The Three Camps Meet!
Wednesday was a very special day at le Lac du Bois, or should I say at Waldsee, the German language learning village. La Journée Suisse! At about midday, the entire French village of Lac du Bois started what would be a fun filled day by walking to Waldsee. Once there we were met by the German camp, and the Italian camp, El Lago del Bosco. These three camps represent three of the four national languages of Switzerland (we don’t teach Romansh here at Concordia Language Villages). We started out with a song exchange between the three villages, learning camp songs from each village, in the village language.
This was followed by a not-so-stereotypical German lunch of chicken and apples. The presentation for the meal was done in all three languages, which was very cool! Next we divided in to the groups we were assigned to do three chosen activities, one in each language. The group I was in played a German name/animal game, a French verb game, and an Italian colour game, although I know that each group had different stations. Following this were activities, a third lead by counselors in each language. Activities included the Italian game roverino, archery, cooking, dancing, paddle-ball, and motorboat tours of the Turtle River Lake camps. After this was the gouté (food tasting) where villagers had the opportunity to taste authentic food from each area. At the German station there was Raclette, a well known Swiss cheese, at the French station there was Baguette, and at the Italian station there were mini pizzas made out of bread. And then it was Temps Libre! (free time) Villagers had the opportunity to check out Das Biohaus, a 100% energy sustainable building, buy candy at Café Einbeck , hang out in the Marktplatz, or otherwise explore the site. Then was the main event of the day, the William Tell sketch.
This sketch was put on in three languages, and told the story of William Tell, the man who played major role in the war which lead to the creation of the Swiss Confederation. The sketch was fun for everyone and everyone had a great time watching it, this lead to a enormous game of capture the flag which spanned the entire Waldsee site, and which all the villagers participated in. With one side trying the find William Tell, and the other trying to find Gessler. After this there was a short evening program, which included the end of the sketch, both of them jumping in he lake.
After this exciting and full day the villagers returned to their respective villages exhausted. Another great Journée Suisse has come and passed, and I think it’s safe to say that everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves immensely. I know I did! Below are some more photos taken throughout the day.
There will soon be further photos on the Lac du Bois Flickr page, so stay tuned there as well.
Questions, comments, suggestions for the blog go to stephen@spiffwalker.co.cc.
