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Maeve O’Sullivan

Posted Overseas

My first experience of air travel, a flight from Dublin to Frankfurt, does not go smoothly. As the plane starts its descent, I get a piercing pain in my left eardrum which continues for a couple of hours after landing. The second problem is that my host family and I somehow miss one another at the airport. I end up listening to bad German pop music in the lost children’s section, highly indignant to be there: after all, I’m almost fourteen! They find me after around an hour.

meeting my pen pal
for the first time
shyer than in her letters

The third setback of the day is when I discover that my year of school German has not equipped me to converse naturally with Su and her family. My diary says: “I thought I was good at German until they started talking!” All despite having a highly motivated teacher who organises themed events for us, such as a little party at Christmas, where we baked spiced biscuits to eat, and sang “O Tannenbaum.” It is a painful discovery but I am tenacious and have a good ear, so I persist. The trying triad of challenges on Day One of the trip leaves me in tears by bedtime. Su’s mother offers me comfort and sympathy.

Over the next month, I gradually get used to a new way of life, which includes eating a puzzling array of cold meats and cheeses, and the pleasurable Kaffee und Kuchen in the afternoons. Not so much to my taste are the dark bread, the Sauerkraut, and the “puky” marzipan.

local library
I greedily devour
the English titles

I watch the post carefully, and exchange newsy letters with my family and friends. Theirs sometimes cause homesickness, and sometimes alleviate it. Meanwhile, my German family and I travel up to the north-east—a holiday within a holiday—and enjoy taking boats out on the lake and swimming every day. A day trip to the nearest stretch of coast results in a dip in the Baltic Sea. We also attend some open-air classical music events. Little by little, I get better at understanding and expressing myself in German. I also become accustomed to Su and her family’s ways, and they to mine. One evening in mid-August, her younger sister reads me a fairytale in her native language and I get it, I get it all. I also listen to local broadcasts to help myself along.

late-night radio
interrupted by a newsflash
Elvis ist gestorben

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About the Author

Maeve O’Sullivan works in further education in Dublin, Ireland. Her poetry and haikai have been widely published, awarded, translated and anthologized. She has four collections with Alba Publishing, and a fifth forthcoming in 2021. A founder of Haiku Ireland, she writes reviews for various journals and leads workshops in haiku. https://twitter.com/writefromwithin