Don Camillo

Finally we were on the road.
With Clos du Doubs being a place where we figured out that we should aspire for more structure, that it might be senseable to find a common rhythm, a sorrounding structure, just to find together as a group, find a common point which we can use as a base;
we (Peter, Sani, Anna) left with some more or less concrete plans in our minds. Plans such as being organised during the ride to Lausanne, arriving there before three o'clock (because if not, there would be noone to let us in) and therefore leave at nine. I myself at least was really convinced we would be able to make it...
Well, almost.





We were ready to leave at half past ten, when we started the motor.
Not enough motor oil. So, Anja fed Ludmilla the bus, with some excellent synthetic motoroil, whereafter we said goodbye again and started to drive when we realized we forgot our map of Switzerland. Motor off again, all of us running inside the house, chaoticly walking apart, looking for the map, not finding it, going in the bus again and finally we left.
Wow, what a feeling. We made it to leave this beautiful farm in the beautiful region of Jura.
Great.
Already late, if only some hours.
Without the map we needed to stop somewhere to find out the route.
Which we did after eating up 2 bars of yumyum chocolate.

The ride itself was good. Two deathly ill people next to me, coughing, suffering, sweating.
But I felt they were becoming better slowly while passing by wonderful landscapes - lake Neuchatel, for example.
(For the reason of illness noone could take any photos...)
After more than two hours ride we spontaneously stopped in Montmirail, a community were Peter has been over 8 years ago.



He stayed there for one month, living and helping to renovate old buildings.
So, after this long period, he wanted to have a short look at this special place, his first European experience...
We parked Ludmilla in between sunbeshined autumntrees, opposite some babybuffels,
walked up the little hill to the entrance gate and slowly strayed in.
Somehow it felt a bit strange to just stroll in without having told them before, without really knowing who they are, what they do and so on, but luckily Peter had this great reason to go there.
Entering the gate you see some pretty buildings, there's a guest house, a big reception building, a beautiful old church and a square in the middle - all in all this place feels a little bit like a small medieval village to me...
Suddenly a women exited the guest house, saw us wandering around and walked straight towards us.
First I wondered about her intention, but then soon it was clear that she was very happy to meet us -
she even recognized Peter almost immediately. That felt so unbelievably amazing - over after 8 years she remembered Peter, his name, what he did...
For me this was such a magnificent human moment.
After talking for 10 minutes, meeting some old friends of Peters, she invited us to lunch and we went to look around the place while she went to arrange something impromtu for lunch. So we started wandering around in their colourful garden with that stunning view over fields, rivers, mountains...where we found a brightly shining Gingkotree, climbed swings, ran through rustling leaves, just felt happy about the friendliness and warm behaviour of these people here...



And went back into the guest house were we found a nicely decorated table with Swiss chocolate on each plate...
The woman and her husband had prepared some pasta, fish sauce, salad, bread, apples and juice. As the three of us didn't eat the fish sauce because each of us once decided to live vegetarian, they even brought a big plate with a various selection of Swiss Cheese...
We almost already began eating when she asked us to hold on for a moment to say a little prayer,
Which was rather pleasant, as she thanked for us coming by to visit and blessed us and them.
Now the time was right for asking them to tell us something about their community.
Their basic intention is to live, work, and pray together.
They started 31 years ago in Basel and till now they grew up to 18 adults. Their children are not members of the community as they say they are not yet mature to decide if they want to. Three times a day they pray together.
As true Moravians they share everything - finances, space, ideas, decisions...
For every two years five persons are elected to develop ideas and make proposals for the future.
These five people also make decisions concerning every-days life or special fields, the guest house, for example.
Really important decisions are made by all community members together.
One of such decisions for example some time ago was when they had to figure out if the community would be able to carry two families moving to Berlin, living and praying there. They looked at the financial, the social aspects and finally decided that the families could move.
So by now there is the biggest part of the community living in Montmirail, two families in Berlin and one in Basel.
Also when one person plans any changes concerning job, this person talks to other members of the community and in the end they decide all together.
Some work outside, some work in Montmirail, in the guesthouse, for example.
Afterwards we told them about what we do, about travelling school of life and some places we already visited.



Suddenly at one point we realized that we had to leave immediately to arrive in Lausanne in time.
So the goodbye was rather short but warm. We thanked each other and went away with a big smile and shine in our hearts.
It was a wonderful oasis in every-day life, we went there spontaneously without having a plan and were warmly received.
This felt like real Christianity. They just give us a simple, but unexpected and lovely meal and some nice conversation.
Enlivent we continued our travel to Lausanne and of course, althoug we were quite late now, everything worked out perfectly in the end, we found the place in Lausanne surprisingly fast, got a parking space and again a warm welcome in Alice, the flat we are now.

- Anna 'n Sani