By Gentille from the Democratic Republic of Congo Before I came to Germany, I heard the history and geography of World War II, but I did not know exactly how it had started, what the course were, and so on. I understood that the whole idea and development of the war took place in Germany, and here I had the opportunity to go to the Documentation Center of the „Reichsparteitagsgelände“ (from the party NSDAP) in Nuremberg. It was a very impressive visit. One day before the visit there was a presentation about Nuremberg and how the neighborhood around the station became the center of activities of the dictator Adolf Hitler. When we arrived at the Documentation Center, we all got a map with information – for example, all the buildings and grounds on the map were

by Louise from Cameroon Since April 2018 I am one of the happy housemates in the volunteershouse and I feel really at home here. Oh yes, I really do!  At the moment there are four of us living together (the lovely Gentille, the lovely Hannah, the lovely Nele and myself). Everyone is very friendly and nice. Before moving to the volunteershouse, I used to live in a student dorm in the city of Dortmund, and that’s why I really appreciate being in the volunteershouse now: this huge space that is at our disposal! We have the opportunity to eat together and we do that as often as possible. And we really enjoy that so much! Each time when we cook and eat together, it reminds me of my childhood in Cameroon, where we always

When I knew that I should go to Bad Staffelstein in Bavaria, I thought that the seminar would be a pure presentation of politics in Germany. I did not think that we would involve in discussions and have fun there. Also, I did not know that there would be so many other volunteers from other countries and continents. When I arrived in Bad Staffelstein, I was very surprised that there were so many seminar participants: we were 26 young people from Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, Cambodia, DR Congo, Ghana, Togo, Namibia, Cameroon, Uganda, Kenya and Indonesia. I wondered what the others were doing in Germany? I was very surprised that all were South-North volunteers in Germany and they came from all over the world. Bad Staffelstein is a small, beautiful city in Bavaria, a little more than 400 km from Dortmund - the journey was very long. We took about seven hours from Dortmund by train,

By Gentille from the Democratic Republic of Congo Dortmund is a really nice city, 580,000 people live in Dortmund. The area in which Dortmund is located is called Ruhrgebiet. The Ruhr is a river that characterizes the region. It is said that Dortmund is the center of the Ruhr area, but the Ruhr river does not flow through Dortmund. The people in Dortmund are very friendly and nice, of course not all, about 70% of the people are friendly to me. In the city, if I do not know the way, then I can ask all people in the street,

by Hannah from India. The very first question German speaking people ask Gentille when she fluently flaunts her German is ‘’for how many months have you been learning German?’’ when she replies ‘’ just 9 months ‘’ their eye balls widen. One of the main reasons why Gentille and I have been gasping German so quickly is because of our teacher Tom Laengner. Though initially we had separate classes, now we attend classes together, which also means that our very patient teacher has to translate two different times, in two different languages, in English to me and in French to Gentille, which is not as easy as it sounds.

One of the experiences to cherish for my lifetime would always be the 10-day trip to Paris. Gentille and I geared up for our travel the very next day after Christmas, it was a boring 10-hour travel in the bus from Dortmund to the French capital, we stayed at Gentille’s relative’s house at Paris.