Unfortunately I didn't bring my camera with me today when I accompanied the girls to school. So these are the pictures I have of the school right now.
Today we arrived on the city bus and walked to the entrance to the school where there was a pile of benches and tables that had been moved from the outdoor eating area and made into a blockade so that you had to walk up onto the dirt off of the pathway. On the other side of the blockade, there was a line of caution tape (red and white diagonal stripes here in Germany, not yellow) strung between the trees on either side of the large walkway. Beyond that was a blow up baby swimming pool full of newspapers and plastic cups and rain from last night's thunderstorm. That was just the beginning.
As I walked Laura through the mayhem, I figured I knew what was going on, but she was completely shocked. Children were running in and out of the main building where the front office is located, carrying cups of water. Through the front doors I could see a car sitting inside, blocking the door to get into the faculty room and front office. Completely surrounding the car and pretty much covering the entire floor of the entry, were plastic cups. Each cup was full of water. Red and white caution tape was across doors, taped in x form across windows, inside of buildings, and strung across walkways. Laura's building, which houses the first, second, and third grades, had been water ballooned. The entire entry floor (which is a tiled lobby of sorts) was covered in broken balloons and sudsy water. After explaining what had happened to Laura and delivering her into the hands of her teacher, where there was only one other first grader to be seen, I headed over towards Lena's classroom.
By this point things had started to escalate outside with the plastic cups of water. The early arrivals who appeared somewhat disgusted by the whole situation had been going back and forth from the main building bringing the cups out and dumping them into the bushes and flower beds. Now children were running around with cups full of water trying to soak their closest friends. I somehow managed to get through the chaos without getting a cupful of water in the face. In Lena's building, the main doors were not being used, as there were desks and chairs stacked up on the stairs inside as well as across the hallways, blocking the way to the classrooms. The children instead were climbing in and out of the windows into the lobby directly in front of their classroom. I didn't see Lena so I headed toward the bus stop wondering if anyone would manage to explain this to her before she got home. I ran into her, walking with one of the girls in her class and their teacher, who looked like she was enjoying the whole thing. I briefly explained about Abistreich, laughed, and went to wait for the bus.
Abistreich. I have never experienced one myself. I've only heard of them and have heard they can be extremely damaging and horrible. I got the feeling that this was going to take a lot of work to clean up (and my understanding is that the work is on the shoulders of those poor souls not yet old enough to be moving on), but it was pretty clever and took a lot of time and planning. The Abitur is the final cumulative report that includes grades from the past couple of years of school as well as final exams, both oral and written in several subjects. After students finish the exams for their Abitur there is a waiting period before they find out the final grades which will help determine where they can apply to university and what subjects they will be qualified to study. They generally have some fun in this time period and one of the traditions that some schools have is the Abistreich. That is what happened last night and we arrived to the result this morning.
No comments:
Post a Comment