Photos of Trachten Seniors Lunch March '02

Kontaktnachmittag '02

(Afternoon for the Senior Citizens of Oberwil)

A Trachtengruppe Event

March 13, 2002

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Once a year, the Trachten Group invites all of the senior citizens in Oberwil to the community house for lunch and a little entertainment.

This year it was on a Wednesday and Herbert's parents were in Oberwil. Since Herberts mother, Frieda, knows many of the people in our village, she went with me. I enjoyed having her with me, but was a little nervous with her sitting in the front row of the audience.

I was even more nervous when I realized that the six dances that we would do were 'old' dances that everyone knew - everyone but me, who had only joined the group in the last six months. To make it even more stressful, Andreas, one of the group leaders who I usually dance with, was not there. I danced with Elisabeth and she doesn't speak English. I did my best to follow what everyone else was doing, but it always seemed that when I was going forward and everyone else was going backwards, Elisabeth and I were positioned right in front of the audience.

When the 'entertainment' was over, I went over to check on Frieda. She gently touched my arm and said, "Sue, you need to learn the dances." She said this in her ever sweet way of saying things, but I knew she thought I always danced like that. I quickly scanned my brain for all of the Swiss German I knew and tried to think of how I could explain to her that my dancing is not so bad when we dance the dances that we dance every Wednesday evening. All I could come up with was, "Ya, e vase." (Yes, I know.)

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1 - Here I am with Heidi Otti (from the village grain mill), Claude and Christiane. We're waiting for everyone to arrive. I'm wearing the burgender shirt because I don't have the trachten costume yet.	2 - The children's group also joined us. This is Lorella, one of the leaders for the children's group, with her daughter.	3 - Laurence, one of our leaders with her mother, Christiane.

4 - Lorella with Heidi, the other leader for the children's group.	5 - Me and Elisabeth. I think this is the one photo where I look like I know what I'm doing.	6 - One of the children's dances.

7 - Lorella, Heidi, Gabi, Fränzi's mother and Fredu played traditional Swiss music for everyone. That's Frieda in the audience with the grey jacket.	8 - Annie read a two funny stories in Swiss German. (While she read, Laurence sat next to me and translated.)	9 - After they had sat through all of the dancing, music and story-telling, the senior citizens were served a lunch of pastetli.

10 - Frieda with Marian Schwab. (Fredu's mother and our neighbor who taught me to braid Zupfé, or traditional Swiss bread.)	11 - After all the work was done, we ate and then had our own fun, as Laurence and Lorella are very good at doing.	12 - It looks like Lorella can make anyone goof around. Maybe she was just cheering me up after my fun, but embarrassing, afternoon.