A Cultural Week

I’m sitting on a train back to Geneva, leaving the clouds and the invisible mountains in Luzerne. Let’s see if I can remember what I did last week. Monday we had a briefing with UMSCO, a government-funded program in Geneva that provides health services to people in “precarious situations,” ie migrants without papers or status, without asking questions. In the afternoon I had my French written final examination, which wasn’t hard because we’d been doing work above the level we’d tested into all semester. Tuesday morning was open for us to work on our cultural dropoff, which I’m pretty sure was only semi-useful since wandering around Geneva looking for interviews is by nature not always successful. In the afternoon our French class had a little party where everyone brought food since it was one of our last classes, and we played Taboo in French which was rather difficult. I kind of felt like it’s what we’d been doing all semester learning vocab because we have to describe a word without knowing what it is, then our teacher will help us figure out what the word is in French. Wednesday was a free day, likely spent working on the cultural dropoff some more and trying to get all my interviews in. Thursday class was relatively unexciting, and I took my French oral exam which I think went pretty well. It was definitely weird taking finals when everyone back home is taking midterms, but we’re done with formal classes now and have all of November to work on our independent study project. Friday we had to present our cultural dropoff, which was also pretty boring to hear about everyone else’s week, especially since some people talked for a full half hour even though it was only supposed to be 5-8 min long.

Then the weekend began and it was quite fun. Friday night Erin and I went to Ria’s house for raclette. Ria had requested it and her host mom had accidentally bought too much, so they had us over along with one of her host mom’s friends. Her mom is from America but has lived in Switzerland for a while; she was really nice. Raclette is also amazing, it’s kind of like fondue. You get a slice of the special raclette cheese and put it in a little shovel type thing and let it heat up and pour the melted cheese over boiled potatoes. After dinner we had the amazing chocolate torte-like dessert that Erin had once bought from the train station. They were saying it’s actually a Viennese specialty, I can’t remember what it’s called, but it’s in all the patisseries and is basically this chocolate cake with raspberry filling covered in hard chocolate. Then her mom’s friend was making coffee and suggested having a drink with it so she like was suddenly whipping out this stash of alcohols she had, including some kirschsInterlaken trip but we were watching and I was curious if Ria’s mom had had Limoncello before and suddenly her guy friend had poured me a glass, so Ria had some too and Erin tried the kirsch. I think Limoncello is yummy, it’s like candy with a kick. Then we went up to Ria’s room to attempt to plan our trip to Interlaken after Luzern but we were really tired and spent a really long time looking at stuff to do in Interlaken without actually planning anything. that her like grandfather had made from scratch. Kirsch I guess is like a flavored brandy but it’s not really all that flavored because I accidentally bought it once thinking it would be like 99 Apples since I saw a picture of apples on the front but it was not sweet at all! Well us girls we planning on just going upstairs to plan our

Saturday was spent in the library doing my 3-hr final exam of 3 short essays, which was pretty gross because the questions didn’t actually make sense and I’ve never sat for 3 hours and done straight work, lol. That night I went with my host mom to this dinner her friend put on for Burkina Faso, and learned more about why my host mom is this really amazing person. The lady who organized the dinner had been in the paper in Rolle because she like built a school in Burkina Faso, and the dinner was kind of for the same cause. Anyway, I asked my mom what she meant when she said she sold grapes “for the missions,” and she explained how she met some nuns a few of years ago at her church who were from Tchad and did stuff like build schools and helped build the country, so she and some other Swiss friends of hers have been selling jam and doing little fundraising projects to go towards the missions in Chad. Anyway, dinner was delicious, I tried tabouli (?) for the first time (the small couscous like stuff with like vegetables), and also had this amazing potato salad with like peas and tuna and potatoes and orange peppers and I don’t know what else, but it was delicious and I’m definitely gonna try and recreate it when I go home. The wine we had with dinner was also delicious, and I bought a bottle as a souvenir before we left. I thought it was all the more appropriate because it was even made in Mont-sur-Rolle.

After dinner I went to a Halloween party in Nyon that one of the girls in the other group was hosting, which was really cool because they had it in a freakin barn! LOL but it was good because I got to see Erica, who is in the other group but also goes to GW and I had known her before I got here, and hadn’t gotten to really hang out with her until then. Sunday I wrote my cultural dropoff at Beza’s, for the company and because she has Internet I can use. That night my mom made a pumpkin soup with coconut milk I think and then also with sausages. It was different but I liked it… it was funny because she asked if I liked it and I did and she was like you’re so easy, I don’t even have to ask if you like the food I make because you like everything! Anyway, that was my last night before our next excursion, so I packed after that and went to bed.