I am about to embark, in two weeks , on my eighth
volunteer trip, seven of them under the auspices of Volunteers for Peace. I’ve done this over the course of the past 15
years, mostly for two or three weeks in the summer, once in November for a month and a half .
This time I will be spending two weeks in Berlin. I’ve been
there once before, when I was in college, when the Wall was still there. I
think it’s changed a bit since then! My
major memories from that trip are landing after a steep decent at the airport
in the middle of the city( Berlin being surrounded by East Germany at the
time) and crossing the border at the
Brandenburg Gate to spend an afternoon walking the streets, among many still
bombed out buildings, in the East.
My work this time involves project called Wikipedia for
Peace. It is sponsored by the German
organization SCI, counterpart in Germany to Volunteers for Peace here in the
US.
This is what I know thus far (which is more than I have
usually known in advance of my previous projects.) This is the 3rd year of Wikipedia
for Peace, which took place in Austria the previous two years. Our
international volunteer group of 15 will be learning to research, edit, and
write Wiki entries relating to the subject of persecution and refugees. Each
volunteer will be writing entries in her or his own language. We will be staying at a Mennonite Peace
house, a former villa on the outskirts of the city, within the Berlin city
limits. The accommodations sound dorm- like, a grade up from the usual
accommodations on these volunteer trips. To be fair, I’ve stayed in dorm
settings on a couple of previous trips, but more often on the floors of empty
apartments, shoulder to shoulder in sleeping bags on the floor, with limited
shower and toilet facilities to share. (Paris is a bit less romantic when you
are sharing two toilets and one shower with a group of 24!)
That’s about it. I’ll tell you more when I get there!
