Day 3

I made it back last night just fine. No wolves. I did run into somebody in the forest, though, and it nearly made me pee my pants. I walked into town to see what was going on since nothing was happening in the castle. It seems as if there is nobody living in Herrnhut, or maybe it’s just that the whole town shuts down when it gets dark, which is around 4 pm. I did find a little penny market (kind of like a convenience store), and I got myself some necessities I had been lacking: body wash and a bar of chocolate. I decided not to venture too far into the dark neighborhoods because I was afraid my toes were going to freeze off if I got lost, so I made my way home.

This morning I woke up after adjusting my alarm to go off a little later. I wasn’t going to make the mistake of getting up too early again and having nothing to do. I also wasn’t going to make the mistake of showering at the wrong time, so I may be a little smelly today. Oh well. Speaking of smelly, I got to help out around the base today. I was heading into the café to do a little more of nothing when a girl stopped me and asked if I wanted to help do something outside in the cold. I figured it was better than doing nothing, so I went with her without asking what it was I would be doing. She brought me to the little building outside of the castle and we went inside to what is referred to as the “coal room”. It was a room filled with firewood, coal, cardboard boxes, garbage bags filled with ashes, and old bunny cages filled with nasty hay and lots of poop. She told me that I could help her out by dumping the ashes into the bio-waste containers on the other side of the castle, sorting the cardboard boxes and taking them to the deposit place, and cleaning up the hay that was strewn throughout the room along with the poop pellets. The work was great. At the end, my snot was black, and my mouth was filled with remnants of ash, hay, and I think a little bunny poop. I may or may not have the black lung now, but I was happy to finally help the base. I’ve had a place to stay and free food without actually doing anything in return, so this helped me feel a little better. After the clean-up job, we had lunch without a lot of the new DTS students who are arriving. There are 42 of them in all, but only about half are here so far. The school starts tomorrow, so they are all coming soon. I am just blending in with them as one of the new people. Since that was my only job for the day, I am left again with not much to do.

Tonight was supposed to be the first night of activity because so many DTS students had arrived. I was invited to go watch Avatar with some of the students. We went out to dinner first at a Turkish restaurant. I sat down by one of the staff of the DTS who I found out recently came over from YWAM Afghanistan. It just so happens that she was in a city that I am reading about right now in a book by Greg Mortenson called “Stones into Schools”. It’s a book about building schools and relationships with people in Afghanistan and Pakistan for kids in those countries. He talks a lot about achieving peace through education; books not bombs. I shared my dreams about someday spending part of my life there while she told me all about the base where she lived. It was great because I got to talk about something I love with somebody else who loves the same thing, and I simply just got to talk. I don’t spend much time talking around here because everybody is so busy, and there are so many people. All day, people are moving from room to room, and new people are arriving and old people are going. It’s crazy how much activity there is, but I am very seldom involved in anything. I don’t want to infringe on the new DTS students’ arrivals, so I try to stay out of their way. That’s why dinner was good. I finally got to hang out with people and talk to them about our passions. I didn’t go watch the movie with them, though, because I felt like I was intruding on their first night here at YWAM Herrnhut. So here I am, back in the castle. It’s quiet because all of the staff are gone, and the students are still in town. I’m planning on going to bed pretty soon. Sleeping is what I do at night when I finally have no other options, and it usually happens around 9 pm. So, until tomorrow, I will write again. Feel free to write me too. Let me know how you are doing. I’d love to hear. Guten Nacht meine Freunde.