"My name is Ricarda, I'm sixteen years old, live in Friedrichshain in Berlin and I'm a highschool student. I grew up at my parents' place, with my sisters at my parents. I got everything I wanted there, even pets...
I had a guineapig, we'd lots of birds then, budgies. And I even had a dog then too, a hamster and a cat, and now another dog...
CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCES
I'd just left the school, where we had a day center, at that time I was in first grade, it was during the fall or early winter and It was pretty dark. There was a playground in front of our school and I went over there to play, I always played with the gate at the entrance to the playground. I kicked it open and it flew back, then it swung forward again and I kicked it again. There was a man sitting there the whole time, on some kind of a rock, watching me. I just thought, he's waiting for some kid. The he came up to me and said, "tell me, who'll pay for the gate when it's broken." I tried to get away somehow, but he grabbed me by my rucksack and said, "come on with me and I'll give you the money." I really wanted to run away but I couldn't manage it. Then the mother of my best friend turned up and asked, "is there some sort of problem here?" "No, not at all, she's my niece." And in that moment I just didn't know what to say and then she walked away.
Well, I don't know, you know...then I was... somehow or other he took me with him into some kind of cellar and well, it was really dark in there, and now I know, now that I'm older I know, what he did to me...
After that, somehow or other he took his trousers off and he wanted me to jerk him off. But just then a women came into the cellar to get some coal, as far as I know, and he ran away, and the woman, I was crying and screaming and she came over to me and asked me what had happened and I told her...
I came out of the cellar and then another woman turned up and she took me with her upstairs, and there we called the police. After that I had to drive around in a policecar for a long time that evening, but at first they asked me lots of questions. When I got home it was very late, and somehow or other since then I've been the baby of the family, and my parents are always worried.
I didn't say what I knew, somehow I was afraid that I'd done something wrong, and I didn't tell the police everything, I kept quiet about some things. Well I only said that he was with me in the cellar and that he touched me and so on, but I didn't tell them what he'd done to me, I just didn't trust myself 'cause I thought that I'd done something wrong...
"Well, I was always the kind of person who said what they thought and that was the way it was with the teachers too, whenever they said something smart, I always had to say something smarter. And sometimes they thought I was trying to make a fool of them, although at that time I was stilll only in first or second grade, it was always the same. Somehow I always played the clown. It's still like that, that whenever someone has something smart to say I've always got some comment to make about it. One day I wandered around the school with a plastic shopping bag (from West Berlin) 'cause I didn't know otherwise where to put my sports clothes. And the (East German) school principal came running after me through the whole school, and I didn't know what I'd done wrong. So I kept running away from her and and she kept chasing me and I didn't know what was wrong with me, why she kept after me.
'Cause my grandfather often went to the Intershop (where only West German tourists in East Germany were allowed to shop) and he always brought plastic shopping bags back with him. And I thought they were really super, these bags. I even used to collect them.
Then the principal ripped the bag out of my hands and my sports clothes fell on the ground and I had to stick them into a schoolbag. I never saw the plastic shopping bag again.
Oh well... you know... I only know that... we had to line up for roll call regularly and we had to stand to attention there and wear a blue or a red cravat, whichever level we were then, and it was really horrible at that time. It really was that extreme, they'd visit your parents' house, and when the doorbell rang, "quick, quick change to an East German TV channel" that's the way it always was.
...well, somehow I had the feeling, that I was the baby of the family, being the youngest, I really believe that somehow they paid more attention to me. That wasn't so with my sister and nobody said to her, "you must be home by so and so time". My relationship with my sister was really bad at one time, we were constantly fighting.
At that time I was the kind of child who liked to make a mess, and I was always putting things together. I wanted an electronics construction set, and I took the little electric motor that was in the set and I made myself a little potter's wheel with it, and such like, I was really crazy at that time. I had great imagination - my parents said that too, and I was always messing around in the cupboards seeing what I could find and what I could use again. At that time I fought a lot with my sister but now, since she moved out of the house, we've got quite a good relationship.
Well I was never lonely, 'cause I had so many friends, even then, and I did have a "nice childhood" because I could always think up something new to do, that's the kind of person I am, lots of imagination.
When I was in kindergarden I had a friend, her name was Meike. I often played together with boys, too.
We were always digging things up and we played at the "Indian" playground, we also had that, and there was a big field and then one of those big frames you could climb up and down. Sometimes I still meet one of my friends from that time.
Meike - she'd already moved away when we were in kindergarden, to the Baltic Sea somewhere.
Later when I was in school, through a really weird coincidence I met an old friend again. Her name's Hanna. Well, it was really weird, my sister and I went out with the dog for a walk and there she was on the other side of the street. We stared at one another and we knew that somehow we'd met before. Then we worked it out, we'd been in the same day nursery school.
Oh, we did lots of things together. After school, we often went off cycling and at our school there was an apricot tree, and we were always robbing it. One day we got caught doing this. An old man came out with a stick and tried to make us come down from the tree- it was really terrible - and we kept climbing higher and then after a while the old man went away and we climbed down. After a few minutes she said to me, " I have to tell you something." And I said, "yes Hanna me too." "I peed in my pants." And both of us had peed in our pants and we fell about the place laughing.
I've got two best friends, more or less. One of them I see about once a week because she plays sports and so has to go to a boarding school...
The other, she's in my grade, and she's two years younger than me. We have fun together and sometimes at the weekends, on Friday and Saturday evening, we do lots of things together. We go to the movies or the disco or whatever.
For me it's important that they understand me and that they're not false or sneaky or they go around blabbering and gossiping. It was like that earlier, whenever you told one person something you'd hear it again somewhere else and then it'd sound completely different to what you'd said in the first place. Somehow or other it came out that that the two of them had had a falling out 'cause another person messed things up.
The first real one, I was fourteen and we were in a holiday camp in Hungary and there was this guy there who was two years older than me. We got on super together and did lots of things together and so on. I was completely crazy about him, and then one day, we were outside the bungalow, he asked me to ask my friend if she'd go out with him. I was completely devastated. First I ran into the bungalow and cried and cried. Then my friend told me she didn't want anything to do with him and I ran outside and sat on the bench and kept on crying. I was a wreck, that was the worst it had ever been, I'd never cried so much before in my life...
That was when I was sixteen. I'd already been with him for years and somehow it wasn't like I'd imagined it, 'cause it really hurt me a lot. I'm on the pill three months now.
I went to the gynaecologist with my boyfriend and it was really funny there, we couldn't stop ourselves giggling in the waiting room, and there were old women there. We asked ourselves what they were doing there, 'cause they should have had their menopause long ago. We laughed ourselves silly.
Well...sex education, we got that at school in the seventh grade 'cause I was at a special biology highschool and one day this old lady came along with a handbook and she explained to us what she knew. Jealousy, well, that's a really bad thing with me. Somehow I have this evil side in me, somewhere inside me, goading me on...
Well, it's really boring at home, television's just not my thing. Otherwise I'm here in the youthclub or the disco. On the weekends I'm at my sister's.
Well I'm a cheerful person. I've a good imagination and I'm kind of crazy too. There's nothing I really find fault with in myself. I accept myself the way I am, say what I think and don't let anyone tell me when to shut up. When I've a problem then I let everyone in the neighbour know about it, so to speak, I don't bottle things up inside me or things like that.
Clothes somehow have to be "designer labels" and the like nowadays, so you look a bit special. If you don't wear designer label clothes now then somehow you're not part of the scene, I think. The other people have to like you a bit too.
I mean, you see what the others are wearing at present and if you don't have the money for the latest gear, whatever's in, then you'd really like a bit more money so you can buy the things the others are wearing, rather than walk around looking like a bum. That's what I think.
I'm in ninth grade now and, unfortunately, I still don't really know what I want to do. My school reports are actually a bit too good for what I'd like to do. That's what many of my teachers say, but on the other hand I'm not sure if I'm bright enough to take the final high school graduation exam (for university), I think. I've problems with German and English, but in maths, physics, chemistry and so on I'm really good. Well the plan is to become a specialist saleswoman in a retail organisation, in a sports department. When I was younger I dreamed of becoming a vetinarian but then 'cause I've got problems seeing blood and so on... and then I thought I'd never manage to pass the high school graduation exams anyway, and so could never become a vet. I mean, I could have become a vetinarian assistant, but then I've got this thing about blood and so on...
Well, we already visited to West Berlin on the second evening . We drove over with our (East German) Trabbi car and somehow it was really great. There was an enormous line of traffic at the border crossing and then somebody shook champagne or sparkling wine over our Trabbi. People even threw chocolate and bananas and oranges into the car. And both my parents started to cry - both of them - for joy. Yeah, and basically I didn't really know at all what big changes should happen. We had a bit of a look at everything, we parked our Trabbi somewhere or other, jumped on a bus - on that day we were even allowed to travel on the public transport for free - then went up to the storefront windows and gawked at everything, the televisions and the other things like that and well... at the fruit and vegetable stands, and that alone was enough for us. We got lots of things for free that evening, even from the foreigners, at the fruit and vegetable stands they kept handing stuff out. And then I met one of my school friends and it was really super, 'cause my parents knew them a little and they threw their arms around one another and then everything was really great. Yeah, and that evening we drove home and then came back again the next day and bought ourselves cigarettes and so on. I bought myself a denim jacket and jeans for forty marks. And on that day I ate my first doner kebab ever. And we had no idea at all what kind of thing it was. Then the eyes popped out of my head - it was really terrible - 'cause there was this huge toy store and my eyes just kept getting biggerand bigger, 'cause, well...then I even got a Barbie doll.
Well I don't regret that the borders (between East and West Germany) were opened, 'cause, I mean, at least now you know what you can buy for your money.
I mean before that (in East Germany) you couldn't buy anything. There was only one banana per person, maybe once a year you'd get an orange - and then you'd have to leave it sitting on your Christmas dinner plate. Then maybe it'd only be one of those from Cuba with the pips in it. Whereas nowaday you can just go out and buy whatever you want to eat. In East Germany nearly everything was hidden away under the counter, all kinds of things, and clothes that you'd only see other people walking around in afterwards, because you didn't have any connections and then you'd be treated like you were an idiot. Whereas today what's annoying is that when you don't have any money is when they treat you like just like an idiot. 'Cause somehow you've got to look like something now if you want to have any chance at all.
Somehow one disadvantage now is that so many people end up on the streets 'cause they've got no coal (for heating) and no work. There also wasn't so much alcohol before. And it was also a bit more expensive so that a bum couldn't just go and buy himself a bottle of liquour. Today everything moves a lot faster, and you can end up on the streets because you don't have a job and maybe just let things go, like getting money from the government for your rent and so on... I mean, everything just rolled along by itself before.
Well, I had my first cigarette together with a friend when I was twelve... we began with Cabinet (an East German brand) and it was great, we felt we were really grown up. Well we were already twelve and we thought it was really cool. But basically it didn't do much for me 'cause I always felt really awful afterwards and I also never actually bought cigarettes. I've also never been really drunk,'cause whenever I drink I start feeling awful pretty quickly and so I'd rather leave it like that because my attitude to alcohol is also not so special that I'd feel like saying, "today I've just got to boozing again." So I don't think much of alcohol. I'd prefer to drink a cup of tea or whatever.
Drugs - well once I smoked a joint - okay, that was together with two friends and it was really funny. I mean they are only drugs from plants and you cannot become very addicted to that. That's why I don't think it's all that bad when you do something like that, for a bit of fun or whatever...of course you can also amuse yourself in other ways. You don't have to take drugs for that.
As for the techno music freaks, I mean the ones who can only listen to techno music, and when they're on a trip I think it's really stupid - that's what I think, 'cause I can listen to music without taking drugs. The first time I was in Amsterdam I just tried it, 'cause I wanted to know what it was like...
Well, that I finally have things clear in my head, about what I want to do... and that my parents live for a long time, 'cause I don't know for sure what I'd do, 'cause I often think about death, and 'cause I have this terrible fear that I don't know what will happen after that. That's why I hope they stay with me for a long time... what do I want to change in my life? Well I still don't know that at present, but maybe something to do with foreigners in general, that they will finally be let live in peace (here in Germany) 'cause I think that's somehow terrible.
I have to say that they're only people too and if they've got problems in their country then they end up going somewhere else where they can also live in peace. I mean when you look at certain movies and it's really sad when you see people walking through a wood and they step on a landmine by mistake and are ripped apart by it, with their arms and legs blown off. And as for racism, I think that such people belong behind bars 'cause you hear enough people shouting Nazi slogans in this neighborhood. We've even got a few of those types in our class (would be Nazis) and at present I'm already doing something about that with a friend of mine. I mean that's not normal anymore...
MANY THANKS RICARDA