Monday, October 11th
This morning, a group of us Franklin students departed campus for the first phase of our fall Academic Travel. Our destination was St. Luc, a small village high up in the Alps (in the canton of Vaud). Our bus driver, Michaele, is nothing short of a genius. It's not your everyday person that can maneuver a gargantuan tour bus along the perilous, winding, sharp turns through the mountains that lead up to these villages. Once we arrived however, the journey was well worth the stomach-churning; the view was nothing short of spectacular, and the air was so incredibly crisp and clean. After a short hike, we arrived at one of our main destinations for the day - the museum of Ella Maillart in Chandolin.
Maillart was one of the most famous Swiss travel writers of her time. I had chosen to do a presentation on her life and works, (the "academic" in academic travel) I think because I so strongly identified with her: she was independent, adventurous, strong willed, and speculative. She continually sought self-enlightenment and education through her travels in an extremely objective manner. She believed that to get the most out of travel, one had to specifically seek to live in that moment, in that culture, by the standards at hand. She wanted to learn from these cultures, and give what she could in return. She was everything I ever dreamed I could be, and had done and discovered many of the things that I hope my travels and my experience at Franklin will bring me. Unfortunately, she is no longer alive. However a mere five meteres from the museum is the house of Anne Deriaz, another Swiss travel writer, who took care of Maillart during her last years.
Anne's small chalet, overlooking the alps and the slopes of the valley between, stood out from all the rest. Strings of multicolored Tibetan flags adorned the porch, waving breezily over the plates of biscuits and steaming jugs of tea that awaited us. Professor Steinert-Borella (Sara, as we call her) had actually interviewed Maillart before her death and established a friendship with Anne Deriaz, which was the reason twenty-one college students were being invited to tea in a small chalet. Anne was so gracious, and as I sat inside her home, I was enchanted by what I saw: the small collection of books from a variety of countries (including a few in Chinese, which I was impressed by), as well as furnishings which had obviously been collected with care during her various travels, and the pure simplicity of her lifestyle. Everywhere I looked, a part of every country and culture that Anne had visited characterized her home; it was as if all these parts had come together to make her who she was, they had built her, and her home.
After this, we descended on foot to where we would be staying the night. As we passed through the physical village of St. Luc, I couldn’t help but notice the similarities between all the chalets. They all had intricate patterns carved into the porches and on the shutters, and they all had bursts of red flowers hanging from the porch. The wood paneling on the majority of the houses were varying shades of deep browns; you could tell how old each house was by how dark and worn it was. Another thing that set the chalets apart was that each had its own name; in these traditional villages, they do not use house numbers. After asking a few people, I gathered that the Swiss do this to personalize their homes, to make the home a very real part of their lives. Anne, for example, told me that when she moved into her home she changed the name to something that felt right to her, that had meaning. And of course, with villages this small, there is no need for a numbering system for homes; this is just one of the many cultural differences between the U.S. and Switzerland. I also noticed how the year the chalet was built was carved onto the facade; my conclusion here is that the Swiss value their buildings and the history that goes along with it, unlike in America where buildings are torn down and built back up again constantly. All of these little details have a meaning behind them, a clue, if you will, to the essence of Swiss culture.
After passing through the town, we reached the Gîte du Prilett. I suppose it was more of a skiing lodge, a chalet of sorts. It didn't seem like much from the outside, but from within, I found that it had so much more to offer. I was put into a dorm style room of ten girls, which I was quite skeptical about, especially considering that there was only one toilet and one shower. But the beds were clean and warm, and the dinner was absolutely fantastic. It had a distinct home-like quality about it, from the way the owners treated us to the way they cooked for us. I felt very comfortable and very content.
