayaker, and I was feelings pangs of homesickness and a longing for something familiar. Which is why I went in search of a kayaking club and how I got in contact with Friedrich.

Friedrich wrote back to say no outings planned till August, but would I be interested in teaching kayaking? He needed some help with a basic whitewater kayaking course and if I was interested we could meet to discuss. 

I needed a job and I wanted to kayak so I wrote back expressing my interest and we set up a time to meet on the banks of the Neckar-- the swollen brown river moving sluggishly through Heidelberg. A few days later Friedrich showed me around the boat house before dragging out a few misshapen plastic boats. We slipped into the river and played along the eddy lines. After 10 minutes he offered me the job and told me to show up the following Friday. I was surprised. Shocked. Didn't I need to sign some paperwork or liability forms? Friedrich shot me a bemused expression before reminding me that this was Germany, not the U.S. If someone drowned on this Class I river it was their own damn fault. 

Panic set in. I didn't know any of the kayaking vocabulary in Germany. Rushing to the bookstore I found an introductory kayaking book and began memorizing as much vocab as I could. When I met my class for the first time, I was so overcome with nerves that I could barely stammer out my name. But they smiled encouragingly and while I corrected their kayaking technique, they corrected my German. A few weeks passed effortlessly before I decided they were ready to learn how to roll. 

As I stood on the dock illustrating how to perform a kayak roll, my students began to murmur concerns about the temperature of the water. I couldn't believe it. The water was tepid at best. It certainly paled in comparison to the hypothermic conditions of the Pacific Northwest waters. In an effort to convince them that the water was fine, I jumped in. Unfortunately I didn't carefully ease in, being wary of rocks, as I had instructed my students to do. Oh no, I did exactly what I had told them never to do. I dove. 

My hands slammed into the rocks bouncing off and colliding with my face. The force of which spun me around and I scraped along the rocks, cutting deep scrapes into my back and shoulders. Gasping for breath and still in complete shock, I surfaced and launched myself back onto the dock like a seal. My students stood around me in a circle as I struggled to comprehend the extent of the damage. Blood gushed from my nose and beads of blood were forming along the scrapes on my shoulders. 

There were exclamations and questions of concern coming at me from all directions until one student bit his lip and asked "So, is the water cold?" 

Laughing in spite of myself, I told them to get in their boats and warm up. I'd follow in a second, just as soon as the bleeding stopped. Feeling a little like Chuck Norris, I completed the class, trying to ignore the throbbing pain increasing around my nose. As I stowed the last boat in the boat house, a student turned to say good-bye before encouraging me to stop by the hospital. "Your face is really swollen. You look terrible," were her exact words. Germans. Glancing at my watch, I hopped on my bike and pedaled to the hospital, hoping to get in a visit before my university courses that afternoon. 

Parking my bike, I jogged into the hospital where a nurse looked at me expectantly. I explained my situation before being informed that since the doctors were on strike and my situation was obviously not life-threatening, it could be hours before a doctor would be available to examine me. I asked her if she thought it was worth waiting. In true German fashion, she told me that of course it would be good to have an x-ray done, but that since my nose--if it were broken--had broken cleanly, there was really very little that they could do other than give me painkillers and tell me to take it easy for a few days. 

I told her I'd come back and rushed off to class. Over the next few days the swelling subsided and the flesh around my eyes turned marvelous hues of purple before fading to a sickly yellowish color.

While rumors circled around that I had gotten into a bar fight over a World Cup game, I boarded a train headed for the North of Germany to meet some extended family members whom I had never seen. Over coffee and cake that afternoon, I regaled them with the story of how my face had come to be so swollen and well, purple. 

Nodding before taking a sip of coffee, my cousin gestured toward me as he admonished his kids "This is why you should never dive unless you're sure of the depth." They gazed somberly at me before one daughter piped up "But she is a kayaking instructor. She should know that."

Only Homer Simpson could sum up my feelings at that point.

Doh.

Haifisch, Sicherungsdose and other useful German words

It was during World Cup.
Everyone else was wearing flags...

I firmly believe that the key to learning languages is a willingness to make an idiot of yourself.

This has always come quite naturally to me. Making an idiot of myself, I mean. Not learning languages.

When I was in college, I decided to move to Germany for a year to study German. I reasoned that since I was already quite adept at making an idiot of myself in my own language, I had nothing to lose in learning another.

So off to Germany I went.




The first day was a disaster. I couldn't figure out which apartment was mine. Then I couldn't get the door opened. My flatmate heard someone fiddling with the door and answered it.

The conversation (in German) went something like this:

Flatmate: Hello? Can I help you? 

Me: Um. I think here I live? Have key. Door. Can open not. 

My flatmate responded in rapid-fire German-- of which I understood not one word. I smiled and nodded and wondered what I had gotten myself into. I nearly went home right then and there.

She showed me to my room where I proceeded to unpack and catch up on some much needed sleep, but not before blowing a fuse trying to plug my convertor into the wall socket.

The first word I looked up in my dictionary in Germany was "fuse box."

It's "die Sicherungsdose." In case you were wondering.

I'd like to say it got easier after that, but the next few months were simply a series of uncomfortable moments and social blunders. Even as I continued to progress I quickly found myself in that awkward position of understanding what's being said, but being unable to respond without sounding like a five-year old.

I made mistake. After mistake. After mistake.

I said please when I should have said thank you. I used the formal when I should have used the informal. I told a group of German students that I didn't surf very often in Northern California because I was afraid of "big fish that sometimes eat people." When a shopkeeper asked if I was finding everything alright, I told him "no, thank you" with a huge smile because I thought he had asked if I needed help.

I only ordered food that I knew how to say, kept quiet in most social situations, and spent most of my first few months with a pained and confused expression on my face. 

Except for ordering beer. I got that phrase down just fine.

I spent the subsequent months in intensive language courses and German university courses. I found a tandem language partner, and I tried as best as I could to communicate often with my flatmate. 

Which was not easy considering she spent most of her time in her room watching the Simpsons. This baffled me. She didn't have to shut herself in her room to watch dysfunctional Americans. She could have just come out into the kitchen. 

Everyone told me before I left that if I was serious about learning German, I should not associate with the other Americans. If I had adhered to that rule, I would have missed out on meeting some amazing people. I also would have gone insane during the first few months. I'm not saying that I didn't have German friends. Of course I did. But I didn't snub the other Americans either. Sometimes we even spoke German together. Usually when we were drunk.

But, aside from alcohol, what really helped my German was signing up for extracurricular activities. I joined a running club and a kayaking club. I took dance courses and signed up for choir.

And I found a part-time job as a kayaking instructor at the University. This was the best thing I could have done to improve my German. It was also the most terrifying. Once a week I stood in front of a group of German students and taught them how to kayak. In German. 

When I couldn't get my message across (which was often) I resorted to charades. In fact, I was so determined to teach my students the importance of river safety that I personally demonstrated how easy it can be to break your nose while kayaking. I'll spare you the pictures of my swollen face and two black eyes. For now. 

Learning German was a lot of work, and a lot of laughter. Often that laughter was at my expense. But that's okay. Most of the time, I laughed as hard as they did at the creativity my limited vocabulary often inspired. Or my poorly pronounced words. Or my charades. And if they laughed too hard at my expense, I just asked them to pronounce "squirrel" or "square" in English. That usually evened things out a bit. I know. I'm a terrible person. I can't help it. 

After one-year of studying German, I felt easy and at home in my adopted city. I felt like I fit in. Other people must have thought so as well because toward the end of my stay, an American tourist stopped me to ask for directions and--when I responded in English--he commented on how amazing my English was. I told him I had been studying it for 22 years. To which he responded, "Wow, they really start you young here, don't they?" 

Since living in Germany I have had the privilege to live in Switzerland, France and the West Bank. I've studied French and Arabic, and have made just as many mistakes in those languages as I did in German. 

Probably more. 

(Incidentally, the Arabic word for camel is surprisingly similar to the Arabic word for beautiful. Really important to get the difference between those two down. Trust me on this one.)

But learning languages has given me the opportunity to witness the patience, humor and willingness to help that people around the world express. German, French, Swiss, and Palestinians have all smiled encouragingly when I stumbled over their words, corrected me when necessary, and taken the time to converse with me in their language despite the fact that they speak far better English than I speak German, French or Arabic. Learning languages has enabled me to see a side of humanity that is not portrayed often enough, and it's a side I find incredibly inspiring. 

Heidelberg, Germany