The Land Where Children Are Still Free

Summer has come early.  My black tulips are still holding out and the sweet smell of purple lilac peppers the air.  It is warm enough for summer dresses over bare legs for school as the green line of new foliage creeping up the foothills behind the house rushes daily towards the summit.This Swiss village takes on a whole new life in the summer as we all emerge from hibernation, open our doors and windows wide to let the world in.  Duvets are hung out to air, voices echo from the square of people stopping to chat by the fountain, and the children run from house to house, from garden to garden to playground and football pitch and back again.  Salut, Ca va? Tu vas où?  Attends, J’arrive.  All this to the background of tweating, warbling, frenzied birdsong.  

Suddenly three children appear along with my own, Lexi.  Grubby and out of breath, their faces pink with the first signs of summer sun, hungry for a “gouter” (4 o’clock snack)  and to dip their feet in our still cold pool.  I feed them, then they all run off ostensibly to find Titouin, or Kevin or Anaelle.  I wonder, as I watch them fly past the big Cedar tree on scooter, bike and foot if they realise that the real journey of discovery is the one taking place inside of them. 

This is how, luckily for us, life is for an eight year old child growing up in a Swiss village.  I read in the Sunday Papers of Lord Winston’s lamentation that English children are pampered and lack activity, kept indoors for fear of danger.

“Perhaps we should stop being so frightened of what could happen and give our children the freedom to be just that, children,” he told the Sunday Telegraph.

Perhaps, the crime rate is low enough here for us to feel less worried or perhaps it is because we still have that sense of community that looks out for one another, feels responsible for one another’s children.

It takes a village.  And so you feed, look over any child that comes your way because such kindness is reciprocated in all the other houses.   Alexia often returns with signs of an ice lolly around her mouth or a plaster placed over a cut or sun cream applied to burnt shoulders.    

It isn’t all roses.  A few years back my eldest daughter then around 10 years, was walking our dog home at dusk on an Autumn evening when a car pulled up and the driver tried to entice her into it.  Luckily she had the instinct to flee.  The police came with a child psychologist who had a friendly chat with her.  The school and nearby communities were informed and I in turn mentionned it to the local mothers.  It was taken note of, as a family we talked about it, but then it was over.  One nut-case was not allowed to destroy or restrict the freedom of happy children’s lives.  A freedom that has been around for centuries.

In the winter in the bleak months before the snow arrives, I yearn to live in a more happening place, to have more than the village shop on my doorstep, to go out for Sushi or to the cinema without having to get in the car.  In the summer it is an entirely different story.  The beauty and stillness of the landscape are unsurpassable, with a song score that is mostly silent interspersed with the sounds of a community living in harmony together bringing up their children and allowing them the freedom to discover life.  

Copyright Jules Ritter May 2008