Selected Events 2008    

From left: U.S. interns Sunshine Moore and Janette McGrain; Kjarstin Wenig

April 24, 2008. In collaboration with the youth library and the community center, Steinhaus e.V. Bautzen, Consulate General Leipzig participated in “America Day” at the Bautzen children’s library. A morning group of four educators and 41 five- to six-year-old children from a Bautzen preschool assembled in the brilliantly decorated Steinhaus Theater. Featured was the renowned children’s book, “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” by Eric Carle, which was read in English by Kjarstin Wenig, wife of Consul for Public Affairs Mark Wenig, and concurrently in German by head librarian Gariele Bürger. Through question-answer games, songs, and dance, the children learned new English vocabulary and geographical facts. In the afternoon Mark Wenig spoke about the 2008 U.S. election campaign and U.S. foreign policy to an audience of twenty visiting 11th-13th grade student of the Vocational School of Technology, who posed questions about American laws, society, and culture. To conclude the day, Wenig ceremonially presented the Bautzen city library an assortment of books that major U.S. publishers had donated for display at the 2008 Leipzig Book Fair and subsequent distribution by the Consulate.