Barmbek knife attack: when a terrorist attack happens in your neighborhood

On 29 July, 2017 By Alison HaywoodIn Current Events, Politics1 Comment

On an uneventful, drizzly Friday afternoon, a young man wielding a kitchen knife walked into a Hamburg supermarket and started stabbing people.

knife-attack-hamburg-barmbek_DPA — Police stand in front of the Edeka supermarket where a man murdered one and injured six people using a kitchen knife in a possible act of Islamist terror July 28. Photo: DPA

He killed one person and, as he fled, injured six others. Bystanders apprehended him in the street and held him until police arrived and made the arrest.

According to an eyewitness, before he struck, he shouted “Allahu Akbar” – the Muslim call to prayer, meaning “God is great” in Arabic. Although police have yet to confirm if the attack was motivated by radical Islam, in the court of public opinion, it was an act of Islamist terror. Continue reading “Barmbek knife attack: when a terrorist attack happens in your neighborhood” →

It took a dead child to change the discourse around the refugee crisis, and a series of sexual assaults to change it again

On 21 January, 2016 By Alison HaywoodIn Current Events2 Comments

It took a dead child to change the discourse around the refugee crisis, and a series of sexual assault to change it again.

Koln-Rapefugees-Not-Welcom — More than 3,000 PEGIDA demonstrators showed up to protest against the assaults in Cologne on New Year’s Eve 2016. Source: News Observer

Continue reading “It took a dead child to change the discourse around the refugee crisis, and a series of sexual assaults to change it again” →

#RefugeesWelcome

On 15 October, 201523 April, 2019 By Alison HaywoodIn City Life, Current Events, Politics3 Comments

There is no hotter topic in German media right now than refugees.

I’ve told several friends about my job teaching German to refugees and gotten a lot of positive feedback. Several have asked if I get paid (I do) and said they’d like to be involved in something like that, even on a volunteer basis. Everyone is talking about the refugee crisis right now, with Germany taking in more refugees per month now than it has in twelve months in the past. (I believe the statistic I heard was, Germany took in more refugees in June of this year than it did in all of 2013). Chancellor Angela Merkel is under close scrutiny for the country’s refugee policy right now, especially after that video of her accidentally making a little girl cry went viral. Continue reading “#RefugeesWelcome” →

At a Wendepunkt … turning point

On 12 October, 201523 April, 2019 By Alison HaywoodIn City Life, Studying Abroad, work1 Comment

As the weather in Hamburg slowly shifts and is now firmly entrenched in fall, so, too, is my life changing, and instead of a supermarket warehouse worker, I’m starting to feel like a student again.

I grew up in Washington, the Evergreen State, so living somewhere with dramatic fall colors never ceases to awe me. If you like my photos, follow me on Instagram: https://instagram.com/alison_haywood/

I quit my job at the supermarket, which had been bringing me down and taking up a lot of time for a while now, and now have three new jobs – the most exciting of which is definitely teaching German to refugee children.

Continue reading “At a Wendepunkt … turning point” →