Raben-chilbi Parades

We have been having a lot of fun lately.  I am past some of the culture shock and homesickness and have been really enjoying myself.  I still have some pangs of sadness when I miss something back home, but I reallly do find myself liking lots of things here and getting excited about things to come.  We are really looking forward to trips to other countries, but lately we have been enjoying all that Switzerland has to offer locally.

One tradition that sounds a little bizarre, but ended up being really impressive is the Rabenchilbi parades and activities.  Where we carve pumpkins, they carve turnips.  Seriously.  And since turnips are firm, they can be carved very elaborately which is neat.  But what they mainly do with these turnips is carve out a hole and put in a candle and they glow beautifully.  Then they take these turnips and put them with a bunch of other turnips and create a picture or design on a float for the parade.  They will also decorate houses and pathways and archways. 

All the little towns here do them, but the biggest is one in a town just a few minutes from us called Richterswil.  At exactly 7 pm, they turn off all the lights in the town and everything is only illuminated by the glowing turnips.  I know it is hard to make turnips sound lovely, but it really was.  There is a big parage with all kinds of marching bands (sounding a bit like polka music) and these elaborate floats.  There is something magical about no electricty or power.  Even the floats were on carts that people pushed.

You can see really great pictures of much better quality by follwoing this link, but here are some pictures from our night:



This is an Alpine Horn.  It is really a pretty sound when it is played.  Not at all the sound I was expecting. 



These two walked the parade and stopped every once and a while and played.