I‘m staying here until the end!

Growing old in the countryside                                       

Fleetmark, a small village in Saxony-Anhalt. It is home to 600 people. There is a church, and a kindergarten. But there is no doctor, and the nearest supermarket is 5 km away. To reach the nearest hospital requires an hour-long journey by car over bumpy country roads. The clergyman Dietrich Eichenberg and his wife Maria Buro call the countryside their home. Their parish encompasses 22 villages. “Whoever has grown up here is drawn to the place all their lives,” says the 31-year-old with conviction. People from elsewhere to not move to the country, but most people here spend their entire lives in the village. The same is true of the senior citizen Leonore Pengel. This 91-year-old woman was born in Seelendorf Schernikau, one of the locales looked after by the pastoral couple. Living here are just 80 people. Leonore Pengel wants to stay in the country: for her, there is no question of moving away. When her husband died 15 years ago, her daughter moved back to the country to look after her mother. “The worst thing for elderly people here is the loneliness, the feeling of being no use to anyone. Many of them worked hard all their lives, running a farm, practicing a trade, they were urgently needed,” explains Minister Eichenberg. Even at her great age, Ingeborg von Kalben still wants to share her love of art with other people. Now 92 years old, she lives alone, and has no relatives nearby. Her daughter lives in Hamburg, where she stays in the winter months, returning to the country in March. During the warmer months, she visits art students in the neighboring village, who are working on their paintings. In coping with everyday life, the elderly lady receives assistance from a 60-year-old neighbor. “The degree of solidarity and social concern is extremely high. But at times, people here reach their limits,” explains Eichenberg. The film “I’m staying here until the end! – Growing old in the countryside” accompanies senior citizens who have resolved not to move their households in old age. People who have decided not just to grow old in their native villages, but to die there as well. What motivates their decision to stay put in old age? What role is played in the countryside by social networks? What are the challenges, but also the opportunities that confront seniors daily? The film offers insights into the daily lives of senior citizens and their helpers, without whom life within their own four walls would probably be impossible to sustain.

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