Sunday June 27th-July 6th

On Sunday morning we stayed for service and sang our own rendition of ‘Jesus Loves Me’. Seeing as the entire sermon was in French, I had to fight to not fall asleep. We said our goodbyes and then took a high speed train to Taize. If I could, I would stay on that train forever. Seeing the French country side zoom before your eyes like you’re floating was beautiful.

In only 45 minutes we arrived at Taize. Taize was described to me as a monastery with people from all over the world. I expected the worse but it was more like a camp. We got lucky; that there were only 2000 people there, which is very low compared to the usual amount. Most of the people were Swedish and German. Also, we slept in the barracks which was very comfortable, many people slept in tents.

A typical day would go as follows:

At 8:00 I would wake up and go to prayer at 8:15. The church was a giant open room. Everyone would walk in in silence and sit on the floor facing the stage which had candles on it. The monks sat on the floor as well, in the middle facing the stage. We would sing songs in all different languages, a monk would read a passage from the bible, then a moment of silence, and we finished up with more singing. The sound of 2000 voices singing the same thing in a room is amazing. At 8:45 we had breakfast. Breakfast consisted of bread, chocolate and tea or hot chocolate. Best. Breakfast. Ever. We would eat first and then do the big dishes. 10:00 there was groups for 15/16 year olds. We all sat under a tent and listened to this french monk talk about the bible. Next we split up into our individual groups. In my group there were two Austrians, Mike and Mich, two Swedes, Julia and Martin, two Lithuanians, Carolina and Evelina, and Ally and I. In these groups we would talk about ourselves, and thoughts on things. Next we went to more prayer, and lunch. At lunch we ate first and did dishes like the morning. Later, we met with our groups again where we either cleaned bathrooms or worked on our poster to had to present. After that there was free time until dinner which was at 7:00. During free time we did various things. Some days we went to the silent forest (which was like a park) and sat by the stream. One day we started a soccer game and the numbers grew from 10 to 40. Most of the time, we played cards with the norwegians or slept. For dinner, we did not do dishes. We ate, and went to more prayer at 8:30. After prayer all the teens migrated to Oyak. Oyak was like a hangout place for kids to go at night where it wasn’t silent. We ate chocolate crepes and listened to the Norwegians play songs. At 11:30 they kicked us out.

The days sound scheduled but they didn’t feel like it.

I met a lot of people while I was there. On our first day waiting in line to get food a girl named Kira walked up to us and introduced herself. She’s from Germany, 16, and didn’t have anyone there she knew. She hung out with us during our stay. Cosmo was the one in charge of the dish-washing. He was from Kenya, and extremely kind. There were the Norwegians who were always up for a game of uno or phase ten. One of them was a juggler. Also there were kids from North Carolina there (Alan, Chad, Jackson). They didn’t seem to like us very much but on the fourth of July they invited us to go scream the national anthem in the middle of Oyak. I met a kid from Germany that spoke ‘Britsh’ with me. And there was Will Slack from Georgia that was working there who was kind.

One thing that surprised me greatly was that everyone spoke English. I had no idea that it was the universal language. I thought everyone would be speaking french since we were in France.

By the end of the week people started leaving. I woke up one morning and didn’t recognize anyone. All new faces. It was sad, really.

Taize Memories:

• Katie losing food ticket-starburst plane landing in food ticket
• bread room
• internet shack
• juggling
• warm showers
• bird flute

After we left Taize, Ally and Max left us. The rest of us returned to Paris and slept in a hotel for the night. Our flight was in the morning. That night we spent our time adlibbing for french tv (hero corp!) and playing phase 10.

The plane on the way home was small. I watched 17 again and attempted to sleep. We arrived home around 6pm.