Neighbors and Other Stories by Diane Oliver

Author:Diane Oliver [Oliver, Diane]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

BANAGO KALT

Riding on the train from Basel to Zurich, Millie scarcely had taken time to sit down. She stood at the window now, her nose pressed against the window glass, staring down at the lakes that were scattered across the countryside. Through the polished window she gazed at the picture-postcard valleys, each surrounded by gray-green mountains and dotted with flowers.

Now that she was in Switzerland she no longer had any doubts as to whether she should have come. Usually in the summer she was up to her neck in freedom work but this year she suddenly had an overwhelming desire to leave everything. She was sick and tired of sitting-in, and standing-in, and after that minister’s dog bit her, even kneeling-in. Sometimes she just felt so boxed in living in the South. At this moment all she had to do was look through the glass at the green country on the other side to feel free from herself.

Earlier this afternoon her group of American college kids had arrived by jet in Basel. Millie loved Switzerland at once. She could have stayed all day at the open-air cafe where the group drank coffee before splitting up to meet the families with whom they would live. So many things were different from home, even little things like the giant-sized advertisements that covered American billboards.

All over the Basel train station and on sidewalk posters, side by side in groups of three was the same picture of a little boy drinking Banago Kalt. One of the kids who spoke fluent German discovered from a waiter that Banago Kalt was something like Kool-Aid, only made with milk. She knew immediately she would feel at home in Switzerland from seeing those darling old ladies with the long aproned skirts drinking big glasses of chocolaty Banago Kalt.

Millie looked over her shoulder at the two American girls who were no longer looking at the countryside. They didn’t seem at all excited. She smiled, thinking of the way her next-door neighbor would have described Karen and Rita: being white, they were just without soul. At first she was worried about Rita, who was from a small Texas town, but immediately all three of them were good friends. They really were nice girls and she was glad they fit together so well.

She, Karen, and Rita were going to live with a Swiss family through the Family Friends Experiment. Supposedly the Experiment was a highly selective program, and the other girls were amazed that she had been accepted after applying in May. Millie didn’t expect to have any difficulty with her application. At the small Virginia college she attended, every now and then somebody wanted “one” to represent the school in the public eye. She figured the Experiment would be no different from a newly integrated college.

In fact, when the director wrote her acceptance letter he kept stressing how delighted they were to have a bona fide civil rights worker in the group. She, he said, could give Europeans a true picture of American life.

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