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Berlin's long budget crisis means that the government is cutting back on educational grants. With typical resourcefulness, though, the Sorbs are taking matters into their own hands. In 1998, the Domowina launched the Witaj (Welcome) kindergarten project in which children learn Sorbian in a playful environment. "I'm 100% happy with Witaj," says Ilka Lachmann, 37, whose two children attend a Witaj school in Hoyerswerda, 55 km northeast of Dresden. "The kids pick up the second language without any exertion, and profit from it; it helps them learn other languages later."
Many Germans are sympathetic to the Sorbs' struggle for cultural survival. Matthias Schilka, a 20-year-old student from Werben, is competing in his fourth lapanje kokota. "I can't do anything about the language — I'm not from a minority family — but I'm taking part in the harvest ritual because it's important that at least these customs live on," he says. "It would be sad if they died out."
It would be more than sad. The Sorbs are one of just four national minorities left in Germany. Siegfried Ramoth, 76, has long been Werben's village chronicler, a job that entails recording important local events and researching the region's past. Over the past four decades, he's heard how the clipped sounds of Sorbian have almost completely disappeared from village life. "Languages die out; that's the way it goes," Ramoth says. "But these customs — which strengthen the bonds between the members of our village, young and old, German and Sorb — are what will keep our culture and our history alive."