Marlene Faul, Senior Student, Ulm

Even when I was a young girl, I was severely interested in foreign countries and people. As soon as 1953, when I was 16 years old, I travelled to Italy with a friend of mine. I continued travelling trough out my whole life, today I am 72. The most journeys, however, took me to “western” destinations and now that the iron curtain does not exist anymore, I want to discover the eastern countries! In the work group “Europakontakte” (=European Contacts) and the Learning Partnership Danube-Networkers, I have found like-minded friends with whom I have started my discoveries. Together with them, I have made many encounters with people from eastern countries here in Ulm and also payed return visits to those countries. It is especially important to me, to get to know the way the people live and think today, after they had to endure so much in the last decades. What have they achieved, how and under which conditions have they pursued science and research?

Also, I wanted to learn more about the different cultures. Since Ulm is situated at the Danube, which flows through 10 different countries until it reaches the Black Sea, and there had been travel and merchandise on the Danube from the 16^th century onwards, I had already known something about cultural diversity. However, a clear picture can only form when one hears about a culture from its people. In this context, we had invited seniors from other Danube countries to the international Danube Festival in Ulm. They came, for example, from Romania, Hungary, Moldavia, Bulgaria, Serbia and Austria and stayed with us in our private homes. I was hosting two women from Bulgaria and was excited to learn new things from them. Unfortunately, we did not speak English too well, which complicated our living together. Using simple sign language, I tried to find out if everything was alright, if they had slept well and so on. Again and again, both of them shook their heads and I became growingly desperate; I had tried my best to make their stay as comfortable as possible, had provided drinks, fruit, sweets and cosmetics. But after some days, a Bulgarian interpreter informed me, that shaking of the head means “yes“ in Bulgaria and nodding means “no“. How that made us laugh…!

But even without speaking the same language, we spent wonderful days together. We sang –without understanding the words-, we danced, we laughed and simply felt the joy of making new friends. My curiosity is constantly growing and I hope that I will be able to visit my two ladies some day. Of course, there had also been other inspiring encounters and conversations during the Danube festival and I hope to make such an experience again! All this is, however, only possible through our work group which provides the contact with the seniors from other countries. One person alone could never make so many inspiring contacts on one’s own. There are so many interesting scientists and authors from the East of Europe and through my time with the Danube-Networkers I have started to discover them more and more. But apart from all determination and interest in foreign cultures, these experiences have also shown me, how important language is in intercultural understanding.