On Tuesday morning our family and friends came to Circle Hall which had been transformed into a German village. The village had a shoe making shop, a bakery, a meat shop and a government house. In the middle of all the houses stood a tall tree with green leaves. This represented a forest in Germany.
To start off our German Carnival, Ruth T. welcomed everybody to the country of Germany by singing a German song. Then she taught us the numbers in German and the German words to the song. After that our coworker, Lukas, hosted a television show interviewing people by using a pretend television. Lukas told everybody that Otto von Bismarck unified small states into the country of Germany. Then we had a surprise visit from Goethe who read to us one of his poems in German from his new book. Schiller told us about the stars and the planets. After that we had the Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, thanking us for choosing to celebrate Germany for our carnival theme this year.
Next, the workshops performed German skits. The candle and clay workshops performed the story of Raeuber and Hotzenplotz. In this story two friends followed a robber who stole their grandmother’s coffee machine that also played music. The two friends didn’t want to be recognized so they exchanged their hats. Then the two friends freed a fairy that had been captured by a bad wizard and in the end the robber was sent to jail.
The basket and home skills workshop performed the story of the Elves of Koln. In this story three groups of workers – the carpenters, the bakers and the tailors – slept instead of working because they found it too difficult and they were too lazy. Fortunately, every night elves came and did the work for them. One night, curious as to how the work was being done, the wife of the tailor spread some peas on the floor to try and catch whoever was doing the work. The elves slipped on the peas and never returned.
Next, the garden workshop performed the hilarious story of Max and Moritz. During this story two mischievous boys decided to play a couple of jokes on people. First, they stole chickens from the farmer, accidentally killed them and the farmer’s wife ended up cooking them. Their second prank was to put bed bugs into their uncle’s bed. When their uncle climbed into his bed, he saw all the bugs, and jumped out of his bed. After that the boys had one more joke up their sleeves. This time the two of them decided to put gun powder in their teacher’s pipe. When the teacher came home from a long day of playing the organ, he sat down to have a smoke. He took a deep breath in and instead of smoke coming out, he got gun powder all over himself. After hearing three classic children tales, we were entertained by the fibre arts group who did a German bird dance. Some of the companions and coworkers did this difficult dance using blue and white poles.
During our lunch time, we sat in Circle Hall which had been transformed from a German village into a cafe. We were treated to Black Forest cake baked by Kasper and Sophia House.
In the afternoon we dressed up in our costumes and paraded through the neighborhood. Then, we returned to Circle Hall and watched a performance by the music group. They played a piece called “Ode to Joy” and “Guten Abend, gute Nacht.”
We would like to thank all who came to this year’s carnival . Hope to see you next year.
***********************************************************************
In our Thursday morning College, we sang songs about the seven days of the week that go with certain trees. After that we had a meeting about what we are going to study from now until Holy Week. We decided to learn about the different trees and the planet that goes with that tree. After a short break, the College group wrote and drew pictures of what they liked about Carnival.
On Wednesday and Thursday afternoon we gathered into our eurythmy, painting, clay, cooking, reading, writing and youth guidance groups. Friday afternoon we gathered into Circle Hall and sang with Ashling.
