"I was tired of giving up" - Rosa Parks' Story

When studying the CLI about Martin Luther King, it reminded me of another important person related to America's civil rights revolution: Rosa Parks. Rosa Parks was born 1913 and worked as a seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama. Here’s her amazing story:

In Montgomery the segregation laws were rather complex: blacks were required to pay their fare to the driver, then get off and reboard through the back door. Sometimes the bus would drive off before the paid-up customers made it to the back entrance. If the "white" section was full and another white customer entered, blacks were required to give up their seats and move farther to the back; a black person was not even allowed to sit across the aisle from whites. These humiliations were compounded by the fact that two-thirds of the bus riders in Montgomery were blacks.

One day in 1955, Rosa Parks boarded the bus and sat down in the first row of the “Coloured Section”. As the bus became crowded, she was ordered to give up her seat to a white passenger but she refused to do so and remained seated, not because she was tired or because she wanted to rebell against the law - just because of the simple fact that she was tired of giving up. For this action, she got arrested a few days later. Immediately the black population of Montgomery began to protest against the segregation laws and distributed flyers in which they asked others, who were dissatisfied with the system, to not use the buses on the following Monday. And although it was raining heavily that they, every black citizen either walked or took a taxi in order to support Rosa Parks.

After Rosa Parks was sentenced to pay a penalty, the Montgomery Improvement Association was formed. The members elected as their president a relative newcomer to Montgomery, the young Reverent Martin Luther King Jr... and I am sure all of you know how the story goes on ..
Today, Rosa Parks is still a persistent symbol of human dignity in the face of brutal authority.

Irish Traveller Weddings - From Being a Princess To Being a Maid.

When  studying the topic about immigration in Ireland, I came across the “Irish Travellers”, a minority group in Ireland. It reminded me of a documentation I saw some months ago about Traveller girls and their weddings. For a Traveller girl her own wedding day is the most important day of her life, as it is the only occasion she can make the decisions (the Traveller society is a rather male-dominated society – women are just expected to keep the house and to take care of the children). Most girls marry at a young age, at about 16 or even earlier. Although still most marriages are arranged by the parents, the couple may have a say in finalizing the match. They often marry a second cousin or at least another member of the group in order to avoid the “mixing” with other groups.

The real Traveller wedding costs a fortune – every family wants to impress others with a white horse-drawn carriage, ten-tier wedding cakes, stunning flower arrangements  and, of course, a breath-taking bridal gown. There are specialised tailors in Ireland that only sew bridal gowns for Traveller weddings. Also the other female wedding guests dress very extravagant. They often try to exceed the other girls with their dresses, which are usually very short.

At such Traveller weddings lots of alcohol is being consumed and later that night the young and unmarried boys start “stealing” the girl they fancy (there is a special name for this rite, but unfortunatelly I’ve forgotten it… :/). At some point of the party they  simply take another unmarried girl with them and vanish with her into the dark. There, they have the chance to get to know each other better or to exchange kisses while the wedding party is still going on. This can be a good occasion to spend time with one’s crush but it also happens quite often that the girl doesn’t want to be alone with the boy at all. Also violence towards girl and women is no rarity among Travellers. Funnily enough, the rite of stealing girls is accepted among the Traveller society, although it is forbidden to have sex before marriage.

  But back to the wedding:  After the marriage, the young couple usually moves into a small caravan. The young brides normally don’t work – they stay at home all day long, clean, cook and wait for their husband to come home. I’m sure these women feel very disappointed as their new life as a wife started phenomenally with a fairytale wedding – but ended in being locked in a small caravan.

 

Why It Is Important to Ask Twice - A True Story

When I was 14 I took part in an exchange program. Most of the students in my class had an exchange partner from our partner school in Slough (about one hour from London). We were writing emails and letters and in May 2004 the English students visited us for ten days in Austria. Me and my exchange partner Emerald got along very well. Sure, at the beginning it was a bit awkward to have someone you had never met before staying at your house, but after some days we got used to it and we both enjoyed visiting the typical Austrian sites. The only thing was that I always had the feeling that she wasn't really keen on eating Austrian food like Schnitzl, Schweinsbraten or Kaiserschmarren. She tasted everything, but she just ate a little bit and then claimed to be full - just to eat a whole package of crisps as a dessert.

So, one day my mother thought it would be good to have something "international" for dinner. We decided to order some pizzas from a local pizzeria. I asked Emerald which kind of pizza she wanted to have and she answered that she just liked "the normal one with pepperoni". I felt quite disgusted by the thought of eating a pizza just with (what I thought) "Pfefferoni" on it, but I didn't bother asking twice and ordered a pizza with jalapeño peppers for her.

You can't imagine the look on her face when the pizza was being delivered and Emerald opened the pizza box! She didn't want to be impolite and point out that I'd misunderstood her, so she tried to eat the pizza including the spicy jalapeños. But after some pieces of pizza she started putting away the jalapenos. When I asked if everything was alright, she admitted that "pepperoni" in English actually means "Salami" and that she had just wanted a normal "Salami-Pizza"!

Sure, at first I felt embarrassed about this stupid mistake but when Emerald started laughing, I simply had to join in. Today, after more than four years, she sometimes still makes fun of me because of our "pepperoni-debacle"...