I Cooked

Wow. What a beautiful place:





That's the view outside my window on a day that's not even clear. If it were clear, in the first picture would be jagged Alps. But it wasn't clear because it was snowing all day. That made for great sledding with the kids, which also happened to be part of my work.

Their are four kids here, three of their own and a 'foster' child. Tim is 12, Jara (pronounced Yara) is 10, and Salome (Sal-Oh-Me) is 3. Cyrill, the foster child, is 8. My first job on Tuesday was to get Cyrill up, eat breakfast, make sure he takes his medicine so he doesn't kill anyone, and then get him off to school. I got him off on time, but he forgot his bag so he was 10 minutes late. Dirk (host-dad) said it was fault and I couldn't agree more. Next, Salome got up around 8:45 and I played with her all morning until it was time for me to cook lunch. I made rice, turkey and a sauce. It was my first time making such a sauce and it turned out wonderfully. I think Salome had 4 plates of it and the kids kept saying it tasted good. In the afternoon, I followed Dirk around showing me different jobs. First we cleaned out the chicken coop. Then he showed me how to clean the cow stall. By this time it was about 6:15 and I was done for the day.

In my blog posts I will not blatantly point out differences between here and the Dettweiler's. I know it will be different, heck, it already is. But the goal is not for comparison of the two places, but experiencing them for what they are.

Before I go on, I'll also point out that this is NOT a dairy farm. I never said that, ever. This is a farm where there just happens to BE cows. We only milk one cow and that milk is generally for a calf. So Nana, don't worry about me lifting heavy milk cans, just heavy shovels of cow poop and large pitchforks of hay.

Today I woke up a bit earlier to help clean the stalls and do some morning chores. Then I played with Salome all morning until I boiled Tortellini and warmed a sauce for lunch. I also made a salad. Then after the mid day pause, Maya (host mom) taught me how to make bread and kuchen. If only I knew how easy it was to bake bread before this. As far as I can tell, there's nothing more satisfying than eating warm bread that you made and baked yourself.

Some upcoming items of interest:
-Perhaps I'll be going to celebrate Fasnacht in Basel with the other Swiss Trainee and Debbie.
-Over my birthday weekend, I'll be going to Krefeld (border of Germany and Netherlands) for a Joint Committee Meeting where we review applications and take care of other business. Hopefully there will be more than the 14 applications that have been sent in.
-Maybe I'll try my hand at cross-country skiing tomorrow morning, it's Maya's wish for her birthday.
-Perhaps I'll go snowshoeing this weekend since there's too much snow for hiking.

Aside from that, hopefully more pictures will make their way onto here.

Until next time,
Jon