Switzerland Part 2

Switzerland Part 2

24 September
Thursday ~

Today was a leisure day of visiting with Heidi and getting to know the boys better. Hannes (9) and Dylan (7) had school all day but school lets out for a 2.25 hour lunch each day and they come home to eat. School’s out at 3:45.

The village of Donneloye rings a bell at 11:45 to let the people know it’s almost noon - the hour they all hold special. There are no loud noises allowed from noon to 1pm - noises like lawn mowers and such. All the kids in Switzerland go home for a hot lunch except maybe schools in large cities. Supper is usually bread and cheese.

It’s intriguing to watch the boys switch between languages. Heidi talks to them English and the respond in kind. Ralph speaks to them in Swiss-German and they reply with that. They chatter in French with their friends. I heard them talking to their friend in French and answer a question I asked them in English without any hesitation.

They’ll go to their dad and say something in English, he’ll answer in Swiss-German and they’ll continue in that language. They do have some interesting pronunciations, though. They often say a “d” instead of “th” (“der” instead of “there”) and their “r” is more French than English. I can’t explain it but it’s a foreign sound.

Liam (almost 4) was telling me about his school he goes to on Mondays. I asked him what was his favorite thing to do and he answered something that sounded like “klih-klih”. I asked him what “klih-klih” was, thinking it was some sort of food. He looked at me oddly and said, “Not that!”
“Okay,” I said, willing to learn, “What is it?” For all I knew, I’d said a bad word.
“Khlick-khlih,” he repeated.
“Oh!” I said, not willing to try again. “What is that?”
He paused for a moment with an expression as if I’m awfully dumb for a grownup not to know what “khlick-khlih” was. “It means ‘everyone get out the toys and play and run and jump.’”

I can understand why that’s his favorite part.

Heidi was driving us to Yverdon to catch the train to Basel and then on to Brussels and Rhonda slipped one of her favorite CDs into the player. It’s one of Lara Fabian and she was singing in French. A song or two later, she was singing in Italian. “Is that the French lady singing in Italian?” Liam asked from the middle seat.

Fancy an almost-four-year-old recognizing not only the switch in languages but also which languages they were!

The phone rang while Heidi and Rhonda were at the store so Hannes answered it. He started out in English and then switched to French after a couple of sentences. No break in the stream of words.

I know it can’t be easy with three languages in the home and wanting the kids to be fluent in all of them but it’ll be such a boon to them when they get older. German, French, and English are all required in the Swiss schools. In the French-speaking are of Switzerland where these kids are, they start out with French. In grade five they begin studying German, and in grade seven, they add English. At least that’s what I think I remember Heidi telling me.

I’m not going to give a language lesson because it’s French. All you have to do is go down to the bookstore or library and find any word you want to say. That is what a teacher would call “an exercise for the student.”


Heidi’s dear friend Kim, a fellow-American also married to a Swiss, came with her three children and spent most of the day with us. Rhonda had met her when she visited Boise before but got to know her much better when she (Rhonda) came through here last year on her way to Italy.

Kim made a beautiful dessert whose name I can’t recall. It had a base of puff-pastry, then brown sugar and a custard-like filling, topped with fresh plums that were at their peak of sweetness. For added flavor, color, and all-around goodness, she liberally sprinkled sugar all over the top. At least…..she thought it was sugar.

The kids had theirs first. Liam took a bite of his…..gagged…..put it down….looked at it as if it’d betrayed him and said he didn’t like it. Heidi was confused because it’s a favorite dessert of her boys.

Mom, Rhonda, and I took a bite….and only one bite. It was terribly salty. Heidi took a bite next. Kim was busy in the next room tending to her three-year-old son who was calling for a drink of water as if he’d been three days in the desert. Heidi asked if she’d sprinkled sugar over the top. When Kim answered that she had, Heidi asked what container she got the sugar from.

All was explained and Kim took the laughter quite well. I guess she’d made the same dessert - or tried to - when Rhonda was here last year but burnt the bottom. I told Rhonda that she needs to come at least one more time so Kim can make it successfully for her. Third time’s a charm, you remember.

We all agreed that Hannes and Dylan needed to experience it, too, when they got home from school. Hannes was first. Heidi told him there was whatever-it’s-called out on the table on the patio and Hannes headed out there rather quickly. Heidi and I stood at the front-room window overlooking the patio to watch. He grabbed a piece, piled whipped cream on top and took a bite. He spun around, entered the house and met Heidi on the stairs. She said he had a revolted look on his face and he whispered, “Mom, what’s wrong with this?”

Dylan was much funnier. When Heidi told him it was on the back patio, he raced for the stairs and outside. We raced for the window; Hannes included. Dylan moved a few pieces around, yelled that there were no plates and headed back indoors.
“It’s okay, Dylan,” Hannes rushed to assure him. “You can eat it with your fingers.” Dylan raced back outside and Hannes went, giggling, back to the window. Dylan grabbed probably the biggest piece, heaped whipped cream on it, and took a huge bite. He sort of froze for just an instant, then walked purposefully to the edge of the patio and a convenient planter. He stood there for half a second and then violently threw the cake into the bushes. He leaned over the planter for a moment, spitting, and then charged back into the house for an explanation. Heidi was laughing so hard on the couch that she couldn’t get up. She couldn’t really talk, either, but managed to explain what was wrong with it and that she’d done it to Hannes, too. Both boys took it well and ran off to play.

We had a genuine Swiss supper called Raclette. It was delicious! Heidi cooked up a huge pot of potatoes, sliced up some small zucchinis, some tomatoes and onions, diced up bacon, and thickly sliced some raclette cheese. The table was set and in the middle were two machines that are basically portable broilers and had little wedge-shaped pans with handles.

We put what we wanted in the pans and set them under the broiler until they were done as we wanted them. Then we’d dump them out on the plate beside our cut-up potatoes and put a slice of raclette in the pan. I liked to put in some bacon as well. When the cheese bubbled, we took it out and poured it over the potatoes and veggies on our plate. We’d stick another slice of cheese and whatever under the broiler to melt while we were polishing off what we’d already prepared.

Switzerland is a beautiful land but there’s little unsettled land. When we drove to the factories and to the castle, we would travel through five miles of farmland and then come to another village.
The roads are winding and, except for the main roads, narrow. About two cars plus six inches wide. Did they slow down when they met another car? Shucks, no!

Often, the barn part of a house was right next to the road. No sidewalk or grass border. Sometimes, the house was just off the road and there were a lot of stone walls that we seemed to just miss.

I noticed the clocks in Austria and they were just as prevalent in Switzerland. Everywhere you look, there’s a clock. No reason whatsoever to be late.

Beautiful country. So tidy. Not much trash or even overgrown hedgerows or wasteland. Austria was even more well-taken care of. The only roadside trash I saw was around the tracks in the train station. The entire country, both Austria and Switzerland, look as if they’re a park.