“Have You Had a Shooter in Your School Yet?”

“Hallo?” “Hannah... You must get up now.” I woke up to my host partner, Nadine, staring at me as if I were an alien lifeform. Only hours prior, I had been nervously stepping onto a Delta flight, and realizing to my horror that I was being seated between two obnoxiously loud French women and my German teacher- for twelve hours. After a torturous flight, an ominous pit of doom began to form inside me as I knew we would soon meet our host families. We staggered out of baggage claim and I recognized my host family, the Weilers, immediately from photos. After exchanging half-hearted hugs, the eleven Americans were shuffled our separate ways into our host families’ vehicles. I then experienced an awkward car ride more uncomfortable than I could’ve ever imagined. Seriously, I thought the twelve hour flight was long.... They were speaking German very fast and I was very tired and understood absolutely none of it. At this point I was having some serious reservations about going on this trip.

View of our city from mountain

As we pulled up to the tall house that would be my house for the next few weeks, I began to notice all of the subtle differences: the speed limit signs were round, the door handles were very strange-looking, and there were so many roundabouts. Upon entering my host family’s house, I was shuffled up 4 flights of stairs to my oven-like bedroom. There, I was left alone to unpack, and almost immediately knocked myself out by running straight into the much-too-low slanted ceiling. Falling over onto my bed with terry cloth sheets in a fit of tears and worry, I fell asleep.

Now, here I am being awoken by my host partner who has been here gawking at me, waiting in my room for who-knows-how-long for me to get up. “Hannah...wake up please...we have to get ready for school...” I glance over at the clock next to me on the nightstand. 5:00 A.M. You have got to be freaking kidding me. There had to be some sort of time-zone mistake. I wait for her to say, “Haha silly American, I am only joking- go back to sleep,” but she did not. So I got up, and begrudgingly began to dress myself.

After eating a quiet breakfast while my host father desperately tried to make small talk and my host mother attempted to fatten me up like Hansel and Gretel, I realized why we were up so early. Getting to school was an adventure. What usually takes  two minutes for me, took my host partner more than an hour. We had to walk a 1/2 mile (that turned into a jog when we realized how late we were) ride a train, and take two different buses.

We finally arrived at school about 7:30. Nadine drug me through a set of doors, across a courtyard, and down a flight of stairs, and I noticed many pairs of eyes watching me. We entered a stark white room with triangle windows, and I immediately sensed that something was very wrong. D.J. Chatelaine and Collin Bruns (tall fellow Americans, a year older than me) are sitting on tables in the corner while their host partners frantically talk to mine. Why were they the only ones here? We can’t be that early. “Uhmm... you see... we were not supposed to bring you with to school today... your teacher is not here. Hold on.” The three German students exit the room leaving Collin, D.J., and I to stare uncomfortably at each other. We don’t know each other well, and end up making small talk about meeting our host families and arguing over whose host mother has tried to feed them the most food. Our host partners return to the room and whisk us away in three different directions.

Nadine and I quickly make our way up a flight of green stairs and down a cubby-lined hallway to a pale yellow classroom. We are late, so she apologizes to the teacher, introduces me, and we sit down in the back. The teacher, who looks very bird-like, begins writing on the blackboard, and I realize we are in math class. Looking around the room, I see 32 pairs of eyes looking back at me. All girls, except for one scrawny boy, and the teacher. The realization that I will have to spend this day without talking to any of the Americans begins to sink in and I begin to worry.

After a while, the bell chimes, and the teacher exits the room. Suddenly seven or more girls get up and start talking to me very fast. I do my best to understand and to answer them in German. They quickly say things like, “You’re American right?” “Are you staying with Nadine?” “Can you say blah blah blah...?” “Haha your accent is so funny!”  We begin to go back down the flight of green stairs in the midst of a frenzy of questions heading towards to large courtyard. Across the courtyard, I make eye contact with D.J. and Collin who are also being bombarded with questions. I guess that we are in the middle of what is called the “der Pause” a daily school wide shutdown. Girls standing around me begin pulling out pretzels and cheese sandwiches and I remember I have food in my bag from my host mom, and I begin nibbling on it, so I don't have to answer any more questions.

The mob begins heading back up the green stairs, towards the same yellow classroom, and I follow. We enter and sit down in front of a terrifying French teacher, with a glare that seemed to say, “I hate you because you don’t speak French.” It is quite difficult to attempt to translate English words to German words to French words. I begin to stare out the window at the Hohenstaufen Gymnasium’s mossy rooftop garden as Nadine informs me, “Don’t worry, Your teacher is now here.”

After French class is dismissed, Nadine pulls me down a new hallway with many statues, and into another classroom. Never have I been more excited to see Frau Zishka. My emotions begin to pour out into feelings of exhaustion, confusion, and stress. She calms me down and tells me that I will be speaking to a group of eighth grade students. More panic begins to set in. I leave Nadine and go to a classroom with Frau Zishka, and upon entering, I am greeted with more eyes gawking at me. Collin and D.J. are standing there uncomfortably as well, and we are corralled into separate groups of eighth graders.

My friend and I outside of the school

My group of about five students gathered around me and introduced themselves, and  I am immediately shocked by their knowledge of American geography and politics, as I can not even name the German president. They begin firing off questions (luckily this time in English). “Do you agree with Obama’s healthcare plans?” “Do you find Obama attractive?” “Do you remember 9/11?” “Do you have a boyfriend?” “Do you shop at Forever 21?” and most shocking, “Have you had a shooter in your school yet?” I was taken aback. They are only thirteen, I am so concerned about what they must think of America. They press on, asking me if I feel safe at my school, or at shopping malls, and if my family keeps guns in our house. I do, in fact, have guns in my house, but I had a hard time convincing them that was not the norm in America. Do they think we are all just savages running rampant killing each other?

After the class was finished, the English teacher gave Collin, D.J., and I some candy, and we sat down in the hallway together. They tell me that their students were asking similar questions about school shootings and gun violence in America, which made me quite worried about the reputation of the country I was on exchange representing.

Since I had lost Nadine, I follow D.J. and Collin to their music class, which consisted of watching a black and white movie. We were not at all interested in said movie, and were promptly kicked out of class for being a distraction. Sitting like prisoners in the green hallway, it was quickly learned that any question could be easily answered with the phrase, “Ich weiss nicht, ich bin eine Auschtauschschulerin.” (I don’t know, I am an exchange student.) Nadine finds me sitting in the hallway and I am soon being dragged off of the grounds of the school. A red-headed Irish girl and a pale girl with dark hair follow with us. We walk up the hill near the school and stop at a market stand. The dark haired girl asks me, “Have you ever had schnitzel?”  I warily shake my head, as schnitzel sounds like a harrowing name for a food. They order one, and I grasp it, a roll with a huge cut of some sort of fried meat resting inside of it. It tastes much better than the name depicts it. As we eat, we continue walking for twenty minutes or so, before I made the mistake of asking where we are going. My question is greeted with groans. “Today we have sports training.” “Der Sport” as they call it is the equivalent of gym class in the 1980s, and is not my idea of a good time.

As we ran lap after lap around the rust-red track, I couldn't help but think about what the eighth graders had asked me earlier earlier. Why did America have such a violent reputation? I could only count the number of school shootings I had ever heard about on one hand. What were they telling the German students that would make them assume I knew first hand about gun violence?

After a long and stressful day, we returned home after riding a train, two buses, and a 1/2 mile walk up a hill. I tell Nadine that I am tired and I’m going to take a nap before supper. Up in my bedroom, I began to do some reasearch. If while I was in Germany, people are going to ask me questions, I wanted to make sure I am informed on the issue of gun violence. I discover that out of developed countries, the U.S houses the most guns per capita, and also the most gun-related homicides out of every 100,000 deaths. This is not a statistic to be taken lightly.  These facts made me feel ashamed of the country I was representing, but I learned also to be more sceptical of the media, as I knew what the German students thought about America was not fully true. Being ashamed of my lack of world knowledge, I began to more actively read trustworthy world news. Though Owatonna is relatively safe, it reminded me of other places around the country that were not so fortunate; who probably could name loved ones they had lost to gun violence. I became very grateful for the relatively unscathed life I've led, and have pledged to work for peace in the future to help remove America’s violent reputation. No one should be made to feel ashamed of where they come from.

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I wrote this piece about my trip to Germany last year, it was something that really stood out to me. Have you ever had a similar experience?