So, the week before the break went well. Despite the knowledge that RIA will be closing operations at the end of the school year, it doesn't change our desire for teaching excellence and giving our students the best education possible in the last four months of the school year. When I think back to first grade (Yes, I can still remember first grade those many decades ago) and compare what I did in reading and math to what our students are doing, it blows my mind. Here is a picture of our first grade girls during library (I think I have mentioned before that our entire 1st grade class is girls...). This set of girls represent Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Cameroon, Columbia and Kazakhstan - none of whom are native English speakers. During a recent library class, after books have been returned and new books checked out, they settled down on Hedgy for a read. Hedgy is a hedgehog pillow that the kids love to use while reading.
The thing that really impresses me is their absolute love of reading - some reading books that I didn't tackle until 3rd or 4th grade back at St. V's. They are all at different levels (and this isn't even the whole class) which is a testimony to their very talented and creative teacher, Miss Aubrey. Of course, as an Oregonian and sharing my same birthday, Aubrey just HAS to be special... Now, here are some of the girls again with one of our staff members showing off her Basler Fasnacht costume - the harlequin. Up until Fasnacht begins, each group or Clique's costumes and themes are absolutely TOP SECRET. Janelle is only able to show off the costume before Fasnacht began because it is a classic costume from years past as her Clique celebrates its 60th Fasnacht anniversary this year.
So, Fasnacht activities in our area start after Worship on Sunday the 1st of March. We invited our staff over to ours because the Weil am Rhein parade is the first of our many venues. The Weil am Rhein parade starts at the Rathausplatz and wends its way down the kilometer or so of Weil's Hauptstrasse.
Among the traditional German costumes are Waggi's (these characters represent French farm workers from the Alsace region) ...
and witches...
and clowns. I understand that part of the history of Fasnacht is scaring away winter - Well, they aren't going to scare winter away with these clowns...
Our next stop was the town of Liestal, Switzerland. Long-time readers of the blog may remember last year's Fasnacht. Delynn was ill (it was her turn) and needed to stay home so she didn't get to experience the raw heat of the fire parade, so this was her year. Here we are before the parade, standing in front of one of the fire carts that are pulled or carried down Liestal's Hauptstrasse. I recalled this one from the previous year - it is quite well constructed, including wheels made entirely of steel so that they don't melt in the extreme heat. This is the before - oh, yeah, that wood is ready to burn...
And here is the after (well, more during) picture. As the cart was pulled by our post on the Hauptstrasse, you can see how crazy hot the parade is.
In addition to the fire carts, many, many more individuals - both men and women - carry burning bundles of wood - most configured in the cone shape as seen in detail below.
These are carried by groups of folk who run, dance but mostly trudge under the great burning weight. Some only wear wet felt hats (the purists) to protect themselves from the burning load.
Here's another good picture - look at those three story flames! We would never see anything like this in North America. Can you imagine this happening on Broadway in downtown Portland?
Before I go on, if you haven't already noted it, please check the other post from earlier today that has a couple of videos from Liestal, including a hunka, hunka burning wood. After the Liestal parade, we all smelled like a big campfire. Delynn found a couple of small holes in her coat from burning embers that fell on her - and we were in the back row!!
The next stop on our Fasnacht fun was the Tuesday chaos in Basel. Tuesday is one of our favorite Basel Fasnacht days because it has the children's parade so there are thousands of children and families traipsing up and down the street of the Basel downtown, dressed up in costumes and wantonly tossing confetti. The busses and trams are all diverted to keep all of the streets for pedestrian use only.
This picture above says it all for me: Masks, Drums and Confetti.
On Tuesday, individuals or groups with as few as two people (or in this case three) can simply dress up, pick up their piccolo and drum and start marching around the streets of Basel. Notice too the costumed mannequins on the corner of the building at left.
A huge part of the Basler Fasnacht is the lanterns that each Clique creates and carries through the different parades over the 72 hour Fasnacht period starting at 4:00am Monday morning (Morgenstreich). Often the lanterns have two or more meanings. The one above for example deals with the CERN Large Hadron Super-Collider that many feared would create a black hole and suck the world into it - the more subtle meaning deals with the bankers who are the black hole, sucking the money out of all of our pockets.
As the evening deepens, Guggenmusik bands - most analogous to marching bands in the states - but with much better uniforms - march all over playing wonderfully toe-tapping music. This was a really wonderful few days. I hope that you have received just a taste of it by following this blog.
Don't forget to check out the earlier entry with a couple of more videos.
Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. These summarize the heart and mind of God.
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