"Interview D"

F: What do you want your child to learn in her childhood?

A:Ahm, I would like my child in her childhood to learn what is important for her ähm for example that school is important and I’d like her to learn both her cultures, the German culture and the African culture and I would like to use these things as tools to carry her forward in life.

F: What are the most important things in your culture which you want to teach your child?

A: Well, there is quite a lot of important things and I think they are basically all important but first I would like her to learn, most importantly I would like her to learn the root of our religion, and we basically don’t have like a solid a religion but we are people who believe in our ancestors that our ancestors are the people who can connect us to the gods or that are the people can communicate with the gods and if we want something in life we have to communicate it through them our special wishes or whatever we are in need of.

F: How do you teach your child those important things?

A: Well at the moment she’s quite a little bit young but as time goes on, I will start teaching her by talking to her ahm I will let her know how it works with us and from the things that I say every day she will learn from it and as time goes by she will learn to master it and will know what is actually important

F: How can the transfer of the culture to the child work in general?

A: Well, it can work, if it’s effectively communicated like from me for instance it was been communicated through talking, through stories through games and it’s a whole different range of things we can learn from them that is actually the way it would work because that is the way it would work we didn’t have things like Cds or cassettes or movies or whatever it was all done orally by word of mouth and games and all that I’ve mentioned before.

F: Is there a difference in teaching while living in your culture or in a foreign one (in Germany)?

A: There is a difference, because basically here like I said that normally it’s done by oral tradition through speaking and all that that I’ve mentioned it’s not easy for me to transport it to her from here because I’m the only person to communicate the culture intensively to her, and all the other people would communicate her other culture..

F: Can you always follow your own values in front of your child?

A:That is a very difficult thing, because the life we are living now is not the same as we lived long ago where the roots of our culture actually started so I have to try the best that I can that I do it right, but if I can’t follow it I have to find a way to cover myself and let her know what papa has done is wrong.

F: Where are the problems in the teaching process of cultural values?

A: The most problem lies with the language because she’s learning basically two languages and concerning the fact that her brain is still very small its quite hard but basically the problem lies within the language aspect and also within the methods aspect cause she won’t want to hear me talking all the time sometimes she’ll probably want to hear what she has to learn from a cd or she would want to see it in the form of a song on TV and dance to it a little, but it doesn’t exist in that form so ja basically the form and the language.

F:If you also understand some of the values of your partner’s culture, do you sometimes move away from your own into the understanding of the other one? A: Sometimes I do. Because I’m generally a very fair person, I want us to meat halfway. some of the values and aspects of my own culture do not apply where we are. So I have to switch to the German ones for instance because I know there it applies and it actually works.

F:Do you sometimes feel like there are to voices in yourself who are fighting each other?

A:Yes, I do quite often and ahm ja it’s a little bit difficult you know because you wouldn’t know which one to listen to.

F:What do you do?

A: I go outside and smoke.

F:Is your child following the values only if you are there?

A: Ahm, actually if we are alone she follows them totally a 100 %, but then if her mother is there she does her mothers stuff and mine she doesn’t do it anymore cause she doesn’t have much to do with me when she sees mother is there. But sometimes in rare instances she can also try to do what I like her to do or how I want her to do things cause she also wants to try to make me happy or she wants something from me.

F: How good do you think will be the success of your partner in teaching the child her values?

A: That is going to be easy, it’s going to be like a walk in the parc because she’s surrounded by the culture of my partner and as for me I’m the only person from my cultural side who can communicate so it won’t be a problem at all.

F: How can culture be conveyed to children (in general), in your perspective?

A: Through teaching them and practicing it yourself and by so doing, children follow.