This is second in a year-long series of articles about an American living and working abroad for a month in 12 different countries. Click here for the WorkAway RSS feed!

URSWIL, Switzerland — I’ve now been in Switzerland one week and by the time you are reading this it will probably be closer to two, maybe more. For those of you in a time crunch, use the following helpful guide to this article (free of charge):

-If you want something humorous, go to I (Animals).

-If you want information on the people of Switzerland, go to II (People).

-If you want something more contemplative, go to III (Tools).

I. Animals

I have a wide variety of jobs on the farm, but by far the most interesting ones involve the animals. As it is a dairy farm, this means cows. Forty cows to be exact (the most of any farm in this area and a large number for a Swiss farm). My day begins and ends with these cows.

Let me say first off: I like cows. I really do. And when I heard I would be working not with just one or two, but with forty of these majestic creatures, I was, I’ll say it, overjoyed. I’ve always found them hilarious and sort of adorable. I suppose in the same way I imagine a Neanderthal child must have been adorable. At the very least, I find them interesting.

In fact, I would even go so far as to say that if you don’t like cows, you’re almost forced to at least admire them. There is a dumb endurance in their attitude, a brute and ungraceful inertia that seems to say “Yup. Here’s Life. Again,” in a way that, to my, 20-something, neuroses-riddled, over-imaginative, widely-concerned, hyper-attentive, politically motivated, liberal-arts-educated, brain sounds, well, enviable. I say all this is to make sure you, dear readers, realize what side of the (excuse the pun) fence I’m on, when it comes to cows. In the hope that you’ll be more empathetic and understanding of my predicament.

Because, despite the Mr. Hogett meets James Herriot image I had created for myself (I would, of course, feed and milk the cows, but only as a break from the deep, meaningful interactions and mutual respect we would spend our time sharing), it turns out there is really one main role when it comes to the care of these ungulates. One that overshadows the rest. One which, perhaps, best defines my current role in the universe. I start the first hour and end the last half hour of each day the exact same way. And I’m going to be pretty hard pressed to come up with enough professional synonyms for it to last me the whole section. But I’ll try.

Let me approach this from a more mathematical perspective. Imagine, if you will, a stable. Four rows of stalls (each housing ten cows) run lengthways – one along each wall and two back-to-back in one row down the middle. Each stall is separated by a small metal divider, and in the two rows between the stalls are concrete areas for moving about. The whole area is roughly 50 x 100 feet in size, not including the feeding, milking, and milling about areas, which easily add another 7500 square feet. And it is this rather massive expanse where my destination lies each morning when I wake from my sleep. It is here where I am called to task. And it is here where I have had hours of time to devote to the observation of bovine culture at its finest. If the sociologist in me attempted to describe a system of rules or ethics of cow culture based on my observations, they would come up, every time, as follows:

1. Eat whenever you can. If something looks like food, try it out. Doesn’t matter if it is walking

around/six feet tall/trying to communicate with you. Go ahead, give it a lick.

2. Do not moo as a form of communication. Moo at inconsequential things. Use it only to disrupt the serene silence of the day. If you are mooing, you are important.
3. Everything is a toilet.

There is little I can do about the first two. However, it is for this last task that I have been trained. It is here I seek my glory. It is here where the duties of two species meet. I stand primed at the cusp of thousands of years of human evolution; centuries of progress all leading up to this moment, perfecting me for this and this alone. And so…I clean.

The whole preparation is a process as well. By 8:30 each morning I am sporting a multi-layered full body red and blue suit, water-proof green boots, and a slick pair of what look like dish-washing gloves – I look, in short, like a Ghost Buster from the 70′s. Then I get my scraper, my shovel, my other scraper, my pride…wait, scratch that, and I begin the long and tedious process of restoring order where anarchy has struck. In these moments I am many men at once. I am Don Quixote, charging at unconquerable windmills, I am a knight errant on a fool’s quest, I am a lowly monk, descending into Hell to cleanse the demons at its heart. I work with the resolve of Atlas, but the heart of Sisyphus, because I know no matter how perfect a job I do, no matter how well I clean, how faithfully I shovel, when I return in the morning, my task will await me anew, and the gods will be laughing.

And it would be one thing if the job came with some sort of thanks. Even a meaningful look, or a moo in my direction. But that’s the thing. After many, many, gregarious attempts (in English, in German, in guttural grunting) on my part to befriend these creatures, I have come to an ego-shattering conclusion: They. Don’t. Care. About. My. Existence. The thought is as destabilizing as the surfaces upon which I trod. As part of my station I had presumed a kinship with these creatures, I had thought we should find, in the filth of common experience, a shared language by which to communicate. Perhaps they would see me as one of their own. I thought, As long as they love me it will be worth it. And so I try to talk to them. Nothing. I smile in their direction. They look at me with a self-righteous indignation.

And this goes on. Day after day:

“Hey” I say. They walk by me

“Nice to see you,” I say. Disgusted, they move away.

“Nice weather,” I say. They relieve themselves close to my location.

“Don’t do that there, please,” I say. They do that there.

It would border on an abusive relationship, if they even knew I existed.

I guess I always assumed a pretty clear power dynamic on farms. There was the farmer, the overlord, and the various animals, his subjects, which would produce for him his desired goods. A sort of more restrained Genesis 1:28. But the question of just who rules whom becomes a little less cut and dry when you’re the one trotting around dutifully with a shovel.

Nietzsche writes in his Genealogy of Morals, of Ressentiment, that unique response the “slaves” in his master-slave morality feel towards the life affirming, will-utilizing, go-getters: those that forge for themselves a reality they desire, sometimes at the expense of others. The “slaves” grit and grind their teeth,decrying the actions of the “masters” as evil. Meanwhile, the “masters” are so focused on their own lives and enjoying what they are doing that, guess what? They barely notice the “slaves” and their moralizing. So all the “slaves” think about all day is the stupid, ungodly, habits of the “masters”, while the “masters” are blissfully unaware. Sound familiar? This is, admittedly, a gross (again, excuse the pun) oversimplification. But it is an oversimplification that I live every day.

I spoke of the magic of the cows’ neuroses free existence earlier. And it’s true. In the grand cosmic scheme of things, theirs is not to wonder why. Theirs is not to discover. Theirs is not the existential dilemma. Theirs is to chew their special mix of hay, digest it in record time, show complete and utter disregard for any sense of cleanliness or tact, and then, always free from the haunting memories of the past, to do it all again, as if for the first time.

And my purpose? The process of rebuilding my fractured ego has led me to this exact question. Camus writes of the optimism of Sisyphus: how, no matter how bleak the situation, it is the freedom to choose one’s outlook that gives the existentialist’s life meaning and, ultimately, hope. I won’t be so bold as to claim the former in my current station, but perhaps, I can strive for the latter. Let me then say, here and now, with pride:

I am a scooper, I am a shoveler, I am a scraper! I beautify what others would deface! I am no more than an afterthought of the bovine collective.

This is first in a year-long series of articles about an American living and working abroad for a month in 12 different countries. Click here for the WorkAway RSS feed!

APPROACHING URSWILL, Switzerland — Switzerland, France, Scotland, Wales, Sweden, Finland, Germany, Austria, Italy, Greece, Australia, New Zealand. That’s the itinerary. With one month in each. But we’ll get to that in a minute.

This is the first time I’ve had even a second to sit down in the past three weeks, and it just so happens to be, of all places, in row 27J of an Iberia plane, some several thousand miles above the Atlantic Ocean. Or, at least I think that’s where I am. What was once a highly informative flight-screen displaying everything I would ever care to know about our current speed, distance to destination, time, and air temperature, has now become a series of advertisements for what appear to be Spanish day-time dramas- except that every once in a while, apropos of nothing, a short clip involving Will Smith appears on the screen. It is always from a different movie and never for more than thirty seconds. I have no idea why it is there, and without headphones on me, I probably never will. It is disorienting to say the least. Let us say, then, with the only quantitative information available to us, that I am 10 Will Smith appearances out of Boston, and God knows how many until Madrid.

But the strange comfort of Will Smith’s familiar face on the plane is, perhaps, the least disorienting thing to have happened in the past few weeks. In the last month, I’ve left my job teaching high school English in Baltimore, sold off most of my possessions, and said goodbye to my students, coworkers, friends, and the city I’ve called home the past couple of years. There is a weird sort of temporal vertigo that sets in, a living in the future and the past that brings an excitement about what is to come and a nostalgia for leaving that, in turn, evokes prior leavings, prior nostalgias. (Are we every really not leaving somewhere or something? Isn’t that integral to, in some sense, becoming ourselves? And isn’t this reason enough to, good or bad, cherish everything, even as we move from it, whether that be at thousands of miles an hour over a vast, strange, night-black ocean, or at the snails pace of daily decisions, changes, and loss?) It all sort of gets mixed up. And sitting here in J27, leaving behind everything that speaks of stability and comfort, I find old questions resurfacing. Questions about how many places one can truly call home, what home even is, and where it may be possible to find or recover it.

But who knows, maybe that’s all just the recent slew of vaccinations talking.

A brief word about these vaccinations.

As any good traveler knows, one should get immunizations so one’s exciting trip is not interrupted or delayed by a painful death. I received mine (the vaccinations) from a kindly woman named Amalia, who managed to combine the verbal rapidity and persuasiveness of a car salesman, the neurotic worry of a Jewish mother, and the frenetic order of a generation Y multitasker all in one body without exploding. She was awesome. Except for the fact that idle chit chat would often be interspersed, in the same whimsical tone, with litanies of the different ways in which I could die.

A sample conversation went like this:

Me: So, what’s the worst that happens if you get Japanese Ensephilitis?

A: OH NO!!!

Me: (heart rate skyrocketing to 100+. She tended to have this affect on people) What? What??? Is it that bad?

A: (who, unbeknownst to me had been acting like the multitasking pro she was and checking emails while she filled out the vaccinations I was requestion.) Huh? Oh, no, just something from work.

Me: (Recovering from a 60 point pulse drop, but relieved) Oh, ok, I was worried. In that case I guess I don’t need-

A: With Japanese Ensephillitis your brain swells up until you die.

Me:….

————————–

This is just a long way of saying that everything leading up until now has been sort of a preface, or, more aptly, a whole bunch of disparate prefaces, and now, for better or worse, it is more or less congealing. I’ve called this first post Introductions and Farewells and with good reason. I’m well aware that in addition to a number of people I know reading these accounts, there will be those who do not know me. So this entry serves a dual purpose. With that in mind, we’ll get to the itinerary.

Side note: This might be a good place to note that Will Smith has not appeared in a while. I can only assume that either time itself has completely stopped, or something is wrong with the TV)

The Plan:

July – Switzerland – Working on dairy farm in Luzern

August – France – Working on a farm in the south and a Green Hotel in the north.

September -Scotland – Odd variety of jobs, but living near a castle which makes any job they require me to do worth it!

October – Wales – Working on a stud farm.

November- January – Finland – Working as a dogsledder in Finnish Lapland.

January – Germany – Still deciding.

February – Stopping off in Prague and then being a nomadic Shepard in the Austrian Alps for two weeks with a man named Hans! (Side note: This experience simultaneously fulfills my two main goals in life- to be a nomadic shepherd and to befriend a man named Hans.)

March – Greece – Working on Olive Farms.

April – Australia – Working with injured kangaroos on an animal farm.

May – NZ – still deciding.

If you’re wondering how I’m managing to do this, I can dispel any notions right now that I am either independently wealthy, or an internationally renowned dogsledder/olive picker/farmer. I’ve set this all up through the website workaway.org, a social-networking site that is used to find and contact host families around the world (membership for 2 years is like 20 euros, but even without the membership you can still see the different hosts available) and get free room and board in exchange for whatever labor they need. Amount of work varies depending on the host. For example, in in Scotland I’ll only be working 25 hours a week and have a lot of time to explore, while in Finland I will be working roughly 18 hour days, 6 days a week.

And this, ultimately, was the way I wanted to see each place – far from the city centers, learning new skills and trades, and trying to adapt and live in the natural rhythms of each country and its people. And, of course, you’ll be able to follow along. I will post articles at least once every two weeks and more if internet connections are available. I hope that, along with documenting my attempts to learn each trade, I can capture even just a slice of the beauty of the places I’m going, the culture, and the people.

I mentioned, before, the question of how many places one can call home. Last summer, while living in Ireland, I made a list in my personal notebook of all the places I have called home. It came to 5, yet at the same time it seemed infinitely more and comparatively less. More, because of the wealth really is a of the experiences that “5” can’t begin to denote, and less, because, in some way, even in some contradictory way they are all at home in who I have become. And I suppose, sitting here in good old 27J, with the Spanish baby crying three seats in front of me, and the tired mother fast asleep across the aisle; with memories of past homes at once hazy and vivid in my sleep-deprived mind, I am reminded, once again, that home, more than any place or setting, is the people you encounter, those that you are fortunate enough to leave little bits of yourself to along the way. And this, I think, is a good thing, because there is no rock, no city, that could hold our heats as faithfully.

And so, I look forward to the people I will meet in this coming year. I look forward to leaving pieces of myself behind and picking new ones up. I look forward to, at some point, it all becoming confused and disorienting, and impossibly hard to pin down. In the end, I suppose, not too much unlike those brief flashes of Will Smith on the TV – the comfort of a face that speaks of a life I know, but one speaking what I can only imagine is Spanish or German, and both of us, (Will and I that is) hurtling through the air in a giant winged piece of metal over no continent at all. It all seems at once comforting and strange and contradictory and confusing. But I’d have it no other way.

And on that note, thank you for reading. To any new readers I do not know, welcome, and I hope you continue to follow my adventures.

To the friends I love, who I leave behind, I say only this: do not doubt that you are with me at every turn – I mark your presence in each of my movements, and it is in thoughts of you that my endless explorations, find not only replenishment, but purpose. I hope you are more than well.

To everyone, wherever you are: be safe, be happy, try, always, to be full of wonder.