A normal story about what I didn't expect to find

by Karina Piontkovska (Ukraine)

I didn't expect to find Switzerland

Maybe it's too obvious to start a story with a self-presentation, but I will make it short. Just one sentence long. “I am Karina from Ukraine who went to volunteer in Switzerland.” Without mentioning my excellent German language proficiency. Or referring to travel budget problems. And of course without asking why the hell would Switzerland need volunteers. Alright, I failed with that. Let's go to the main question. “What I didn't expect to find here were people like me.” Not enough intriguing? Sorry, but wait till I explain. When you come to a foreign country, you bear in your mind all the prejudices and stereotypes. That make you believe you know everything about people you are surrounded with. But it would be too easy, wouldn't it? Yes, I saw these rich and important bankers who couldn't help but ate cheese and complained about everything. No exaggeration! But these big concrete features were complemented by small and tiny imprecise ones. Like love for muesli and making fun of neighbors. It was really difficult for my mind to embrace the new knowledge. So, to make it easy, it was all about adjectives. What are Swiss people? Rich, multilingual, privileged, happy, spoiled, SUSTAINABLE, complaining, nationalistic, smiling, picky, conservative, vegan, tolerant, demanding, easy-going, neat, old-fashioned, pessimistic, cylindrical... After the fifth I couldn't distinguish more between good and bad, rational and irrational, so I just accepted them for what they were and relied on them to always be so. But this happened. It was an ordinary day. I had too much on my mind. I was waiting for what seemed hours but was really fifteen minutes. I was waiting for a friend of mine. And a girl came to me. She wanted to talk with me. But why? And her phone ringed so she stepped aside for a moment. I was caught on the thought of what she would tell me. She was beautiful and tall. She had this Swiss accent but sounded nice. I was sure that I haven’t seen her before. My friend came exactly when she finished her call. She asked if she could come with us. I was confused but I couldn't say no. So we went. She asked us about our lives and talked about the weather. On my question about the topic of our talk she just laughed. So we walked until... Oh sorry, it was a wrong story. The right one is short and simple. I went to a bar with some of my Swiss friends. We talked about love, feminism, sex, climate change, Donald Trump, terroristic organizations, vegan burgers, and Coronavirus outbreak. We just talked and I realized I knew these people all my life. They were just like me. The only thing that made us different was an inscription on our passports. Well, and the amount of money on our bank accounts. And some tiny things like self-confidence or vision of the future. “That was it. End of my story.” Oh, there were also cute little ducks we talked about.