Ela, Umbrella?

We awoke today to rain, rain, rain, rain, rain and more rain. We headed out the door with umbrella and rain coat, but along the way we somehow found the sun, YAY!! We arrived at Ela Container around 930 and we’re escorted to the Visitor Center, which was decorated as a 1950s diner with small statues of American jazz performers and old Harley motorcycles.

Ela Container is a family run company that specializes in temporary housing. It is basically the back end of an 18-wheeler that has been reinforced with steel (like the containers used on ocean liners). The containers are used on construction sites for offices or when a new building is being constructed and they need temporary housing to continued working. They have 20,000 containers to rent and about 1,000 in stock. They can add in windows, take out doors, combine two, three, four any number you want. It is all customer specific. The company was great and the employees were super nice and helpful. WE LOVE ELA!

After we left Ela I went to my vocational day at the Musik Schule or music school. The German school system is different from the USA in that only academic subjests are included in the day-to-day schooling and until recently school ended for the most part at about 1 o’clock. Previously the students who wanted would attend the Musik Schule after their regular school ended as there was plenty of time to have a lesson and/or a group rehearsal. Now, though schools are changing the schedule to be all day and as a result there is not time for most children to come to Musik Schule after school. Musik Schule is now requested by the academic schools to visit in the morning twice a week during school hours. So they are more integrated into the schools life, but it must be requested by the participating school. Musik Schule in the Nieder Saxon county has a dream to reach all primary age children from years 1-5 by the 2020 year and they have the financial support of the government to do it. Wouldn’t that be wonderful in the States? To have the government acknowledge the importance of music to little children? Hmm.....

Also at Musik Schule I was able to attend some singing lessons of young children age 13-15. It was really surprising that most of the kids sang Musical Theater in English! i heard The Little Mermaid, The Lion King and Elisabeth. It was very interesting :) Thank you Musik Schule!!!

We ended the day with a Rotary BBQ at President's house. It was in Lotten in a small area of a larger estate. We gave a very informal intro to our team and proceeded to eat and eat and eat and eat. Thank you Meppen for hosting us this week! We really enjoyed ourselves.