Entries by Gaelle Nguyen

My purpose is to tell you about the Amish people, first because their society is quite a strange and disturbing one in our contemporary society, secondly because I met some of them and my meeting them left a strong impression on me. Therefore these lines won't be either a historical presentation or a sociological one, but the memory of a meeting and of a peculiar atmosphere.

Whoever saw Witness, the movie by Peter Weir with Harrson Ford and Kelly Mac Gillis, and had never heard abouth the Amish before, must have been astonished that anybody lives as they do in the twentieth century. Indeed who are the Amish people? They are the descendants of Dutch people who fled Holland and Germany and reached America. The center of the Amush country is located in Pennsylvania, near Gettysburg and about one hundred miles west of Philadelphia. The Amish refuse the advantages of modern life and try to maintain the way of life of their ancestors. For example they refuse electricity, and all its related devices such as the telephone, radio, television. They don't have automobiles and circulate in small black carriages pulled by horses. They wear pants, dresses and bonnets from the last century. To attach their clothes, they use pins instead of buttons. Mostly their activities center around agriculture. They live in a closed world surrounded by the biggest consumer society on earth. It is a wonder that they can resist the temptation of this modern society.

I have had the opportunity to visit the Amish country twice. Once as an ordinary tourist and the other time in a deeper way.

The first time I went there, I was travelling with my family. We were not disappointed, we saw everything we had expected to observe: bearded and solemn men in pants and braces driving carriages, refusing to be photographed, cute farms with their tall white ball-headed silos, without an electric pylon along the way, little bare-footed boys playing in the fields. Indeed it was a picturesque scene. Yet, I had the strong impression that we were being offered a nice bit of entertainment in the american style (like the rebuilt villages of the frontier inhabited by actors), created to make us tourists spend our money on the varied Amish-made handicrafts. In the meantime, I felt we were violating some people's intimacy. We were there as though looking at an Indian tribe from the Amazon, thus destroying their way of life. Despite the Amish's refusal of photographs, tourists could not help taking pictures. The Amish seemed to be hunted by photographers. They drove their carriages with their hands on their foreheads. The environment was polluted by all kinds of craft shops too. Of course it must have helped the Amish to live, offering them outlets for their products, however it was ruining the quietness and peace of their environment. Being looked upon as wild and strange animals surely will not help you lead your community life, or your spiritual life. That, I felt, was happening to the Amish living there and I feared they were losing their identity.

Although I had this basic impression that the Amish were condemned to die out like some other communities before them - for example the Quakers who disappeared out of new members because they forbid mariage and any sexual relationship and because the number of orphans became smaller - a visit to an Amish family made me focus on problems, but also realize how strong a community they were too.

I used to have an American penfriend whose father is a doctor and who lives in Pennsylvania. When I visited her fifteen years ago, her father suggested that I go with him to visit an Amish family. I was surprised because they lived in the North West of Pennsylvania, far away from the Lancaster county where I had been before. Anyway I did not hesitate. I learnt that a lot of Amish families had moved to that part of Pennsylvania to find peace and because the price of the land was not so high.

So we drove to this family. Mr. C., my penfriend's father, explained how he came to know this family. He had treated one of the daughters. It was indeed a sad story. The girl had a great pain in the stomach and he could not determine its cause. She stayed in the hospital quite a while, being examined, having a scanner, etc. Eventually he discovered that she had a psychosomatic illness. The Amish children go to Amish schools during the obligatory period of scholarship, up from then they return to their parents' farm, the boys helping with farming, the girls helping at the house. This particular girl was so fond of school, and she felt miserable at the idea of returning home to be a housewife. Therefore Mr C. tried to convince the parents to send her to a university run by Mennonites, a community that resembles the Amish, but is a little more modern and they refused.

To get there, we lefts the main road, lined by traditional houses, billboards and fastfoods, to enter a dirt road. It was another world, hidden behind the paved road was a network of dirt roads where Amish farms were established. We arrived at the family's farm. It was a small one, they owned only a few cows and two horses. The number of children seemed extremely high to me : there were 15 sisters and brothers! We were very warmly welcomed, the parents wanted to thank the doctor. I tasted some of their recipes, they were nice and very German.They spoke German to each other. Everybody was dressed as I have described before. We went for a ride in their carriage. It was very odd, poetic and bucolic, as though this very strange music from the "Witness" movie was accompanying us. Still as the sadness of the girl revealed, everything was not idyllic.

That time though, I understood more how valuable their life could be. In spite of the temptations of modern life, their way of life remained because they were a highly spiritual community. Everybody paid for the expensive hospital bills. They build each other's houses: each time an Amish family needs a new home, everybody meets to build it. The community provides security and a certain human comfort that is sometimes lacking in our society. That surely must be hard to leave.

33km @ 11.8km/h
The D-day has come at last. The cycles are (well) loaded.

L'auberge bretonne de Jacques Thorel est une charmante maison en pierre sur une petite place en haut de la ville de La Roche Bernard. Elle donne une image de charme bucolique, blottie sous un linteau de chèvrefeuille qui incite à y entrer.

Nous y étions déjà allés en 2003, à l'occasion d'une semaine au centre "Renouveau" de la Baule.

Le décor est toujours aussi réussi, la salle s'enroulant autour d'un patio intérieur dans lequel est cultivé un jardin potager

Déception.

La profusion dont nous avions un souvenir mémorable a vécu. Dans notre tête, nous avions goûté des plats merveilleux, notamment des plats en gelée et d'autres moins. Nous étions en tous les cas repartis enchantés d'un excellent rapport qualité / prix, car le menu dégustation s'accompagnait d'un plateau d'"amuses bouches", d'un plateau de desserts et nous avions même quitté les lieux munis d'une immense sucette en coeur.


Aujourd'hui la générosité est "plus classique" avec des prix toujours dans la même veine (100 à 130€), quelques plats sensationnels et d'autres plus classiques.

Timothée a 5 ans aujourd'hui.

Boutiques au look mittle / nord europa.

Les tchèques fument beaucoup si l'on en croit le nombre de boutiques de cigarettes. Amabilité.
Anglais langue la plus courante, mais les serveurs pratiquent souvent français et allemand.
Toutefois impression d'inquiétante étrangeté de voir défiler des messages dans une langue dont l'origine indo-européenne n'est pas aussi évidente que dans d'autres pays.

Le centre ville de Prague est magnifique mais a un aspect de ville morte. Boutiques à touristes (crystal, petits objets souvenirs, casquettes,...) ouvertes jusqu'à 22h00, musées et restaurants semblent être les seuls lieux vivants. Où consomment les tchèques ? Ailleurs, dans la ville nouvelle semble-t-il, dans le quartier de Angla , J'espère pas encore dans des leux.
Cette impression de ville morte, malgré les nombreux touristes est encore plus frappante dans le quartier du chateau. Quartier piéton, pas de voiture. Quelques groupes de touristes glissent.

Des marchés ouverts, on y trouve abricots, fraises,.
Réseau de tramways bien efficace, également métro, pas encore testé. Trafic automobiles.
Les tchèques semblent finir le travail de bureau entre 5h et 6h.

Nourriture traditionnelle : viande en sauce, chou et boulettes de pain.
Enormément de pizzeria, pour les touristes ou goût local.
Bière (pizler) omniprésente, eau pétillante. Eau plate beaucoup plus coûteuse que la bière.

Le site de Jean-Marc Jancovici ! Une bonne synthèse de ses idées dans l'entretien paru dans le magazine Enjeux Les Echos de décembre 2006. Il y cite le dernier livre de Jared Diamond dont Paul-Antoine a promis de nous faire une synthèse.
Voilà pourquoi nous essayons de ne plus faire qu'un voyage long courier par an...

Aujourd'hui nous ne sommes pas allés à l'Océan, le temps étant moins clément

La forêt de pins qui longe l'Océan semble très monotone mais nous y trouvons quelques arbustes attrayants :

Des arbousiers en automne,

Des ronces à mûres en été...

Alphonse et Marie-Pascale ont décelé une splendide réserve à mûres lors d'une promenade à pied le long d'un sentier un peu moins fréquenté que la piste cyclable. En effet le long de la piste les mûres sont moins charnues ou moins noires.

Nous nous régalons de petits-suisses aux mûres et la confiture de mûres est prévue pour le prochain petit-déjeuner !

Pendant que les touristes dinent, les ostréiculteurs s'affairent.

à la maison des "fous rires"

Nous attablés au camping au bord d'un Lac près de Linz. Connectés via le téléphone portable et le hotspot wifi (gratuit) !

Le trajet en train Paris-Passau avait un premier parfum d'aventure malgré son côté un peu galère avec ses trois changements (ie 8 chargements et déchargements des vélos).

Au bout de deux jours de route, nous sommes déjà à 100 km de Passau, un peu en avance sur le plan de route. Du coup, nous prenons la journée demain pour visiter Linz.

La SNCF ne sait pas choisir les trains acceptant les vélos en Allemagne. Du coup, nous avons acheté en France des billets jusqu'à Francfort seulement Arrivésà Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof nous achetons les billets pour le reste du trajet jusqu'à Passau. Bonne surprise : ceci nous a permis d'économiser plus de 150€ par rapport au tarif Paris-Passau de la SNCF ! (pour 2 adultes + 2 enfants = billet famille)

La décision de prendre le train fut prise au dernier moment, les préparatifs de dernier moment trop nombreux... PA faillit partir pour la gare d'Austerlitz au lieu de la gare de l'Est.

Heureusement, nous arrivons juste à temps pour mettre les vélos dans le train de 22h45.

La réservation des places vélos auprès de la SNCF est impossible, si bien qu'il faut payer un supplément de 15€ (au lieu de 10€ si on peut réserver à la commande comme nos amis allemands) –heureusement les contrôleurs sont sympa et ne nous comptent que 2 vélos.

Nous croisons des japonais avec de superbes boîtes à vélo.

C'est la saison des belles cerises noires à Lille



Le week-end nous a permis de ramener un plein seau de celles-ci.

C'était la fête ce soir là au coin de la rue. Dans le café, tous debout à regarder l'écran géant. Impossible de dormir. La fin du match a annoncé une explosion de joie dans la rue.

Nous avons retrouvé Garance, Anne-Thérèse et Stéphane un an plus tard.