Pepperdine Abroad & Other Details = Big Post

Had our first teachers' meeting last week - an earnest group with a lofty mission, despite my reality check pep talk. (Ironic, because the students also got such a talk by staff back in Malibu.) There is a large pool of talented academics who've settled in Switzerland for whom this is an ideal gig. In a somewhat colonial fashion, Pepperdine maintains academic bubbles around the world, which sophomores can use as a platform for travel and friendship, checking-off general education requirements along the way to not fall behind their graduating schedule. Different to most college programs that send students abroad as juniors, PU sends them as sophomores, thus serving broader core, rather than major, requirements. A wonderful opportunity for all involved.Chris and Jack in pre-boat entertainment.
Captain Jack.
Mik (sp) and Cecily and Michael, who is really enjoying activities with the students. We took a boatride from Ouchy to Montreux on Saturday.

A lot - or little - can happen to individuals abroad, students or otherwise. 19th century diaries by English women cruising the Nile and other destinations suggest that they had never actually left England. My own sense is that, given the easy and cheap availability of the internet and telephone, the kind of growth that is associated with making a break - confronting the foreign - occurs less often than before, since individuals can carry culture with them. Maybe similar to the way luxury cars reproduce the easy chair and living room, making it harder to experience wind and road.

Other details: cooler morning dress for their 10 min walk to Montriand School. Michael loves wearing his traffic banner.

I love the way windows and door hinge from the side AND the bottom.
Michael with Addie, Diane, Michael, & Chris at the first dinner. The schedule is M-Th classes. We have dinner T-W-Th at St Gery, a trendy restaurant that has been nicely reviewed here.
Mr Bustamonte, director and part owner of the hotel. A real character who could do stand-up - he reminds of Manuel of Fawlty Towers, but that was another hotel. Given the pioneering stage of things and the complex ownership agreement with the director whose apt we've taken over, lines are definitely blurry. We're used to grey zones, housesitting for 3 years now as renter/friend/faculty, but this one is definitely unique. Eg: the owner asked me to help make the rounds, filling-in as a security worker to secure windows and doors at night!

Being near the station, the owner also being a pastor, and La Croisee offering the cheapest rooms in town all create the grey zone we now inhabit, welcoming the occasional unexpected guest. There was a elderly woman day one, asking for money, and the 3 policemen on day 3 evicting an unwelcomed stranger who was asleep and drunk in another guest's bed (always remember to lock your door).

The city itself has been floating in the margins, flirting with an experimental, unorthodox drug policy, thereby attracting Europeans in search of an unregulated good time. There was a referendum (voted down) in the last election to create a free shooting-up heroin zone ("needle park"). The city has been making heroin available and not prosecuting, believing that decriminalizing would also prevent crime, as well as lower the drug overdose rate; recent research suggests neither.
Students were surprised at graffiti marring historical sites. This began in the early '80s and it's been impossible to stop. I remember one fashionable shop getting creative by incorporating graffiti in their show window display. The "writing" seems less menacing than before, but there are disaffected youth in Swiss society who don't fit in anywhere. Italian graffiti seemed playful where the Swiss version felt angry somehow.

Also, Michael came home from school saying, "America is a bad country" which was annoying. Another family we know has encountered this numerous times in their tiny mountain village. Not sure what to do with it at this point, but I suspect he picked it up from classmates. Michael has never been one to cast blame, and this was no exception, as he warded off my prying, refusing to go into it.
This election poster by the Swiss People's Party (has the majority seats in Parliament) isn't anti-American, but more anti-refugee. There is sympathy for the movement by a lot of sensible people we know, since much of the increase in crime has been traced to refugees, but hope for a solution other than racism. Reminds us of the Japan we knew, where a shop owner or realtor could tell you directly he wouldn't serve you because he didn't like foreigners! Our racism usually disallows such honesty, so people mistreat each other while labelling it something else - conduct epitomized by the university, which has baptized this as a model for professional behavior.