Day 133 - Wednesday, July 30, 2008 - The Berlin Wall and Concert MCing

Day 133 - Germany Chapter 3

So today was a very long and busy day for most of us. I had to be up by about 6 am after going to bed about 3 am. I had devotion with the Jamaican group. The last time I saw so many Jamaicans in one place was at the airport in Jamaica on March 16, 2008. You have no idea how happy I was to see them :) :) :) We had about 70 people coming to the conference from Jamaica. Not all were travelling from Jamaica though inclusive of myself. So after devotion, we had breakfast then headed out to Berlin. 

We saw many historical buildings and stuff as well as the "Berlin wall" that divided East and West Germany for many years. East Germany was the poor communist side, while West Germany was the rich relatively democratic side. The picture that you see with the writing "SAV" on a wall, is a part of the Berlin wall. The picture with the 4 horses on top of this colessium looking wall thing is actually the symbol for Berlin and is shown on the back of the German Euro coins.

My couch surfer friend told me that it was actually sort of a mistake why the Berlin wall got hit down. She said the governments were discussing it and one day a powerful government guy was on TV where he just needed to say the word and that would be it. So he was on TV I guess and everyone was waiting to hear him say "ok go on"... X said that the guy said something but the TV host didn't hear him properly... So the TV host asked, "What did you say?" And by then it was too late, people started crossing over already and people start to mash up di wall. So even if it wasn't the go-ahead he gave them, they already took matters into their own hands.

So it took about 2 hours to get to Berlin and we had a 5 min stop at a place for people to stretch their feet or do whatever. BAD IDEA !!! ... People started to walk all over the place (myself included) like Jamaicans, and taking pictures etc ;) ... 

The bus almost left a couple of persons, including the chief organizer of the tour... :( and the worst thing is that I think she was trying to gather the people outside the bus together to get ready... We stopped again briefly to take some pictures of some more historical places then we went into the heart of Berlin and got some souvenirs etc... Located in Berlin, is also the "holocaust memorial"... in memory of the approximately 6,000,000 Jews that Adolf Hitler ordered to be killed. So 6,000,000 Jews got killed just for being JEWS!!! The picture with the many different wall things is the holocaust memorial.... Now in Germany, no baby can have the name Adolf nor Hitler. It is also against the law to say "Hai Hitler" both in Germany and Austria. I think you can even get thrown into prison for saying it.

After the tour, a Jamaican told me at the hotel that another Jamaican (The president for the Caribbean Baptist Youth Fellowship) was asking me to MC a fringe programme. Fringe programmes are little concerts that are kept every night in the conference hall. They have 2 of them every night simultaneously. The problem is that, while I am being the MC at one area, the Jamaican group will be performing at the other one...

 We have to take a tram from the hotel to the conference area every day. The conference area is about 20 mins away from the hotel by tram, and there is a tram every 10 mins to go there. A couple of the Jamaicans left out to go to the conference center because we had to prepare for the opening celebrations and I had to prepare myself to MC the thing. On the Tram, the Jamaicans were singing and going on while some of the Germans were looking a little disgusted... Of course being Jamaicans, dem neva business... 

So we got there and the opening celebrations began... It was WONDERFUL!!! The theme is DIVE DEEPER... My friend who I met in Virginia (2005) and Grenada (2007), was the opening speaker. There was also some videos about Leipzig and Germany on a whole... Napoleon Bonaparte of France was actually defeated at Leipzig. Anyway, close to the time of my fringe programme, I had to be looking for the performers and writing down who is next and how long they have on stage etc.

The programme started at exactly 9:30 pm and it went very well in my estimate... ... There were performances by groups from:

Hungary

USA

India

At one point when I was off stage, this Italian guy who will be the director for the mass choir on Sunday,  August 3, called me aside and asked me if I could do a "Rap" for the mass choir on Sunday... So I consented... He then said I should attend a meeting tomorrow at 1pm I think.

After the programme, I met up with a couple of my Austrian friends who I had met in Virginia (2005)...

Went on the last tram back to the hotel with some people from North Carolina, USA at about 12:30 midnight and went bed about 2 am..