MY name is Rhiner and I’m a college freshman here in Humboldt University in Berlin taking up a degree in international relations. I am named after the largest river in our country, the Rhine River. I enjoy being here in Germany because I have lots of foreign classmates who are exchange students. In fact, my girlfriend is Chinese while my best friend is a Filipino. In fact, I have taught them the basics of the German language and they now have an intermediate grasp of the tongue. For their gratefulness, I have been allowed to visit their countries.

My first visit was in my girlfriend’s hometown of Shanghai. Shanghai is a very booming city with lots of skyscrapers, even taller ones than in my hometown here in Berlin. It’s a very developed city but the thing is I was lost in translation when I visited there because everybody was speaking Mandarin. Although most of the people in China are followers of Confucianism, my girlfriend is Roman Catholic thus we fell in love with each other because we both have the same faith. When I went to the Philippines to visit my best friend, I was toured to the premier beaches of Boracay and Camiguin, introduced to whitewater rafting in Cagayan de Oro as skim boarding in Siargao. But enough of my travails outside the country. Let’s focus on what is in store for you in Germany this 2008.

This year, one of the international conferences to be held here comes in August. It will be the International Vegetarian Congress to be held in Dresden. Presumably, all people who are participants of this congress from all over the world do have a longer lifespan because they don’t eat meat which has high fat, calorie and uric acid content. However, people in this conference still drink the famous German beer because beer is made of malt which is a non-meat product. Other vegetarian dishes famous in Germany include vegetable stews made of turnips, carrots, peas, spinach, beans, cabbages, potatoes and asparagus. Take note of the asparagus. There are lots of them grown and harvested here in Germany and they are even exported to other countries. Most of the asparagus are seen in such regions as Schwetzingen. In fact, it is called the royal vegetable because even the current chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel likes to eat dishes with asparagus. Asparagus contains only 100 calories. Aside from being ingredients in a sautéed dish, asparagus is also used as vinegar dressing.

Later this year in October will be a nationwide midwifery conference in Bad Wilbad. There will be lectures and actual demonstrations on such topics as Mexican massage techniques prior to delivery, placenta medicine, homebirth practice, massage for restarting stalled labor and the sphincter law. Of course, our good midwives here in Germany must also be updated with what’s going on in the world of midwifery all over the world today.