My fellow readers,
thank you for taking the time and making the effort to visit this page. You shall not regret it. This is going to be awesome. For you as much as for me.
But where are my manners?! I have yet to introduce myself. My name is Jan and I'm a German volunteer in Paraguay.
I'm sure you have lots of questions. In case you speak German be welcome to visit my other site:
www.janinparaguay.blogspot.com where over 25 witty and interesting articles tell the story of my life among the diverse people of Paraguay. If not, don't worry and just bear with me.
The reason I created this page was because I have a big American family and lots of friends from all over the world who are, as I was told, dying to read something about my life over here. My name is pronounced "Yunn". Most Americans or others never get this straight. I even had people call me "Yawn". No thanks.
Why did I start a blog in the first place?
Well, let me start at the beginning. In the beautiful country some call "Paradise" but others Germany there is a rule. Every potent young chap graduating from high school needs to support his fatherland by ennobling himself and his nation through a certain type of service. Unlike America and other countries in the world, Germany has a nice "feel free to do it unless you never want to have a job" policy. So yeah, the decision wasn't really mine.
It works like this.
The "Kreiswehrersatzamtszustaendige" (the ministry guy in charge of you) sends you a letter asking you to come on by for a nice little physical. This usually occurs when you're 18.
Over there, they subject you to all kinds of tests and hence determine, based on the medical exam, what suitability category you are. There's a total of five possible outcomes. They are called
T 1-5. The "T" stands for "Tauglichkeit" meaning adequacy or suitability.
T1 - recruit has no physical shortcomings and may be used for any job
T2 - recruit has one or more minor physical deficiencies such as decreased eye-sight or small stature (yes, the latter is indeed considered a critical lack. You would be too small for executing certain tasks such as being an official guard at international receptions. The minimum is usually a height of about 6 feet.)
T3 - mentally retarded (this category has, however, been abolished due to its discriminating nature)
T4 - temporarily unable to serve due to e.g. braces or a broken limb; you'll have to come back later
T5 - discharged as unfit due to major physical or mental deficiencies such as asthma, depressions or cancer
Accordingly, all the recruits who want to be real jocks and heroes try to be as close to T1 as possible. Because being unblemished means power and dignity. Right? This is the theory. The reality, my friends, is grossly different. Truth is that almost nobody wants to serve. Most people prefer to commence studies or work right after high school.
Bear in mind, however, that this is scheme only applies to the male population. Yes, you heard me. ALL WOMEN ARE EXEMPT. This may seem unfair at the first glance. Let me tell you something: It is!
It's obviously discriminating against men. Another example for this would be that starting female drivers in Germany pay less for their car insurance because they're allegedly safer drivers. This infuriates most men, including but not limited to the writer of this article.
While I can understand the insurance thing because it's based upon statistics, I have no sympathy whatsoever for the men-only draft. Not being the first to find this a little unnerving, the issue was already brought to court. However, the equivalent of the Supreme Court, God bless it, decided against the repeal of this law.
Why?
Well, you may not like the answer: The Supreme Court overruled the motion stating that women already have to suffer through nine months of agony and the painful act of labor.
Well, male cow excrement is what I thought it was.
Anyways, as I was saying, most people don't like to spend many months in the service of their
terra patriae. The act of getting discharged has literally turned in to an art and not few books about this very topic have been published already.
One common trick is to smoke a lot of weed and get terribly drunk the night before so that the drug tests turn out positive and automatically get you the much sought-after T5. It might also get you a free-ride to prison and a good ol' pistol-whippin' to the back of your skull. This happened to a guy I met at a volunteer meeting of a Christian charity organization that was giving out scholarships for going abroad. He topped the drugs act off with urinating against the pole of the German flag right in front of the soldiers. It worked, but I don't suppose he mentioned this when he was, during the organization's interview, asked to tell a personal success story.
In case you do get drafted you would usually have to do a nine month-long military training camp somewhere in Germany. It used to be 24 months but was continually shortened. I even heard rumors of it getting cut down to six months in order to not waste economic potential and not have it wriggle through the mud.
The alternative to this is a civil service at some German institution such as a hospital, a retirement home or a refuse disposal site, i.e., a dump. Not all too appealing but you usually get paid quite handsomely for the small amount of banal work you're supposed to do. In recent years there has been another option and this is where we get back to the beginning.
The German government has started a program called
"weltwaerts" (worldwards) funding scholarships to work in another country with needy people. That is what I'm doing right now.
It wasn't all too easy to get here since I was considered T1 and thus had trouble getting myself out of the fangs of the army. Not that I don't value their work but the stuff that those base recruits do is pointless and helps no one. The only thing you learn is to clean your gun and chug yourself comatose. Had I been born in the US, I might have very well opted for the Army or even the Marines, had I been accepted. But this is life and you make the best out of it.
After having convinced the ministry to let me go, I began applying to almost 80 different organizations for one of the few coveted spots. Since the government pays for everything through scholarships, places are very limited.
I did have certain conceptions of what I wanted to do. It was to be somewhere in Latin America as to learn Spanish and get to know one of its supposedly open and hearty cultures. It should also be something in the field of education or propaganda since this is what I'd probably be most helpful at and what also coincides with my wish to practice law later in life.
I ended up with two offers:
1. A spot as a caretaker at an Israeli lunatic asylum; duration 24 months
or
2. A spot as an assistant supervisor for a nature conservation institute in Paraguay; 12 months
As you correctly guessed, I chose the latter.
I got here on the 7th of August in 2009. I will be here until the latter half of July 2010.
As the more perceptive of you may have already realized, it's been about seven months since I arrived here but only started my English blog today. A thoroughly valid question would be: "Why now?"
Well, firstly because I was busy enough maintaining my German blog and secondly I just didn't feel the need.
The reason I started a German one earlier was as to keep my sponsors (we did have to do a little fund-raising) and my family and friends updated on my status.
So, I apologize for only starting now but hope to gain you as a regular follower.
Please feel free to leave comments of any kind. Your feedback is really important to me and lets me know that I'm not writing this entirely for nothing and helps me to improve my performance.
Take care and see you soon,
sincerely, Jan :-)
