Marie:
Like milllions of other young people around the world, I experienced an unusual school situation this year. After the countrywide lockdown in March, I had online schooling until June. However, I didn’t find this too unpleasant at all, as I was able to manage my time well and Hannah, Mom and I remained in a good mood in spite of all. In the summer, however, a very intense time began for me as I started my Matura project (our final project in the 13th school year). I had already begun with research and preparations during the lockdown, but the implementation lasted from July to October.
My project consisted in writing and illustrating a children’s book to explain multiple sclerosis. I got the idea because my host mother Jill from my exchange year in Canada has MS and has been in a wheelchair for almost 20 years. She had been very inspiring, and I based the main character in my picture book on her.
Mom and I went to Southern France for two weeks during my summer vacation, but I mostly worked on the drawings during those vacations. All in all, it took me a month and a half to get the book ready to print. After that, I sat down to write the 10,000-word report, which I handed in together with the picture book at the end of October.
I am glad I have carried out this idea and am satisfied with the finished book. Now I am looking for a publisher or a sponsor to print a larger edition. No doubt this project will keep me busy next year too.
Hannah:
Through this year and its low points, I was carried by the few film projects that I was nevertheless able to realize. For that I am infinitely grateful. In February, I dusted off an old screenplay and rewrote it, and after almost five months of preparations, the shooting of the short film took place in June. It is about two young women in a Swiss mountain village in 1976 who are confronted with a stroke of fate. They have to learn that compromises in life are sometimes inevitable – and when to ignore them after all.
With a crew of ten people and six actors, we filmed in Brigels and Chur in the canton of Graubünden. There is hardly a more beautiful setting you can imagine for such a film. The shooting lasted four days and I learned more during that time than I had in the previous four months. On the first day we worked for 17 hours – but we didn’t even realize it at that moment. We filmed seven chickens, two cats and always had a few cows as spectators.
In October, I started an internship at a film production company whose films I had always followed since last year. I could hardly believe my luck that I got a chance for a new job despite Corona. Shining Film AG focuses on advertising films for big companies like Swisscom, Sunrise, Coop, but they also film documentaries from time to time and are developing in the direction of TV series. So far, I’ve been able to be a production assistant on two commercials for mountain railroads in Davos and Zermatt, helping the producers, directors and actors with all sorts of things. Right now I’m on my way to a shoot for an SRF Lockdown series, for which we film and interview musicians in their empty concert halls.
It’s been a year of gratitude for us. We were forced to stand still for a moment and got to realize the many blessings we are surrounded with. Now we are ready for next year – come what may.
Michèle:
We made it. So far, Hannah, Marie and I have been spared by corona – thank God. We are also thankful that we were able to live under privileged conditions during the first lockdown. We hope that all of you also fared as well as possible.
In April, my father-in-law passed away at just 90 after a brief illness – unrelated to Corona. The hospital staff exceptionally allowed my mother-in-law to be with him, which was a great comfort for her and for us. Since then, fortunately, despite restrictions, my sister-in-law and her husband have been able to visit frequently and support her.
At the beginning of January, the WSL tree-ring researcher Fritz Schweingruber also died. In 1993 he had hired me at WSL for three months which have become 27 years, and had become a father figure for me.
Speaking of WSL: since March I have been back in my old “research family” at WSL, where Matthias and I had met. I am thrilled!
My year started with an extensive project – editing the National Forest Inventory report in French – and ends with a large translation job, a hiking guide to WSL research projects in Valais.
For the first time in three decades, I enjoyed a week’s vacation without children around the turn of the year with four friends, at the end of the world, in Liguria: hiking, reading, cooking, and dreaming!
In July, Marie and I treated ourselves to two quiet weeks in Ardèche and Provence, at the foot of Mont-Ventoux, among cicadas and vineyards.
From this year I learned once again not to plan… Hence for 2021 I have no great expectations, only the hope for all of us that the world will soon be better.
In spite of everything, I wish you a Merry Christmas, health, peace and a blessed New Year. Take care – and stay healthy!
Here a few links:
- Our year 2020 in pictures (slide show)
- Hannah’s new web page