WITH BEETHOVEN UNDER PALMS (X)

 

Chapter X: I married a family

Rossana and I invited 100 guests for our wedding reception. But more then 300 guests came. That was learned Filipino tradition. I felt very comfortable between all the many people. For some minutes, I missed "my" Ludwig van Beethoven" ... .

The farewell after our wedding was a mixture of sheer party happiness and many, many farewell tears. For the picture taken at the airport, one quickly shed all tears and smiled. We didn't know when we would come back to Davao City.

Our stay at the German Embassy in Manila lasted only 10 minutes. Rossana got her visa for Germany.

April 1983. Our 10-hours-flight from Manila to Frankfurt wasn't a problem. But my obligatory phone call at home Frankfurt. My mother had successfully survived the cancer operation but stayed in our best friends' house. My father had left.

After the connecting flight Frankfurt - Berlin, Rossana and I rushed to my apartment. A typical 1-room Bachelor apartment with bathroom, kitchen and balcony somewhere in the middle of the Berlin city. 

"I am hungry", sighed Rossana. "Don't you have rice or fish?" There was only canned Ravioli and bags of soups. " I like roasted chicken", replied Rossana. I was really too tired to go with her to a restaurant. She ate some of the Ravioli... . The first part of her culture shock had started.

Just a week later, my beloved Lola died. I almost got my heart out of my body. Rossana didn't get a visa for the other - the communist Eastern part  of Germany - the German Democratic Republic. My mother and I made us alone on the way to the funeral. It rained the whole day. "I hope one day I will get to meet your Asian wife!" Those were Lola's last words on my visit a week before my Philippine journey.

Rossana was getting more and more lonely in Germany. I was trying to help her.

"Your friends only speak to me in English, but I would like to speak in German", Rossana told me one day. Summer 1983, she enrolled in a German language course. Daily six hours Mondays until Fridays.

She liked our balcony and took care of the plants and flowers. 

"Would you like to go to the theatre one day?" I asked. As a member of the Berlin Theater Club, I got tickets for stage plays, classical music concerts and Musical performances. Rossana replied, "Yes. When?" " I have two tickets for a Broadway Dance Revue", I told her. Of course, it was not Beethoven and Co. But, it was exactly Rossana's style as a dancer.

(To be continued!)

GIVING WHILE LIVING

Philanthropy is a very interesting topic. Philanthropy comes from the Greek "philein" (to love) and "anthropos" (man) and means a desire to help mankind, especially as shown by gifts to charitable institutions.

Philanthropists are loving and seeking to do well to their fellow men (and women) and are paying more attention to how they give their money away. Especially during this pandemic, if more and more people get jobless and businesses crash down.

In times of pandemic, political crisis and corruption, we might only observe our own pockets becoming emptier and emptier, while others' slop over. Giving while living? Of course not, getting and receiving as much as possible seems to me the motto many times. 

One of the Bible's books of poetry, the Proverbs really offers advice on every imaginable area of life. The style of wise living described here leads to a fulfilled life. Proverbs 28:27 say:"He who gives to the poor will lack nothing, but he who closes his eyes to them receives many curses!"

In view of a feature in an old issue of the magazine "The Economist" I learned that Andrew Carnegie ("The King of Steel'', 1835-1919) would surely have approved of Lord David Sainsbury. The supermarket tycoon turned politician was one of Great Britain's richest men. It was reported that he not only intended to give away at least $ 1.83 billion during his lifetime, but to insist that this charitable foundation spent both its income and capital before he passed away.

Few rich donors have yet gone this far. But Lord Sainsbury's decision was part of a broad trend among a new generation of philanthropists to play an active role in seeing that their money is very well spent. Such efforts should be applauded. In his great 1889 essay on wealth, Carnegie, who gave away about $7 billion in today's money - argued that the rich had the duty to use most of their money to benefit the community, and should do so actively during their lifetime. Let's look around if we can still find such donors and patrons in our daily life.