SCABs

That Turkish, Deaf Woman by @dennis_engel87

Dennis Engel

By Dennis Engel

 

That Turkish, Deaf Woman

 

A 14 h bus ride and a Turkish deaf woman introducing me to Dostoyevski

It’s Saturday the 20th. I am sitting in the bus back to Germany. The bus takes around 10h to get to Cologne which is an awful long time, but the prize is unbeatable. 

I had a really bad start in the morning because I didn’t hear my alarm ringing for the first time this year. So I woke up 1 h later than I should have. There is nothing worth than waking up to late on a travel day but I made it just in time. Luckily I was clever enough to pack all my stuff the night before and to download some interesting movies and talks to collect some new dots on my way back home.

During the first part of the ride between London and Dover I was way to tired to keep reading my new book

“The blind watchmaker” from Richard Dawkins but I was also to excited to really fall asleep. So I watched the 50’s movie “12 angry men”. If you are bored over Christmas I highly recommend this movie. I took a lot out of it. 

After around 2,5 h I arrived in Dover to catch the train to Calais. The Euro Tunnel had some technical problems and no train could go through the tunnel the whole morning. The duty free shopping mall was so packed with people looking forward to go home for Christmas, that it took me over 45 minutes to get a burger and some fries from Burger King. In total it took us 3,5 h to get to Calais. The rest of the bus journey went much better. But I already felt exhausted and annoyed before I even reached Germany. 

After 14 h I finally reached the airport Köln/Bonn. I thought it’s really ironic to catch a 14h bus to this airport when a flight would have taken me 1h. At least it motivates me to get a job offer this time next year to choose a more expensive and convenient way of traveling. 

My journey and dot collecting turned in an unexpected way when I took the train home from Cologne airport. Really annoyed about the long journey and the stress oft the day I started reading “The blind watchmaker”. While I got completely lost in a book someone carefully touched my arm. My view went up from the book towards my neighbors seat and an old lady sat there smiling at me. 

She asked me if I would be English because of the English book I was reading. I explained her my situation how annoying my day was and that I am looking forward to meet my family after a 14 h bus ride. 

She was a Turkish old, sweet lady telling me in how she lost 90 % of her hearing 3 days after she retired. She  didn’t speak German very well and it made it even worse when her deaf-aid run out of battery. I found myself screaming my answer into her ear so loudly, that I also grabbed the attention of all the other people sitting in the train compartment. But it was a wonderful, heartwarming experience to have a conversation like this. 

In the end she recommended me her book that she was reading from Dostoyevski, her favorite Russian writer. 

So the next dot that I will collect is reading a book from Dostoyevski that a deaf, Turkish woman recommended to me. She really made my day. 

 

WP_20151220_006

Related SCABs

Go back

Student Application

  • Fill out the Application Form below to be a part of our next Award-Winning intake.

  • MM slash DD slash YYYY
image