Exploring Geneva

The past two weeks schoolwork has kept me from traveling to faraway places, so I decided to see some of the sites of the city in which I am actually living. One of my favorite places in St. Louis is the Missouri Botanical Garden, and I have been seeing buses around Geneva with the end location listed as “Jardin Botanique”. Turns out Geneva has a botanical garden as well, which is free to the public and open every day of the week. The garden is near the United Nations (which is headquartered here) and is probably about ¼ the size of St. Louis one. It is more like a park in that nothing seems to be particularly manicured or planted on purpose for aesthetic reasons. There is a small zoo with two pens—one for deer and one for birds like swans, ducks, and geese. There are also two indoor buildings, one with tropical plants and one with desert plants. It was a nice afternoon and we got some great views of Lake Geneva, but I must say I am spoiled by the St. Louis’ Botanical Garden.

Another place I wanted to see before moving on to London was the International Red Cross Museum. I wasn’t sure what to expect before going there, but it was not at all what I thought it was going to be. The part of the building that houses the main exhibit is cold and dark, consisting of concrete floors and walls and exposed ceilings. It is overwhelming at first, and even kind of scary. I was surprised at the ambiance of the museum, but slowly I realized that it very much reflects the nature of the work the Red Cross—it is not “pretty” work. It is about going to the places from which everyone else is fleeing—war zones, communities that have been struck by natural disaster, and regions devastated by disease.

During my visit, I learned that the Red Cross was founded by Genevan Henry Dunant (I always thought it was founded by Clara Barton—talk about being US-centric—turns out she is just the most famous US predecessor to the original founders) in 1862. I also learned that the Red Cross provides more than medical services. During the First World War, it began servicing the displaced and attempting to inform families of their whereabouts. The museum holds an index of over 7 million file cards, all handwritten, which document about two million prisoners of war from the First World War. The Red Cross attempted to keep track of all as many POWs as they could and alert concerned families of the status of their loved ones. The room I was most affected by was a 16ft. x 10 ft. room covered wall to wall in headshots of African children—these photos were taken in an effort to catalog the children coming out of the 1994 Rwandan genocide sans family members. Each child holds a dry erase board with a different number written on it. The photos were circulated through refugee camps in an attempt to reconnect the children with relatives. The faces of those children were haunting, but the effort proved successful in reuniting over 1000 children with loved ones.

There are two more places I want to see before I leave Geneva—the United Nations and a place called Cern. Cern is some scientific research facility that invents crazy things and has produced a black hole. I’m not even really sure what a black hole is, or how humans can make one, but supposedly it’s a pretty cool place to visit. I tried to make a reservation, but all the English tours are booked until the end of October. Oh well, now you don’t have to worry about me being sucked into the black hole. Looks like I’ll focus on getting to the UN.

Picture: A Dr. Seuss-like plant at the Jardin Botanique.