Something sweet

Tonight Andrew and I took off for a walk through the fields just behind campus around sunset. The fields are ripe with tall stalks of corn, heavy-headed sunflowers, rows and rows of something like a really big radish, oats and wheat. It smells amazing. We dodged a few tractors that were coming and going through the narrow gravel or paved tractor tracks between the fields. Even though it was getting dark, we saw numerous tractors moving in perfect rows by the light of their headlights.

We were almost back home in the dwindling dusk when we passed a little pickup truck parked on a gravel walking path, next to a large grassy area thick with clover. An elderly man wearing dirty work jeans, a well-worn flannel shirt and baseball cap had used an old-fashioned scythe to cut swathes of the sweet clover. He was loading it into crates to put into his truck. He smiled, giving the Swiss-German greeting, and we did the same. He gave us a lingering look and I felt like stopping to see what would happen.

He didn't hesitate at all in approaching us as we paused to point at his scythe with interest. This began a friendly conversation in which we got about 10% of what he tried to tell us because we just know so little German. He asked us if we were from the "Bibel schule," which means EuNC. The school has such an amazing reputation in the area. I guess that's why he was so agreeable to a chat with us. He tried to tell us that the clover was for his horses, I think. He mimicked horseback riding while holding reins. He tried to tell us a few more things that we didn't get, and I was so sorry that I couldn't participate much in the conversation.

Gesturing that we should wait a moment, the man hurried to his truck, fumbled around in the back seat and returned with a jar. He showed me the picture of a bee on the top, so we knew it was a jar of honey. He gestured around us, indicating it was local honey. Then he gave it to us.

We were so surprised and gratefully repeated one of the few words we know well: Danke!

We told him our names and he told us his name was Franz. Andrew noticed that Franz had disproportionately large, dry, cracked, callused hands from the hard work he must do on his farm/horse ranch/bee farm or whatever it is. He mentioned the name of a man who works at EuNC, so we think he is a mutual friend. We intend to talk to our friend at EuNC about Franz to find out more about him, and maybe where he lives. We would love to see him again, when we have more German under our belts.

One of the things that's a bit sad for me in living in this small village is that, contrary to what you would think, I almost never meet the same person twice. I have on many occasions been stopped on the street to have a cheerful, friendly conversation, mostly in German, with a village resident, going so far as to exchange names, making sure I memorize theirs carefully so I can call them by name on our next meeting, only to never see them again.

Andrew and I also desperately want to learn German so we can have more in-depth conversations with the residents, to show them that we want to get to know them and care about their town and culture. However, the two classes we had intended to take were both cancelled. So we've found a foreign language school in Schaffhausen that offers 12-week courses at any time that is convenient for us. We just need a minimum of 4 people, and we've found two others on campus who would like to go as well. We are pretty busy through the middle of September, but we're hoping to schedule the course after that.

In the meantime, I can't wait to try out the local honey we were given on some fresh-baked bread from the bakery across the street.