The German flag is hanging from the ceiling and pictures of Munich, Berlin and Cologne have me feeling like I’m at home.
There are only two differences. First, I’m in the USA – New Hampshire, to be exact. I’m sitting in the German class and sometimes you can hear people whispering in English, because you’re supposed to speak German during the class. The second difference is that I don’t really feel like I’m in Germany, because I’m surrounded by names like Detlef, Hermann, Heinrich and Else.
My curiosity is too great and I address the boy next to me: “Why did you choose Detlef as your German name?” He looks at me as if this is the most stupid question ever. “In the eighth grade we got a list and I really liked that name,” he says.
I just don’t get it. Maybe the students don’t know that they sound like Germans from the 1950s. I love it, because it’s hilarious. There is also a Miroslav sitting behind me; I don’t know what he is doing in German class, because this is absolutely not a German name.
I’m a German exchange student from Cologne but I don’t live in the Cologne Cathedral. I just want to clear that up, because someone asked me that at school. My friends call me Bahari, but my name is actually Bahar. It doesn’t sound very German, right? My parents are from Persia, so I’m 50/50. Sometimes people make jokes about it and say, “So your personality is 50 percent Nazi and 50 percent terrorist?” I guess it’s supposed to be funny.
What a surprise: I’m a student at Concord High School and it’s NOT like “High School Musical.” I’m disappointed – where are the dancing and singing people? It still reminds me of a typical high school movie, though: the lockers, hallway passes, homecoming and the seating plan at the cafeteria. Yes, there is a seating plan: Seniors and juniors sit in a higher area separated from the others.
German class is great. The people, the decorations, the teacher, everything. A memorable situation was that someone asked me if we have fairs in Germany and I searched the entire vocabulary in my brain for this word. Fairs. Maybe they meant fairies? No! Why would someone ask if we have fairies in Germany? I mean, I’ve heard some stupid questions, but Germany is not Neverland. But somehow it sounded like something special and so I answered with “no,” and they all were happy to enrich my life at the Hopkinton State Fair. I did enjoy it, but I need to clarify something: We do have fairs in Germany!
Not everything is positive: My shoes are in my locker and I can’t open it. I really don’t understand this whole “you-have-to-turn-it-around-three-times-and-blah-blah.” It’s too complicated for me. My shoes are stuck in the locker and I have already asked so many people to open it; I think almost everyone at Concord High knows my code now. I should probably ask someone at the end of the year or earlier to help me figure it out, because these are Lacoste shoes. My super-expensive Lacoste shoes, which I bought just for my exchange year, are stuck in the locker.
At least everybody is telling me how good my English is. I don’t know if they are just being polite or if they’re serious, but it’s a good feeling. In Germany you have to take English until the grade 13 (yes, we have 13 grades), but you can learn it on different levels in your last two years of school.
I love English. The love story began in the fifth grade, when Debbie Diamond was born. I guess our list of English names was pretty odd, too. People here always laugh when I tell them about my English name. They say the name Debbie Diamond reminds them of a stripper. And to think everyone in Germany told me that Americans are prudish.
There are other prejudices about the U.S. The most common is the assumption that all Americans are fat – that you have breakfast, lunch and dinner at McDonalds every day. And as we watched “Super-Size Me” in my class in Germany, this prejudice grew. But I have to disagree with that now; it’s not like that at all.
Two months are already over and the next eight months will be interesting, instructive, exciting, amazing and unique.
(Bahar Mahzari is a German exhange student spending a year at Concord High. She hails from Cologne.)
