Chinese New Year

Rosina's father preparing the dough for the outside of the dumplings. Look at how Sara is marveling at his ability.


Rosina's mother showing Elisabeth how to fill and seal the dumplings. Aren't they precious.

This year, the first through fifth grades had a mini celebration for the Chinese New Year because we have two students at the school who are Chinese. Their parents were kind enough to come in to the school to show us how to make dumplings, which is a traditional dish that is made on the New Year because it is something simple that the whole family can be involved in. The parents also brought spring rolls, noodles, and other goodies!

The kids and staff had a great time learning how to stuff and seal the dumplings. We had a great time learning a bit about the year of the rat and having a chance to socialize. Our parents are so great because they spent the whole time either making, frying or serving the food.


The dumplings, after assembly, before cooking and devouring.


One of the school mom's frying up the dumplings.


Me getting a personal lesson from Rosina in how to best assemble the dumplings. She was very positive, but corrective:)

New Years

I have to say, I wasn't quite sure what this New Years would look like. I was pleasantly surprised. I, along with some of the staff and a few friends from church, went to Diana's house for New Years dinner and a movie.

Since this year is the year of the rat according to the Chinese Zodiac Calendar, Diana made Ratatouille for dinner and we watched the movie. I didn't put these two facts together until we had been talking about it for a few minutes. Everyone had a good laugh about that:) Ratatouille is good, but nothing fancy, at least that we could tell. The movie was adorable, although I fell asleep towards the end. I know, I'm old, I can't even make it to 23:00 on New Year's Eve.

A bit before midnight, we all got bundled up and headed out to the street. And, wow, was there a party going on out there. There was a local clique already outside setting off fireworks. These fireworks are nothing like the smoking, flashing, noisy things that don't leave the ground. These things are rockets that fly really high and make a big spray of light. The crazy thing is that the Germans were lighting the fireworks with cigars and shooting them out of wine bottles. Sparks were flying and there was debri everywhere. I've never seen a display so close and so beautiful.

Then, we climbed the vineyard hill in Weil to watch the fireworks that were being shot from the Rhein in Basel. The display was beautiful and much quieter than on the street. It was interesting that part of the display was obstructed by all the smoke from people's personal fireworks.

Writing this six weeks later, I honestly can't remember how the night ended, but I know I had a good time and I was looking forward to the New Year. And, it hasn't disappointed. I hope this year is better than the last, or, at least, you are able to have better perspective and appreciation for this year and it's trials than you were able to last year.

Church Retreat

The first weekend of February I was priviledged enough to be able to go along on the Basel Christian Fellowship church retreat to Lungern, Switzerland. It is a great little village tucked in between mountains, that looks like it's in the middle of nowhere, but in actuality, a short drive to Luzern and other larger towns/cities.

The retreat came at the end of a long week of illness, not for me but for at least a third of our student body and three to four staff (were absent due to illness). The end of the week was only highlighted by Diana's decision to make monday (which was a German holiday, but we were supposed to be in school) a no school day. This was so that during Friday's cleaning we could use an extra strong dissinfectant on the most germy surfaces and leave the windows of the school open for an extra day to hopefully freeze out the germs.

We, being Jen and Cam Barbour, Diana, Kelly, and I, finally piled into the silver bullet at least an hour and a half or more later than our goal. Oh, well. The whole way, our conversation and silence were sprinkled with smatterings of sniffles and coughing. We joked about being quarentined in the van for the weekend, made an attempt to eat at McDonalds (no parking and missed the drive thru), ate controban (peanut butter), and chloe (Diana's dog) took a nose dive into the dashboard. Needless to say we were all a bit slap happy.

The weekend was absolutely refreshing. I had a great time just sitting and listening to different people's conversations, playing card games into the wee hours, walking in the snow, and enjoying God's creation, which in this part of the world is so incredibly magnificent.

On Sunday, we examined Luke 13-17 and I came out with some great insights and a sense of renewal. It was a fantastic weekend and I feel more apart of the church community.

Fastnacht has begun

Hi All-

It's 02:45. I am awake at this hour and not going to bed in the next few minutes because there is a Fasnacht band (I forgot the German name, which I will tell you all later) playing as they are walking down my street.

The sound started as a low rumble of band noise with two very clear and distinct trumpets. Once I realized that the sound was not dissipating, I woke up and started to open my windows to search out the origins. I discovered two guys with trumpets standing in the middle of the intersection outside my apartment building.

As they were playing, the band sound began to grow louder. I thought maybe the guys had lost the group and we rejoining them, but soon found out that they were actually heralding the group's arrival to that very spot. The Clique stayed in the intersection for a couple minutes, just enough to rouse everyone from sleep, then moved on down the street. I can still hear them clear as day, even though they are far enough down that I can't see them.

While they were still outside my house, I was able to see that they have drums on wheels and were all dressed in some sort of robe attire. They also had crazy hats (the kind you might find at the Saturday Market) and some were outfitted with lights. One guy was carrying a small torch and another girl ran into the taxi that's way was impeded by the group. She should look where she's going;)

I think the group was being escorted or else surveyed by the police because not long after the group showed up, two police vans arrived, but did not and have not dis'band'ed (Cam I hope you are proud;) the group. Who knows how long they will continue... I just hope I can get back to sleep for the next few hours:) Thankfully it's a Friday and I can recoup and prepare for the actual Fastnacht celebrations on Saturday.

And, those of you who are aware and knowledgeable about Fastnacht will assume that this blog is a week late in posting, but rest assured...Weil's celebrations are tied into the Swiss holiday celebrations because they are so close in proximity and their histories are so closely tied together.

...About getting back to bed...I think I hear the group making their way back:( Hopefully it is just an illussion created by the diagonal streets and they are just crossing back, but still moving away. Oh well, it's pretty much dead quiet here 99 percent of the time; I can't complain too much about one night. Especially when in Eugene the interuptions are usually drunk students who just want to be obnoxious.

Sleep well. I am looking forward to swapping stories in the morning with the other staff to see who all heard it, since our apartments are spread around town:) Love and miss you all!