The Weekend Again?

Study abroad is going by so fast!!! Another weekend past, and it was most definitely a great one. Friday we went to the Museum of the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC), and got a tour of the museum. It’s a pretty cool museum, with the original cards used in WWI to match soldiers with their families for contact and knowledge about them. Every Tuesday when the library closes someone works with the cards to find people, still. They have these five modules, little rooms that emphasize some of the Red Cross’ efforts, including land mines, prisoners, health education and awareness, and supply delivery. The fifth and the one that had the biggest impact on me was a module with pictures of the children from Rwanda who were too young to remember or say their family’s names, so the ICRC created a database of these children’s pictures and information on where they were found, so families could try and find their children that way. The entire room, wall to wall, was covered in the pictures of these children, with a few smiling but the majority looking like sad mug shots of these probably 5 years or younger children who had been part of the war and had no families. The museum also had symbolic statues of all the victims of human rights and other abuses around the world, wrapped in cloth to be ambiguously faceless, speechless, genderless, etc. All in all the museum was a good one, but rather depressing as well.

Afterwards I spent a little bit of time on the computers at the UN library across the street, then went to check out the Jardin Botanique (Botanical Gardens) with Orlando. We had our (money-saving) packed lunches there then walked around. The coolest part of it I think was that they had exhibits of everyday products we use, shown next to the plant that it comes from. They had everything from fruits to herbs to medicines used in everyday drugs. I had a delicious dinner of raclette, a kind of cheese that’s melted then poured over cooked potatoes. That night I met up with Beza and Natasha, and we wandered around Old Town Geneva looking for something to do. We ended up having ice cream at a café (how European, right?) – I got vanilla with chocolate sauce, whipped cream, and poire (pear). The pear part seemed different but it was actually really delicious (I think anything covered in chocolate and ice cream automatically qualifies as delicious, though). Natasha had to catch her last bus home, but Beza and I stayed a little and tried to go back to see if there was a party going on again at L’Isle Rousseau (Rousseau Island), which there really wasn’t but we danced the night away anyway.

Saturday was very awesome. Natasha’s host sister knew about a concert going on where we could camp, the Festival Chant du Gros. We went with Sara, Pete, and Paul (her sister drove us, since it was kind of far away). We spent half the day coordinating people getting there, which was kind of a pain, but we finally all got to our rendez-vous point and then to the concert. The whole thing basically took place in a field right outside a small country town, with camping tents pitched all over the place and two big tents pitched, each with stages inside for live music. The music was supposed to be a Reggaeton festival, which we mostly heard at first, but that made me really miss going to rock concerts. Luckily, later that night there were some rock bands, and it was really fun dancing with our little group and just being in the middle of this huge hippie festival (yes, hippie… take what you may from that :-D). The festival had been going since Thursday, and this was the last night. Since we got there at 5, we were pretty much dead tired by about 1am, but the party went all night long (as we slept uncomfortably, coldly, and crowded in our little ghetto tent). Live music played till 3am, followed by stereo music, and the entire camp site was alive all night, too (except us, the lame Americans). Natasha’s sister and a random friend we made both came by at some point in the night wanting to know why the hell we were sleeping, but we didn’t care. I love dancing, though. Anyway, the next morning we got some breakfast at a café then headed home.

After showering away the smell of camping and various types of smoke, I met up with Beza, Nadia, and Ebun in Nyon to do some studying. We found some chairs outside a café and did as much studying as one can do in a group. Afterwards I came home for dinner, coconut curry chicken, and did more work until now. As it’s almost 11:00 I think I shall go to bed soon… Bonne nuit!