Marienstatt
As
I already mentioned before, the holy church had big problems on
their missionary challenge in the wild woods of the Westerwald. I
do not want to say that they totally failed. There are still some
monks alive. But their work has not changed much of the stange,
beer-minded behaviour of the people.
But the monks had in fact some success: They are eaten just when
there is really nothing else eatable found. Despite the holy men
do have some delicous fat around their belly...
The percentage of people who are able to read and write is in all places of the Westerwald much much lower than the percantage of people who are able to hunt a wild pig single handed. The only place where this is different is the Zisterzienserabtei Marienstatt (convent Marienstatt). The monks are skilled pig hunters as well, but they will cite Ovids poems while hunting.
At the end of the 20th century the holy order of the Zisterzienser was sent to the cruel wasteland of the Westerwald in order to bring the message of the holy Bible to the wild people. The first thing that these brave monks realised was, that these region has still no working education system. The german goverment gave the monks a budget to build the first school in the Westerwald, the Gymnasium Marienstatt (High School of Marienstatt). As education is really on the very opposite of everything a Westerwälder thinks about, this school is not really what you expect from a school (major courses are "Beer", "More Beer", "Much more beer" and "Potatoes"). Nevertheless it is even more astonishing that some Westerwälder graduate from there and try to enter a university (of course there is no university in the Westerwald).
Some beautiful pictures that proof everything I said are right here.
......
[diese seite in deutsch]
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