Volkspark Hasenheide

Running in Volkspark Hasenheide. It is another beautiful and sunny day. We ran for twenty minutes in the park. Little schoolchildren are taken into the park to play, they run just far enough after each other, not to flee from underneath the protective wings of the school-mistress. They must barely be six years old, their faces turn insecure only a few meters away from the teacher. She has an easy job today, she rests in the sun, if something is wrong, the toddlers run up to her and find comfort in an attentive ear. Every now and then, we pass a group of runners or single runner, an old man fills out the puzzle in the newspaper on a wooden bench, already at 11.00 am a beerbottle next to his lap. If a man drinking beer any time during the day, any place in the city, makes you feel uncomfortable, don’t go to Berlin. Drinking beer seems like drinking coffee in the US. At 10.00 am the first tables at the local bar’s terrace are occupied by men in their fifies or sixties, unemployed, pensioneered or off duty, drinking the Berliner Pilsner from the bottle.

In the park also the individual African hangs around. It is odd to observe in a way, giving that you don’t see many Africans in Berlin on the street. Maybe they try to forget home, the vastness and green of Nigeria, maybe they make a living hustling in the park. They seem to think, perhaps long or regret, sitting on the grass, or on a bench along the paths.

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