Photo by Kyle Rieger

After being separated for about three months, I have been reunited with my brother. We aren’t related genetically, come from different countries and have only spent a total of three weeks together in our entire lives. Still, I share a stronger bond with my German American Partnership Program (GAPP) partner Moritz Borger than I do with anybody I’ve met.

The irony is that I never would have met Moritz had I been assigned to the language course I signed up for in middle school. I desperately wanted to take Spanish, but because of the popularity of the class, I was reassigned German by default. At first, I was angry. I saw the language as impractical: most Germans speak English, and there are very few German speakers in the United States. I almost dropped the language my freshman year. For whatever reason, I stuck with it.

The first time Moritz and I contacted each other, things between my partner and me just clicked.

“It’s like family,” Borger said. “We are brothers. There is more to it than the three weeks in Hamburg and the three weeks here.”

I frequently ask the other members of the GAPP program how often they keep in touch with their partners or even just people from the opposite country, and I’m always shocked to hear that people keep in touch less than Moritz and I.

“With us, it’s not like the other GAPPers,” Borger said. “To be honest, I think the others like each other very much, but they can’t talk about the things in life that are more important. I think I can because my partner is such a good guy.”

Moritz and I can talk about politics, religion or girls, the controversial topics that make up the “three things you don’t talk about at the dinner table”. With most people, it wouldn’t take long for me to be in a heated argument, but I have never disagreed with Moritz on anything.

It is my mission to return the favor Moritz did for me and make these next three weeks in a foreign country the most memorable of his life, but in my gut, I know that him leaving for a his week in New York City and then returning to Hamburg isn’t the end.

“I have friends for life here,” Borger said. “I want to see them all again. I will want to come back.”