This week I put an end to one particular aspect of my
Berlin life when I took my last session at the language exchange. I’ve loved doing these sessions ever since I
hosted my first one almost a year ago and I’ll always be grateful to Darren for
giving me the opportunity to keep my teaching skills from getting rusty and
enabling me to earn a few extra Euros.
But attendances have been dropping for some time now and I think that the
language exchange’s days are probably numbered.
We first attended a session about three weeks after moving
here, when they were held at the St Gaudy Café.
We’d wanted to meet people and try to improve our terrible German. At the time, the café’s Australian owner (who
also ran the language exchange) was in the process of selling up and returning
to her native country. After her
departure, the sessions were taken over by Darren but the café closed and he
managed to find a new home for us in the Rhino Café on Rhinower Strasse. The Rhino Café is a lovely, friendly venue whose owner, despite
closing up at seven in the evening, agreed to keep the café open late on
Wednesdays just for us. It’s a cosy
environment in the winter and on warm evenings we conduct our sessions al
fresco around the pavement tables to the bewilderment of locals and passers-by,
especially if they happen to come by during the ‘performance’ part of the
evening.
But the St Gaudy, having been owned by an English-speaking
ex-pat, always attracted a sizeable English crowd and since the move it’s been
ever more difficult to do this with the result that most weeks the groups
contain roughly one English speaker to four or five Germans. Darren’s promotion of the event on ex-pat
forums brings newcomers but they hardly ever return. Since before Christmas there have been fewer
and fewer people of any nationality attending.
There is a ‘hard core’ of regulars who seem to operate on a
squad-rotation system; we never know who’s going to attend from one week to the
next. Sometimes someone will disappear
for weeks, or even months, and then turn up again as though they’d never been
away. I like this casual, haphazard
approach although it means that it’s difficult to plan activities with the
participants in advance. It’s a very close-knit group but not at all cliquey and newcomers
are welcomed with genuine warmth. When I
began taking sessions I received a lot of support and I’ve made some great
friends. My new tandem partner Heidi is
one example, as is Lars, whose brain is an encyclopaedia of music. There is nothing Lars hasn’t heard of; he can
name the producer of just about every album ever recorded, can say who wrote
which songs, who stood in for the regular drummer on the third track or guested
on keyboards on the album’s final track.
Franzi, the bubbliest person I’ve ever met, is also a music lover but,
apart from a penchant for soul music and a fixation with the Beatles and the
Stones, she prefers classical concerts. Franzi’s
other mania is for fashion, particularly unusual footwear and bright lipstick
and her infectious good humour is a wonder to behold. There are other friends too, Germans and ex-pats, who we
meet up with regularly for birthday parties or spontaneously-arranged evenings
out. I’m sure we will continue to meet
socially but, I can’t see a future for the event that brought us all together.
In recent weeks Darren has spoken about quitting as he’s
trying to establish a business and no longer has the time for lesson planning. I’d been giving serious thought
to my future participation too and last week I finally told Darren that I
wouldn’t be taking any more sessions. I
suggested that, with so few English-speakers and the low attendances we’ve been
getting lately, it was time to think about winding it up. The lack of customers is not helpful to the
Rhino Café’s turnover either and it can only be a matter of time before the
Wednesday evening late-opener becomes unprofitable.
I shall still attend as a participant but I have a feeling that sooner or later we’ll be having a farewell
party there…
No comments:
Post a Comment