Why I Think of Myself as Lucky
Learning to Live in My World
I like to think of myself as lucky. Not because growing up in a village near the Thuringian Forest in former Eastern Germany was easy or because I always got what I wanted. But because of how my experience of the world expanded beyond my imagination.
The Small World
When I was little, our toilet was outside — no flush, just a toilet seat with a yellow seat above a hole in a one-square meter shed with spiderwebs in the corners in front of me, at eye level. At night, we would use a red plastic bucket hidden behind a blue-white chequered curtain under the square water sink with only one cold water tap, the only one in our flat.
In winter, my mother fired the oven with coals. I knew how to do that by the time I was ten. My room didn’t have heating. A hot water bottle, a big feather duvet, and extra woollen blankets would keep me warm through the cold night, after which I woke up to a display of ice flowers on the window.
Twice a year, our relatives sent us parcels from Western Germany. My brother and I were more excited to unpack all the colourful sweets than Santa’s presents under the Christmas tree.
Back then, I imagined lots of things: visiting the pyramids in Egypt, wandering through bright streets in the…
