Erfahrungsberichte
My new home
“Are you serious?“ was the comment we heard the most from our friends and neighbors when we broke the news of our upcoming move from Feudenheim East to Neckarstadt West. More than a quarter of a century Wolfgang and me had been living with our three kids in a single family house in Feudenheim, a quiet suburb with a clear middle class structure – many doctors, psychologists, lawyers and teachers lived there. The front gardens were neatly trimmed, there was a lot of of green (also politically spoken), the atmosphere was friendly, and we liked it there and felt welcome.
Then our landlord needed the house for himself and terminated the lease. Financial restraints (me retiring this summer and two kids still at university) led us to looking for a lower priced apartment in a different part of our city – that's how it came to us now living in Neckarstadt West since six weeks, a suburb that couldn't be more different to Feudenheim. Our three-and-a-half room apartment lies in an area that is closely situated to the city center and mainly consists of multi-story dwellings built a hundred years ago, and many of its inhabitants have a foreign background. The move was undertaken by a professional company which used an exterior elevator to lift our belongings up to our third-floor apartment. Among the on-lookers viewing this unusual spectacle were two boys, Issa and Amir, 11 and 8 years old, which were especially fascinated by one worker lifting himself up in the platform to our apartment for lunch. When the boys called for her mom so she could also see this, I met Maria for the first time. She is from Bosnia, and her husband from Lebanon. Maria is stoutly built and has an infectious laugh, and seems to be the good spirit of the house. She quickly explained that each floor was itself responsible for the cleaning up. “Mr Fischer (the man who moved into the small first floor apartment last year) first didn't want to clean up. But then I personally showed him how to do it, and now there are no problems any more”, she laughs. Maria immediately wants to introduce me to her neighbor Jenny, who turns out to be a Romanian-German lady in her seventies, whom I call Mrs Bamberger despite her friendly invitation to a cup of coffee.
I then helped my husband to unload some boxes with books from the transporter. I had just taken one from him and wanted to carry it up into the third floor when a petite dark-haired woman approached me. I put down the box and introduced myself as the new neighbor, contemplating if my full double name would overburden her. That wouldn't have been necessary: “Kristina, this is too much weight for you! I'll take one flight of stairs, and you'll take the next”, she announced resolutely and took the box despite my protests. That was my first meeting with 47-year-old Sofia from Belgrad. She moved into the house 22 years ago with her husband, from whom she is now divorced and who has moved out. But her adult son, lovingly called “Bobo”, still lives downstairs from her and is apparently still being cared for. “Uncle Vukotic”, a brother-in-law of Sofia, lives next door. When Bobo shows up shortly afterwards, he is instructed to help with the moving as well and is quick to do so. “You know, in this house, we all help each other out if there's work to be done”, Sofia declares with conviction.
When Wolfgang and me make our introduction round throughout the house with flowers for everyone, we meet the other neighbors: the students Luca from Italy and Gilan from Africa, Mrs Onno, a spry old retired lady with an unremarkable partner, and Mrs Katschmarek with her 15-year-old daughter. But although all neighbors are really nice and outward-going, I connect the feeling of homeliness here mainly with Sofia and Maria, the Serb and the Bosnian.
My love for Sofia, however, does not go unbroken: unfortunately she has a rather horrible weakness for kitsch that almost hurts. The decoration in the stairwell and the windows is mainly extremely colorful pottery and innumerable little pots and plants, and next to her door a bright green frog king cranes his neck. On the other side of the door, directly next to ours, she has installed six large fake plants, which are carefully wiped once a week. A few days later, when I discovered a rack with a dozen tiny cactuses, I decided that I had to defend myself. But only ten minutes later Sofia rang my doorbell, holding two still warm apricot cakes in her hand: “Kristina! I tried out a new recipe. You have to tell me how they are.” Well, what am I supposed to do?
A few days ago I met Maria smoking in the backyard. She apologized: “Sorry, I haven't smoked in such a long time, but Issa (one of the boys) is having trouble in school and might have to visit the Hauptschule (the lowest of the three German secondary school types). I am really troubled by this.” I decided to have a quiet chat with Issa to find out if I might be able to help him.
After Maria had finished smoking she carefully put the ashes away and then grabbed a nereby broom to clean up the wet leaves of the chestnut tree: “I'll clean up now, so that we'll have a nice backyard in the summer”, she said. Then she pointed to a bunch of chairs and tables in the corner of the yard, adding: Then we can all sit together and have barbecues and have a lot of fun”.
Now I'm looking forward to the summer.
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