Back In Switzerland

It has been one month since I returned from France. No surprise to all of you accustomed to my procrastination, I’ve finally come out of hibernation from the quiet Swiss Alps to say hello once again. I could just tell you about the last two journeys I took outside of the Canton of Vaud; however, since I spend so much of my time here I think Nyon, Prengins, and their humble surroundings, I think they deserve some praise. After my return, I had two weeks of school until the ominous INDEPENDENT STUDY PERIOD (I’ll get to that later). This included an anthropological study of Swiss Energy Use and Climate Change Awareness (kind of a joke), two French finals, and a final for the International Studies Seminar. In turn, as you can imagine, my mom had the pleasure of receiving numerous whinny calls that consisted of “I really just don’t want to talk about it” and “thank god I didn’t go to Uganda first.” I should add, the mood swings were and still are just a result of my laziness and in no way reflect restlessness or discontent to the order and predictability of Swiss life (common complaint of many foreigners).

To the contrary, Switzerland and the Swiss are great, kind of the opposite of what I’m used to in San Francisco and even Washington, but still great. I still contend that I got placed with the best family possible. Though I feel like my French hit a plateau about two weeks into the program, my host mom is still as patient and enthusiastic as ever. “Commet dit on…” (how does one say…) is probably the most common phrase out of my mouth. She is unrelenting in the kitchen. I’m not sure which foods I mentioned before, but we’ve had fondue and rocklett (both traditional Swiss, consisting of lots of cheese), horse, deer, escargot, every type of fish, rabbit, Mongolian fondue, and endless other things I’ve forgotten or don’t know what they are in English. In return and to the surprise of everyone, I baked my mom’s chocolate zucchini cake and they all loved it.

In addition, when I came back from Paris, I finally took initiative and asked my host mom to take me to the Prengins soccer fields to ask the coach if I could practice with the team. I was fairly, actually very, intimidated by the thought of training with a bunch of French speaking Europeans when I hadn’t played in a year and can’t speak French, but once she pulled into the parking lot, I had no choice. They practice at 7:30 under the lights on a really nice field, but when we arrived, there was no one there. In all honestly, I was content with the fact that at least I tried, but then about 20 huge guys came running out of the locker room and start practicing. I only had to see them shoot about five times to realize that the hesitation was indeed warranted. My host mom walked up to the coach said a couple of phrases in French and he instantly agreed. Fortunately, they have two teams, the second of which wasn’t practicing that day. I practiced with the second team for about three weeks. The coach was a guy from somewhere in Africa who didn’t speak any English and they all call him Pops. The guys on the team ranged from 20 to 25 years old and they joke around the whole practice. The first day, the coach didn’t even need to introduce me; they all just acted like I had already been playing with them. Most of the guys who didn’t speak English found it very entertaining to have somebody playing with them that didn’t speak French, so they said every word they knew of English at every opportunity. One Italian guy always called me Freddie Adu (youngest US national team player in history). It was really nice just to bullshit with a bunch of locals my own age; it slightly felt like high school soccer practice again. But I should add, even though their number one priority was to have a good time, they played very hard, they were definitely above my skill level, and they constantly said “bon joue” (good play) even if it wasn’t. I’m glad that I finally followed through.

Another note worthy experience was when my family took me to the mountain village of St. Cergue, at the end of September, for the local cow festival. Each of the dairy family farms paraded their dressed up cows from the mountain pastures, down to the village, around a loop, and down to the fields at lower elevation for the winter. The least appealing aspect of the whole thing was dodging the projectile cow feces. Other than that, it was quite the cultural experience. The Swiss truly respect their cattle for the cheese, meat, and milk that they provide; and in turn, they throw a huge festival and cheer has the bells around the cows’ necks signal their approach (the other US students that attended were dumbfounded). There were yodelers and people playing Alphorns. But I thought the elder farmers were the best part. All the heads of the farms were dressed in the same Swiss outfit, with pipe and wooden walking stick in hand. They would wait together at the beginning of the loop for the cows to pass and then stoically stroll behind each pack like Swiss noblemen. It was potentially the most “Swiss” event I’ve witnesses yet.