I decided to call this space sued-land (Südland), since that means in German the southern land. It is the kind of term that has no exact meaning or precise explanation which is very strange for German culture and language. It is something I hear almost everyday of my life, that I have Südländisches Temperament (southern temperament) even when I am just quietly waiting for my name to be called in a doctor's waiting room.
Sometimes, it comes up in the most unexpected of situations and other times, it is very obvious. I am expected to behave in a specific way but I still haven't figured it out after almost 6 years living here.
The first time I realized people really cared about this term and I had to be aware of it, I was in an ER. I had an accident with my bike and fell obstreperously down. When I stood up, everyone around had stopped whatever they were doing, looking if I survived that hit. One lovely shop owner offered themself to be a witness of what happened. It was a manufacturing defect of the bike and then months later I needed their help to complete a file and sue that company. Sue! That fits perfectly with the beginning of this blog's name!
When I came to that ER, the first question the doctor asked when he saw my name was, where are you from?
Did that ever happen to you, that you avoid that one very question to not make asumptions about the person you are just meeting? Well, I do. After answering where I come from, he inmediately responded, wow! how exotic is that?
I knew that thumb was broken, I have broken almost all my toes in the past (temperament maybe?). Let's just say I have always been very adventurous and used to be a very active child. The thing is, that the doctor wanted to make sure there was nothing broken by twisting my thumb. I had to really yell to make him stop. The nurse standing right next to him started laughing and said, this is so typical, Südländisches Temperament!
Even though I have been quite outspoken my whole life to defend the causes of other people, I am more pasive when it comes to defend myself, also at that moment (2014) I only had completed the B1 language course and did not have the fluency with which I feel comfortable talking to others. I just repeated what the nurse said in an attempt to coax an apology out of her. The doctor immediately told me this is a phenomena that happens a lot with southerners, they have already plenty of 'evidence' (WTF?): People from the south are whiny and very sensitive. My jaw dropped and I couldn't continue speaking. He sent me to do some X-rays. That gave me some time to process what was happening. When the X-ray came, he said everything was just as he thought and sent me home without a pain prescription because 'it's not so bad'.
My finger was red, like on fire red. After two hours it grew three times its original size. My hand got purple and with a horribly pulsating pain that didn't let me sleep. In the morning I was getting ready to go to my GP and ask for pain killers but received a call from the chief doctor of the ER. He asked me what could I possibly be doing at home without a cast? that I should go immediately to the ER. I practiced on my way to the hospital how to complain about what happened the day before. When another young doctor approached me to place the cast after the Chief's aproval, I told her what had happened. She just said doctors have different opinions... Is providing bad healthcare to a person because you are way too convinced on your own biases really an opinion? Wow, wow, wow!
Fortunately I am a social worker, a mom, have survived a bunch of extreme situations and have been always a 'soft rebel' in the sense that I have always done what I wanted despite society's disaproval, I have learnt to stand up for myself now too.
I want to make this blog accesible for anyone who finds my experiences useful, to talk about intersectionality and alternative ways of living, loving, making community. From a person who is fighting to keep herself on her feet but has a lot of stories to tell and to receive all the love possible. I would be immensely happy to find people in Germany with whom I can exchange ideas too.
Yours truly,
S.