Sigrid
Hello, today at Plus Forty Nine we have with us Rebecca Del Vaje – welcome, Rebecca. How are you doing?

Rebecca
First of all, thank you so much for inviting me. I’m really excited to share a bit of my story with you. I’m doing well, I can definitely feel autumn arriving in Berlin, but I’m okay.

Coming to Germany and starting over

Sigrid
Let’s start with the basics. When did you come to Germany, why did you choose Germany, and what are you doing here now?

Rebecca
I came to Germany seven years ago. At that point in my life, I felt stuck in Mexico and needed a change. I tried other places first – New York, Paris – and then I came to Berlin just to visit a friend. I had no plan to move here, I didn’t know the culture, I didn’t know anyone. But then I met my partner here… and that’s why I stayed.

Winter, solitude and discovering new skills

Sigrid
Both of us are Mexican, and every time it gets cold we start dreaming of going back. People here often say: do sports, yoga, meditation – it helps. You turned that into something quite powerful, both personally and professionally.

Rebecca
Yes, but it took time. One of the hardest and most beautiful parts of migration is this process of deconstructing and reinventing yourself. You arrive with certain skills you know about – but you also carry hidden skills you only discover when life gets tough.

For me, winter and the solitude here – especially during Covid – pushed a lot of things to the surface. I’m a fitness trainer as well as a communications professional. In Mexico I worked in PR and agencies, but I’ve always had this other side.

What I discovered here is that I don’t just like training bodies – I like accompanying women through their migration process. Being there with them, not just counting reps, but holding space for grief, identity shifts, loneliness.

I arrived right when Covid started. Two weeks after I landed, the borders closed. It was winter, it was Germany, it was lockdown. Making friends, getting to know the city, feeling part of anything – all of that was really difficult. That experience of solitude is a big part of why I created what I’m doing now.

Grieving the old self and the “pink migration”

Sigrid
You touched on something I think a lot of migrants feel but don’t always name: grief. You’re grieving the person you were in your home country while trying to build a new version of yourself here.

Rebecca
Exactly. It’s a constant grief. You grieve your language, the everyday hugs, the casual closeness. And then, when you go home, you start grieving Berlin a bit too. After a while, you belong half here and half there.

We need to make space inside ourselves for this new person: bi-cultural, maybe multi-cultural, in-between.

There’s also something called “pink migration” – when women move because of their partner. That can create another layer of grief. You become economically, socially and emotionally dependent on one person. You see the country through your partner’s eyes, through their language, their networks. It can be very limiting and isolating.

Training, meditation, and working with migrant women

Sigrid
Tell us more about your work with women here in Berlin – your workshops, your classes, what happens in that space.

Rebecca
It started very organically. I was teaching in gyms and then began working with private clients. I realized many of the women I trained were going through the same thing: the grief of migration, feeling disconnected from their culture and not yet anchored here.

And that process is not linear. You think you’ve “moved on” and then, months or years later, the same feelings come back.

Because I’ve been practicing meditation for almost ten years, I started combining physical training with more somatic and emotional work. For me the goal is not just: “lose weight to look good”. I ask:

-How are you breathing?

-How do you feel in your body today?

-What are you experiencing in this stage of your migration?

-Which habits from your old life still serve you, and which don’t in this new culture?

Out of that came meditation classes, mobility workshops and personalized programs that focus on sustainable goals for body and overall wellbeing especially for migrant women.

How to find her

Sigrid
If someone listens to this and thinks, “I need that kind of support”, how can they find you?

Rebecca
The easiest way is via Instagram: @rebeca_fitmeup (with an underscore between rebeca and fitmeup).

I also organize mobility workshops and retreats specifically for migrant women. I prefer “migrant” to “expat”, because “expat” is often linked to a very privileged type of move – corporate package, limited time, guaranteed security. Many of us are here under very different conditions.

Migration, privilege and Berlin as a “melting city”

Sigrid
That’s an important distinction. Migration isn’t one thing – people leave for very different reasons: safety, politics, money, love, curiosity.

Rebecca
Exactly. Someone who comes with a secure job, relocation package and company support has a very different reality from someone who arrives because their country became unlivable.

But in the end, Berlin has space for everyone. It has the famous party, kink, and creative scene but it also has thousands of people who came because something in their home country stopped working. Together we’re building a new kind of society here.

Community: where to start

Sigrid
You mentioned community as a key survival tool. For someone who just arrived, what are realistic first steps to build community?

Rebecca
For me personally, the first step was connecting with people from my own cultural space not only Mexicans, but Latinos in general. I know some people avoid that to “force” themselves to learn German, but I needed proximity, touch, emotional warmth.

You also find that in many Asian and African cultures: the hugs, the physical closeness, the shared vulnerability. I need spaces where I can be vulnerable and others can be vulnerable with me, where there is a reciprocal emotional exchange.

With Germans, this also exists – but it usually takes longer to get to that layer. The first shell is harder to crack.

So my advice:

-Find people (from any culture) around whom you feel safe and seen.

-Find spaces built around your hobbies and strengths, where you can feel “like yourself” again – but where there’s also room for your weaknesses and your process.

Question from a new Berliner

Sigrid
You already heard her voice – today our producer is Rufruf, who just moved here from Pakistan. When we first met, her first question to me was: “How do I make friends in Germany?” She just went home for two weeks and then was happy to come back to Berlin.

Rufruf, you had a question for Rebecca.

Rufruf
Yes. In your work with migrant women, you’ve focused a lot on our side of the experience. I’m curious about the other side: the host society.

What have you seen so far of how Germans react to people coming in? And if you could give a message or some advice to Germans or local communities on how to welcome migrants better, what would you tell them?

What Rebecca would tell Germans

Rebecca
That’s a big and really important question.

First, I think it helps to acknowledge: it’s not easy for anyone to accept another culture. Even in very “open” societies, the unknown creates fear. A lot of people put on a shell simply to protect themselves.

At the same time, migration is not something strange or new – it’s how humanity has always moved. We’re all products of migration, whether we remember it or not.

So what would I say to Germans, or any host community?

Practice empathy. Not just towards migrants, but as a basic principle of life. You never know when you’ll be the one who has to start over somewhere else.

Remember times when you were “the new one”. A new school, new job, new sports club – how did you want to be treated?

Make room for difference. Our political views, religions, traditions and ways of relating can be very different, and that’s okay. A society grows when it allows itself to be changed.

If you go into a kindergarten in Berlin today, you’ll see kids who don’t fit any old stereotype of “what a German looks like”. They’re mixed in every possible way. That’s beautiful.

In a few years, the idea of a “typical German” or a “typical Mexican” will be much weaker. We’ll just be people – a big melting pot of cultures, beliefs, languages. That’s a good thing.

A city and people under construction

Sigrid
We could go on for hours, but I want to end on something you said that I loved: Berlin is like a medicine, or a mirror.

Rebecca
Yes. If I could choose based only on weather, I’d probably live somewhere warmer.

But Berlin is like a teacher. It constantly shows you what you still have to work on – your goals, your shadows, your patterns. For some people, once they’ve done that work, they’re ready to move on. Others decide to stay and keep learning here.

Germany and Berlin themselves are also in a process. This city has been “under construction” for more than thirty years. We’re living inside a place that’s still redefining itself. That’s tiring sometimes, but it also means we’re part of history in the making.

Sigrid
Thank you so much, Rebecca, for your honesty, your work and your energy.

Rebecca
Thank you both – it was a pleasure. And yes, I think we definitely need that coffee after this, because we could keep talking for hours.