Helpful / Hilfreich

Our family has a long-running joke that when one of us - usually me - gets into a pickle in a faraway land, we should see it mainly as a helpful opportunity to learn the local language.

Thus me having an unexpected heart scan in a French hospital as a student, or being posted as a volunteer in a dusty rural outpost of Cambodia - or indeed absorbing the personal and societal punches of the last year in my broken German - all mainly helpful for language learning!

As this latest overseas adventure draws to an end, I have started packing my bags (and clearing out). This photo shows my newly-helpful seven year old donating several loads of clothes to be re-fashioned by the Deutsches Rotes Kreuz.

I certainly found the vocabulary test on their recycling bin to be most useful, and hope the donated items are also of help to someone in need.