We have made peace with the US, but the memories are still very sad.

Vy Thi Tuan Nguyen in her garden

My childhood was heavily influenced by the war. We didn’t have any electricity, only oil and it was difficult for us to do our homework, since between 1964 and 1975 everyday life was constantly interrupted by the bombs. It had been going on for 11 years. I saw so many dead people. We all had to flee to the south of Vietnam, there was only one street towards the Cambodian border and the border to Laos. We all had to carry all our possession on our back and any of us were injured, but there was not enough medical care. And there were constant bombing raids on that particular street as they tried to kill us. A splinter found its way into my head. Nowadays, of course, we have made peace with the US, but the memories are still very sad, since I lost so many friends during the war. It’s still painful. Whenever I feel unwell because of the memories I go to my garden, it’s like a therapy, it makes me feel better. Also, it’s good to have some company here, you always meet people. You can talk a little and get to know each other a bit, and if you are sad it cheers you up. Sometimes we cook and eat together, it’s a nice community out here.

Vy Thi Tuan Nguyen, Vietnamese, Wuhlegärten

Green sauce and cola

herbs for green sauce

The catmint is for the green sauce. I cut several herbs and mix them together into quark, a kind of white cheese, then eat it with cooked potatoes and eggs. It is called grüne sauce and is a typical dish from Hessen, Kassel or Frankfurt. It was Goethe’s favourite food. You also need to add garlic.  Sometimes I also use borage or comfrey, which you can also eat. Comfrey tastes like cucumber. You can put it on burns and make tea from it and  it helps if you have a cold. Comfrey is not traditionally in green sauce, but I use everything that is green and edible. Occasionally I put radish, but it is a little bitter. In former times people placed radish in their prayer books, they would chew it and the bitterness would keep them awake so as not to fall asleep in church.  Jewish people also use radish for Pesach.

brigitte and giulia

You will be surprised when I tell you that I have a cola plant, its not cola, you don't make cola from it, but it smells like coca cola. I always say to the children, tell your parents, they will not believe it.  It really smells like coca cola. I put it into my tea and its very nice. To be truthful, it is actually artemisia aberbraut, but I don't put it in the green sauce, it is not so good. It is bitter, because artemesia is really very bitter. When these plants here grow up, the children will go to their parents and they tell them they are growing plants of coca cola and fruit gum and the parents say: "No, I don’t believe it, you are crazy, you are dreaming about it". But it is real.

Brigitte (Fatima) Kanacher-Ataya, German, Wuhlegärten

 

artemisia

 

A community oven at Wuhlegärten

gerda and giulia

Our colony opened in 2003. We have people coming from Argentina, Bosnia, Germany, Italy, Kazakhstan, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Hungary and Vietnam and as we have built a big oven in the middle of the colony so that everyone can bake bread according to his or her traditions, so I have learnt many way of baking it.

Gerda Münich, German, Wuhlegärten

the oven

http://stiftung-interkultur.de/berlin/berlin-koepenick-wuhlegarten