Precious Blood Volunteer Martin Echtler working at St. James Place, Kansas City, Missouri
How I Learned to Drive Through Kansas City Without a Car
by Martin Echtler, Precious Blood Volunteer
Before I left my home in Munich to move to
Kansas City, I had a lot of different feelings and
expectations regarding the Precious Blood Volunteer
program and the United States in general. There
were a lot of questions in my mind: “How it will be
to work as a volunteer?” “Which people will I meet?”
“How will I deal with cultural borders or language
limitations?” Besides these “big questions” there was
another aspect, more ordinary, which was not really
on my agenda in the run up to my journey—the
question “How will I get around in Kansas City?”
I was not worried about it, because I thought it would
be like in Munich where a wide variety of different
public transportation options makes it not too com-
plicated to get from point A to point B.
My view changed after a few days in the city,
when I realized that most of the people drive their
8 • The New Wine Press • February 2018
own car to get around. After realizing this I thought
“Well, I don’t think it’s a big deal, because I’ve heard
Kansas City has a new street car and a really good
bus system.” After using the street car for the first
time my view changed a little bit. And after a few
(long) times waiting at the bus stop my view changed
a little bit more. My first conclusion was “Oh boy, it
would be so much easier to have a car to get around.”
But during the next months, my point of view would
change again.
The more time I spent in Kansas City with dif-
ferent people at work, at home, or somewhere else
dealing with lots of different situations, the more
I realized that indeed I don’t have a physical car,
but I already sit in and drive another, special kind
of “car.” At this point you might think “This weird
German guy must be crazy, because he can see