For three months, I lived at a hostel in Switzerland. This one, however, is in some ways different from the kind of hostels you may have stayed at.
The day starts early here.
The guests leave their rooms and head to the dining room for breakfast, following which some of them hang out in the seating area reading newspapers and periodicals.
I was there for the holiday season. During this time, all the living and common spaces were full of Christmas decorations — cottonwool snow, gnomes, colourful stars, wrapped presents, fairy lights, mini-Christmas trees, and what have you.
After January 7, which is when Oxthodox Christians — who follow the old Julian calendar as opposed to the more common Gregorian calendar that most people in the world use — celebrate Christmas, the decorations are changed to more winter-specific than Christmas-specific. Now there is more snow, pine cones, ski equipment, warm hats and boots.
The property also has a chapel with unique architecture. Even though it doesn’t have windows, the roof is built in a way that lets quite a bit of natural light in. The space remains open 24/7 for anyone who wants to spend some time there.
The community vibe is warm, with the staff wishing you a cheerful “Grüezi!” (Hello!) every time you cross paths.
As the day progresses, some guests head to the atelier to paint or play indoor games.
After lunch, some guests prefer to walk inside or around the property while admiring the snow-capped Mt Pilates — seen right from the cafe and the backyard. Apart from Mount Titlis, Mount Pilates is on the itinerary of many tourists from around the world who visit Switzerland.
Around this time, the house cafe starts getting crowded with the guests sitting and chatting at the tables, having coffee or the occasional drink, with light music playing in the background. There is the occasional loud laughter, and once in a while someone bursts into a spontaneous song.
Some prefer to hang out in the common area or head to the smoking zone for a quick drag.
On weekends or special days, there are performances by guest performers, with some guests occasionally joining in. Even outside of weekends, there are regular engaging and fun activities that take place.
The day ends early.
The guests are done with dinner and back in their quarters by 8 pm.
Now imagine the above description is not of a hostel but a home for the elderly, and the guests are actually residents.
I lived in a Swiss old age home for three months and loved it.
I didn’t have much experience with old-age homes until I came to Switzerland. And considering I come from a country that looks down on the idea of people living at such facilities, and where songs such as Nachiketa’s Briddhasram (Translated: Old-Age Home) become hits, I didn’t really know what to expect. And now that I’ve lived here three months, I can say that I love it, and if I have the chance to live in such a facility when I’m older, I would do it.
Back home in India, people look at old-age homes as somewhere the elderly go to stay when their family doesn’t take care of them. The society, however, looks the other way when it comes to problems of loneliness the elderly face even when living with their family.
With age, mobility reduces and there are millions of elderly people who are stuck at home with perhaps people to talk to, but increasingly less common topics to talk about. With their lives restricted to the walls of the house, they don’t make new friends and new stories. Family members can only patiently listen to a certain story from thirty years ago so many times. The chemistry between the elderly and young members of the family deteriorate further when senility creeps in.
At this retirement home, this is not a problem, and I felt that this truly is like a hostel for the elderly.
The scores of residents here are at the same place in life, who can perhaps understand and empathise better with their neighbours than their much-younger family. I’m not trying to say everyone gets along with everyone else. But there is a whole bunch of people here, and the chances of finding at least one such person is significant.
I remember an old lady with mobility and speech issues. She used a wheelchair, had trouble speaking and drank through a straw. At times, I saw her sitting alone at a table with a member of the staff or family getting her a drink that she could sip. Everyone who passed her — residents, employees or visitors — said hi and smiled. That community feeling, if you ask me, makes a gigantic difference in one’s quality of life.
Trained employees, whose job is to make the residents’ lives easier and better, make another huge difference.
And family and friends, of course, come over to meet the residents every now and then.
Unfortunately for me, I could not strike up long conversations with the residents because of the language barrier. Almost none of the residents speak English and most of them speak Swiss-German, which is in many ways quite different from German, of which I have some basic knowledge. I know I have missed some very interesting stories there.
But I grew to know bits of some of them from afar.
There was one lady who walked up and down with her walker a couple of times every day on the street in front of my window. I occasionally preferred to work at the cafe, and one day, when it was particularly empty, one of the residents — another woman with a walk-assist on wheels — came up to the self-help hot beverage section, picked up a bunch of dairy creamers, gave me a naughty chuckle, and walked out. There was a tall and lanky man who frequented the smoking room. He didn’t seem like a talker but wished me the occasional “Tchuss!,” which is an informal way of saying bye.
On the flight back to India from Zurich, I wished such homes for the elderly were more popular and accessible in India.
[Image: Part of the in-house cafe at my stay. Picture by Arnab Nandy.]
