En route to Engelburg, St. Gallen Canton, Switzerland
Everything changed inside Switzerland really. I was joined in Schaffhausen by artists Ben Connors and Laura Wilson from London who were to travel with me for the final few days to St. Gallen. The walk in many ways ended with their arrival, it became something else, though there was one final leg of the journey that I completed on my own after their departure.
In short we took a boat down the Rhine from Schaffhausen to Konstance in Germany on the shores of the Bodensee and then took a short train ride round the lake into St. Gallen, arriving on the 6th of July. Upon our arrival to St. Gallen we instigated the first round of Performances now known as The St. Gallen School of Performance. The School is to reconvene on the streets of London in September 2009.
The St. Gallen School of Performance
We ate Fondue for lunch in St. Gallen and then Ben left for Zurich and eventually London. Laura left Zurich on the 9th of July and I then returned to St. Gallen for the final leg of my journey. Throughout the process of this walk in the past two years I have been in communication with a family I have never met, the family who currently live at the house I was born into in Engelburg on the outskirts of St. Gallen. On the afternoon of July 9th 2009, I walked out from St. Gallen to Engelburg to finally meet them, walking down the track that leads through the village from the house to the bakery.
Map of a sprawled village, stood in the red circle.
I am nervous as I type this, as I recall this family, this experience. I want to do them justice and yet not invade their life anymore than I already have. I felt so privilaged and honoured by the way they welcomed me into their home, and into their family in the subsequent days. Two years ago I wrote them a letter explaing my project, this insane venture, and they responded in an elegant and simple letter, that though they were currently doing some extensive house renovations I would be welcome to stay a week with them. In many ways it is this response that led me to feel that I had to try and walk there, that I owed it to them, to their hospitality to get there. I walked across a field talking to my mum on the phone, explaining I had found the track between the house and the bakery, which was about the only thing she could recall about how to find the house, a young couple were stood in the back garden smiling, waving, or maybe they were just stood their quite nervously, its all a bit of a blur to be honest.
I took a track between houses to get to the front of the house and a small fleet of children ran into me at the corner, giggling and following me in a little troop to the house. As I walked into the driveway Tunc (pronounced Tunch), the man of the house as it were, said “Welcome home”. I can’t remember how I reacted, I think I laughed a great deal, or smiled on the edge of laughter. I think we were all as nervous as each other. They showed me to my room, which was the room my brothers occupied when we were children. I should mention here that Erika, the family’s grandmother, bought the house off my mum, though my mum can’t remember this, Erika had me t me and my brother when we were children. She met me when I was a baby. This whole situation was the most surreal, the most amazing experience I have ever constructed for myself. The family made up of Erika, Tunc & Mirium and their two children Lara and David (a Welsh name, I rapidly noted in my mind) became the most amazing experience I think I’ve ever enjoyed as a member of the human race. We had raclette for dinner, I was relieved it wasn’t a sausage based meal and Mirium had for some reason suspected I was vegetarian, maybe its because I’m an artist, maybe its because I walked a lot, I’m not sure. Piles of melted cheese and grilled vegetables. Birthday cake for pudding. (Yes, they cooked me a birthday cake!) That evening we went through photo albums and talked in broken English translated between us by Tunc.
Engelburg church
I stayed with the family, in their home, for two days and in this time explained my plans for Switzerland. I wanted to visit the other Engelberg (note subtle spelling difference) deep in the alps and also wanted to visit a family friend in Solothurn. I had planned to do this on my own, but the family insisted, they were on holiday for the summer and I was their guest, their sister lived near engleberg so we would travel together. I walked, 650km or so, to a house full of complete strangers, who welcomed me into their family, and then took me on holiday around Switzerland. I didn’t know what to say, I’ve never said sorry and thank you so much in my life. I felt so cheeky, so grateful, and so sorry to have invaded their life, so touched by their generosity. So we drove to the alsp together. I sat in the back with their kids Lara and David and we played travel games together, lacing little jigsaw cubes together into brightly coloured masses. The kids were better at this than me, they were more tenacious, or just better, I don’t know. Whatever it all was, it was all amazing, I feel like they adopted me for a while, like I have annexed myself to their family or that they have annexed me to theirs. I look forward to seeing them again, to welcoming them to Britain one day. Or their Children, or their childrens children, there is a generational debt between us, I owe them and am forever grateful for what they showed my between the places on the map in Switzerland.
bramthomasarnold
