11/12/14

Joey always liked fun fairs. He didn't remember much of his childhood, especially not many nice things, but he remembered going to a funfair once, together with his dad. He could still smell the sweet roasted almond and cotton candy in the air. The lights of the roller coasters indicating adventure excited him and the music, the shouting and laughing voices coming from everywhere made him feel alive. Other than that he felt safe that day, because his father used to hold his hand so he won't get lost in the crowd. He even patted Joey's head when he succeeded in one of those games where you have to knock down pyramids of cans. That was probably the only time Joey felt as if his father was proud of him. It wasn't long after their visit of the funfair that Joey's dad lost his job and turned his attention more to the alcohol than to his son. Joey never blamed him for that, he understood his anger and knew what he's been through before. His dad was not a weak man. But sometimes even the strongest people fall apart. It's like a crack in the windscreen of the car, the screen is not completely intact any more, but you can still drive around with it. But someday there comes one little chuckhole in the road and the entire glass breaks in too many pieces to fix it again. Nobody could fix Joey's dad. Joey tried for it years before he ran away from home. You have to stop trying putting things back together when they start to tear you apart. Now this funfair is Joey's new home. It's located a few miles west from his home town. Apparently, the last time it opened its doors for people was before the war and as time passed by, everyone started to forget about that place. Even though many of the buildings and attractions are crooked Joey feels safe here. It reminds him of the few happy memories of his childhood. Joey adapted to this new life isolated from the city. Everything was fine, until now. He was sitting in one of the seats of the Ferris wheel. From up here he has a view over the whole park. In front of the funfair cars are parked and there a people discussing and looking around.
Joey silently climbed back to the ground and started to collect wood for a fire after the sunset. He was scared to death when suddenly he heard a voice behind him: "What are you doing here?" He turned around and saw a girl staring at him. Her big green eyes looked curious and insecure at the same time. "I live here. The question is what are you doing here." Joey responded. "You do what? I am here with my dad; he is the mayor of this town. Some people want to knock this place down and they are now here to plan how they will do it. You do not really live here, do you?" It took Joey a few seconds to react to the words he just heard. First he wanted to scream at the girl but he knew it wasn't her fault. Did she know what she was saying? Joey had no idea what this would mean for him. He had nowhere else to go. "When do they want to wreck the funfair?" he asked, but a voice interrupted him. "Nora, where are you? Common, we're leaving!" The girl, Nora turned her head towards the funfair entrance. "I gotta go now, but I can come back on my own tomorrow. Meet me at the Ferris wheel around noon if you want. Bye." And as surprisedly as she came, she disappeared again.
Joey was hanging around the Ferris wheel all morning. He wondered if it was right to let a stranger into his life. How could he even know if Nora didn't already tell her dad about him?
The sun was at its highest point and Joey was lying on a bench in front of the Ferris wheel when Nora arrived. She wore a green summer dress that matched her eye color and her messy brown hair was falling down her shoulders. She was walking towards the bench and her robust boots looked kind of inappropriate for her skinny legs. "Hi, it’s nice to see you again. So here is the deal. You tell me why the hell you are living on a non working funfair and then I’m going to tell you everything I know about the demolition.” Joey didn’t answer for a moment, maybe he was not used to conversations with anyone other than himself anymore. He sat up so Nora could sit down next to him. “All right, deal.” And Joey told the strange girl everything. He told her about his dad who lost his job and how he used to shout at Joey when he drank too much, because he blamed him for his mom’s death during child-birth. Joey explained to Nora the night he got beaten up from his drunken dad, so bad that he couldn’t go to school and how he decided that day to run away and never come back to school or his home because neither of them would care. The whole time he was talking Nora never took her eyes off of him but she didn’t say a word. Later on she told him about the discussions at the city council about what to do with the remains of the funfair. Next week the people are going to come back to plan the details for the demolition. “I want to help you,” Nora said, “I know I can’t convince you to come back into the city with me but I don’t want you to lose your home again.” Joey was grateful for her offer, but he was doubtful though: “What do you think we can do to prevent them from tearing this place down?” – “We just have to keep them from coming back.” – “And how would you do that?” Joey asked. “Scare them away!” said Nora with sparkling eyes.
The next days they spent working on their plan and preparing everything it will need to scare the people from the city council just enough to leave the funfair in piece for the rest of their career.
The main scene should be the funfair’s ghost house which is full of scary puppies even after all those years. Joey found some fake skulls which he placed outside of the ghost house and Nora painted the walls with red wall-paint that looked like dried blood. Preparing the location was so much fun that Joey almost forgot about the seriousness of all of this. He didn’t notice how much he missed having a friend to joke around with by his side.
The day the people from the city council came was rainy and fog was hanging over the funfair the whole day, which was in Joey’s and Nora’s favor.
When they entered the park, Joey threw some boards of wood on the ground inside of the ghost house to get their attention. The men outside turned their heads towards the ghost house. One of them spotted the skulls and suggested that he would rather wait outside. The others entered the ghost house but soon found there way out again, since Nora did a good job in there.
The both of them were hiding under the Ferris wheel when they saw the nervous men coming out of the ghost house. “Are you ready?” Nora asked and Joey nod with his head. “Okay. One, two, three!” With all of their strength they pulled on the huge wheel and made it move. A loud squeaking sounded all over the funfair. “This place is fucking cursed!” called one of the men. “Let’s get out of here!”
After the men left, Nora and Joey burst into laughter. “That was a great horror show, did you see their faces?” Joey said between laughing. “Amazing, I might have to consider going into film production some day!” Nora answered.
The next day, Joey woke up to someone shaking him. When he opened his eyes Nora was standing in front of him and grinned down to his face. “What time is it?” Joey mumbled. “It’s time for good news. I listened to a dialog between my dad and one of his colleagues; they will put the area around here under nature protection. No one is allowed to tear your funfair down.” Joey looked up into Nora’s proud facial expression. Those were really good news. The funfair was his haven for some time now. It was the only place he felt safe. But as he looked up he knew that it was no longer the only one. He felt safe when he had those big green eyes looking at him and in that moment Joey realized that an old funfair is not a real home. Because there is nothing alive in it and maybe he liked it because that was what he felt like from the inside as well. But not anymore. The Ferris wheel in his chest was rotating, and he knew that just like the day before Nora would help him keeping it in movement.

10/29/14

King Burger's Farm is a beautiful place. It is located isolated from the city and all around the farm you can find green lawn and lots of apple trees.
The farm owns cows, pigs and sheep, but it also has a huge garden for vegetables such as tomatoes, lettuce, potatoes and eggplant.
The corner of the tomatoes is the nicest one at least that is what Tina thinks. It is where she grew up after all. Tina is a little tomato. She is as perfectly round like a ball and has red smooth skin all over which she is very proud of. Tina loves the tomato field because it is hidden in the undergrowth and gets an equally amount of sun and shadow everyday. However, there is one other place on King Burger's farm that Tina likes a lot. It is the field with the potatoes right next to the tomato's field. The thing she likes about this place is light-brown, to some parts blotted with earth and has a name; Paul the potato. Smart, adventurous and every now and then quite mysterious. Tina fell for him the first second she saw him straying through the garden. Paul has been to all parts of the farm and even when it comes to everything outside the farm, Tina feels overwhelmed by his knowledge of the world. She could listen to his stories for hours and never get tired of them. Another thing she would never get tired of is the way Paul looks at her. She knows he admires her perfectly red skin and is fascinated by her roundness that he has never seen in other potatoes.
Both of them entirely enjoyed the time they were spending with each other, but it was not easy. Especially after the parents of Paul and Tina found out about their relationship it got really tough. "Potatoes and Tomatoes don't fit together," was what Tina's mother kept telling her "they are different species, and have different purposes on this world. How do you think a relationship with someone like that should work out? Just think of what will happen after the crop. You will never see him again, because you will land in a super market with tones of other tomatoes while he will go wherever potatoes have to go." Tina refused to listen to her mother's speeches. What does she even know about the future? Tina didn't want to end up in a stupid super market anyway. When Paul told Tina that her mother actually had a point, she burst out crying. "Wait love," Paul said, "that doesn't mean I don't believe in this thing we have. I would do anything for a lifetime by your side and if you feel the same way, maybe I have a plan".
The next day, Paul said he had something he needs to show Tina. Excited about the news, she waited for him near the flower garden. When Paul finally arrived he carried a huge flyer with him. It was a menu from a big fast-food-chain, which the King Burger's Farm serves with vegetables. "You don't want to end up in a super market, right? Neither do I! I know right now we are different, but I feel that I can be the best version of myself only when I'm with you. It seems as if I was made for you and you were made for me."
This night Tina the tomato and Paul the potato said goodbye to each other. But they shouldn't be apart for too long. After a few lonely and exhausting weeks of transformation they met again, this time not in a garden but in a big fast-food restaurant. "Hey handsome", Tina said. She liked his new shape, tall and straight, not the dirty unformed potato he used to be. "Hey gorgeous," Paul the fried potato replied, "I missed your beautiful red color, good to see you again." "Potato fries with ketchup please", a voice stroke Paul’s and Tina’s reunion and the ground under them started moving. However, Tina the tomato ketchup was not afraid. She was happy to be back together with her soul mate, the one she wanted to spend the rest of her live with, even if that life won’t be to long this way. Paul was whispering the words of a song: "To die by your side is such a heavenly way to die..." and the tablet with the both of them on got carried away by a fat hungry man.

10/27/14

Nelson Mandela, former president of South Africa

"Safety and security don't just happen, they are the result of collective consensus and public investment. We owe our children, the most vulnerable citizens in our society, a life free of violence and fear."

Its words like these that the members of the SOS Children's Village International take to their hearts and try to make a difference in deprived children's lives. Their main purpose is to ensure that every child is raised in a home that gives love, respect and security.

To do so, the organization has different projects to support the families that are unable to care enough for their children.
There is a long-term project where children are given a home in a SOS family and live there until they are old enough to look after themselves. The short-term project is the so called "Family Strengthening". In this case SOS Children's Village assists struggling families so they can stay together. Moreover it provides material needed for education and childcare for them. Statistics show that 56 percent of those families achieve self-reliance again after being involved in a family strengthening program.

However, besides the project mentioned before, SOS Children's Village also works in currently problematic regions, if there is a war or a disease for example. They support them with care packages, containing household supplies, blankets and more.
Accordingly, a recent project focuses also on battling Ebola. Donations from SOS member associations in Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands made it possible to sponsor new sets of "full-body Personal Protective Equipment" (PPE) to medical workers in Monrovia, Liberia.

Another project of the SOS Children's Village helps orphaned and displaced children in Syria to get better school education again since as the war began in 2011 the number of children going to school declined to just 50 percent.

SOS Children's Village is active in 134 countries, and the latest numbers from 2013 state that there are over 82,000 children world wide growing up in SOS Children's Village homes and additional 328,700 individuals that take advantage of family strengthening programs.

In my opinion this kind of charity seems to really succeed for one thing because there are always people intending to adopt or take care for a child which is not their own. For another thing I hold the view that the concept of supporting poor families without ripping them apart is a great opportunity for those people.

Furthermore, there are many ways to contribute to one of the projects. You do not have to adopt a child to make a difference. In fact you can make a sponsorship, where you pay a monthly amount of money for a child somewhere in a SOS Children's Village home. Otherwise you can also start with making only one single donation. The children from today are our future; this is why I think it is important to provide them good education in a loving family so that their roots cannot define their chances in life. It is in our hands to make this planet a little fairer for everyone that lives on it.