I wrote a blog yesterday about my day, but without any concrete describing… I dont know if its wrong to do it know and to manifest my fear for the thing now and made it worse… but now I decide to write it.
Im a bee keeper for hobby and yesterday I made an open day for anyone, who want to look with me into my hives and for talk. It was planned as an event of two hours, but from the last person I say bye after almost 5 hours. The people ask many questions, were excited by my bees and thanks me and made me so much compliments for my style of explaining and showing. I felt great for that. Esspecially because I dont have to do much with people and are most time on my own now and felt me most of the time very useless and small… It was 14 people there – many more than I exspected. There were also some kids with. The boys from the family was yellowed at beginning about bees sitting and crawling over him but then so excited to look into the hives and finding the queen etc. The old people had a great time too and I see many smiles and we have many laughs. It was such a beautiful day.
But heres my problem. A thing happened, which come in my mind again and again. There was 3 kids with a women (friend of a friend of mine…) their, who doesnt speak german. I dont know the kids, but im sure, there were refugees. They was very anxious about the bees and I tried to show them anyways something, but with a bit more distance than the others. Mostly kids are a bit anxious at beginning but then they started to be enjoy the bees very much and find it funny to have them on their bodies and see the masses of bees in the hives while staying in flying bees all around them. But the second time the girl get frightened and stepped fastly back. Nobody expected such a reaction. So they stomped into my tool-box where I have my equipment for the bees. Public grounds are already a big problem for me, because the potentially contaminated with fecies of dogs ect. And shoes walk over these grounds… and she stomped into my box, where tools and stuff are in, which I have to use constantly. (next time tuesdays…) So I feared, the stuff in their is now contaminated by the shoe of the girl… Maybe I would overcame this, because the stuff in there lies often on the meadow where my hives are – so there is maybe not a big difference to what happenes now? I really asking me this question and wish, that someone could answer it to me… 🙁 But in this case, its not only the shoe with the potential fecies on it. The problem is, that she is a refugee. I dont know if you know, but we got very many of them in Germany since last year and it was a very uncontrolled situation. So it happened, that diseases, which dont exist in Germany anymore and are notifiable, arised again in some parts of Germany, what was written in the newspaper several times. Because nearly no one of the immigrants here were medically checked last year. Not epidemy here, but you cant say, how many people walking around here with notifiable illness, which dont going to the doc and their come constantly notifications of bad conditions of hygiene and health in refugee camps here. So Im scared much more about her shoes than any other shoes… Even if in my small town we dont got big camps, its in my mind much the same. I would overcome it much easier, if one of the other people stomp into the box…
Thats my problem now… written it, I feel very bad now… the box with stuff in it isnt as easy to clean and I really dont know, what I have to do now… I feel so quesey now, thinking about this… 🙁
Paul
Don't regret doing a good thing. You are showing bees, educating people about them and giving people an amazing experience. That's very brave for the people to be able to be around so many bees that would be very scary for the average person (including myself). It's just a little girl its your ocd saying her shoes are contaminated,you have to separate that. I understand the fears ocd puts in your head but do you not see that cleaning them and reassurance doesnt make the ocd better or go away? I have the same thing where i feel i have to clean something that frightened me, that's why i need therapy, and keep working on it because I don't want to live like that. I have to take control of the ocd not the other way around. You can too. You have to feel uncomfortable and let that feeling take its course and then subside without performing the ritual. Now of course if there was a sickness and precaution that needed to be followed that doesnt apply like my mom has a contagious infectious disease and there are precautions in place and that would be silly not to follow. I know its a thin line and i am not a therapist I just want to help to change the thinking. Hope you have overcome that incident and can enjoy the fact of showing your bees. Hope the girl is ok too and not so frightened about it. Did you see the movie i think its called "something about bees" it had Dakota Fanning it was really cool but drama.
Thanks for your comments. I know you are right, Abbey… but I changed all bags into my box, throw some away and sprayed everything else and the box with desinfection-spray. As you can imagine, Im still not sure if the box and the stuff in it is ok now. But I used everything today and dont feel so bad… I dont tell my girl anything and made everything by myself, which is noch typical in cleaning things for me. Asking mostly her for reassurance and often dont do things because of fear of dirt ect. But the bees are a great motivator too me. Also there are no possibilities, to not go there and use everything, because I have to be there. So I done at least a difficult thing for me, instead of putting it away or let it completely be…
 And yes, I enjoy the day and know, some people including me were happy there. I think, the girl will remember somedays a fascinating experience, even if she was anxious there. At least I tried to make it so. And I know the feeling, of enjoy things in retrospective more than in the present. But who knows…