Home, Suisse, Home
During my winter break, my program sent out a required reading we were to complete by the start of the program. It was a book called Beyond Chocolate by Margaret Oertig-Davidson and it is essentially a somewhat-personal exposé on Swiss culture (primarily Swiss-German culture) on nearly every topic from greetings to childrearing to business relations. One of the most interesting elements of Swiss culture I found to be repeated throughout the book was the reportedly closed-off nature of the Swiss. According to Ms. Oertig-Davidson, the Swiss do not make small talk – not to the check-out clerk, not to their neighbors – unless they have known each other for what seemed like years. Relationships are built up over long periods of time and are very sturdy once they reach this point. When I was reading this, I was immediately worried about my home-stay arrangements. I thought, “If it’s considered incredibly rude in Swiss culture to ask personal questions of someone you have not known for long, how am I supposed to develop a relationship with my home-stay family?”
Yesterday, on February 4th, I met and moved in with my host-mother and was soon relieved of the preoccupations induced by the book. In fact, my host-mother was very comfortable asking me many personal questions, and although (out of respect for her as my elder and as my hostess) I am not as comfortable returning the same questions, it was a relief to know that we would know each other better sooner than I anticipated. I am at the same time excited to get to know my host-mother as well as intrigued by the uniqueness of home-stay arrangements.
In a home-stay, you are to live with a complete stranger quite suddenly. As I would assume is common, my host-mother and I had a brief email exchange before arriving, but other than that, there was no prior connection. Upon arrival, a host-parent and their guest are immediately privy to the personal and daily routines of one another, which would otherwise take months or years, no matter the culture, for anyone to discover of another. We will soon know each others showering schedules, eating habits, work ethics, pass-times, as well as more intimate “ticks” and intricacies. Not only this, but there is an underlying parent-child expectation, or at least I fell as such. As someone with such a close bond to her mother already, it is a bit odd thinking ahead over the next three and a half months about what kind of relationship could develop between my host-mother and myself. While there is no telling of what the future will hold, I find myself both an ethnographer, objectively observing the interactions between host-parent and host-child, as well as a player in this mysterious personal journey.
And, in case you were wondering, this “journey” is taking places in a very small village on the coast of Lake Geneva, which is a very manageable bus ride to class each day, and only a bit of a longer ride into the city of Geneva. (I really am loving this public transportation system they have here!) This afternoon, I took a short walk around the village with the intention of confirming a daily running rout, but my walk also transformed into a therapeutic outing as well. It was drizzling and had been raining all morning so I had on my raincoat. The waterproof fabric made loud swooshes with every movement, so I resigned to taking my hood off, letting the misty air cover my hair. This also allowed me to hear the water trickling into each storm drain… and I don’t know if I am simply romantically enthralled with the fact that I am finally living the moments I have dreamed of for so long, but I swear to you those flowing storm drains were musical. The dripping, rushing water made this beautiful noise – strong but not overpowering – that captivated me as I walked through the small streets of the village. Following my host-mother’s directions, I eventually found myself on a road running through fields – some with dead grape vines, some with dead fruit trees, and some simply with muddy grass. Although not a classic captivating European landscape, there was serenity in the atmosphere. The town is really quite tiny, but I am glad to call it my home for the next three and a half months.
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Above: Views of the mountains across Lake Geneva from the kitchen.
