Day 2 - Dinner Surprise

At the end of the day, we returned to Hilltop Rescue and got to see how much busier the place had become: hundreds of teens from Youth in Action had arrived, so the cafeteria was packed with people.

While we were eating, we were jolted to attention by the most interesting of sounds: a woman at the front of the room had stood up and was apparently hollering at the top of her lungs. "But wait," I thought as my brain caught up with what my ears were hearing, "there is a musical pattern to what I am hearing." She had begun by singing: "MY FATHER IS IN HEAVEN ABOVE..." and then singing a chorus of trilling effects.

"...I CANNOT PRAISE HIM LOUD ENOUGH!" the woman sang. She trilled through her second chorus and then finished. I realized I'd just heard somebody jodeling, and it was nothing like the stereotypes I've heard. Before she sat down, she explained that she was from Switzerland, where the jodel had once been common. She explained that her friends knew she could jodel, so they had begged her to jodel for everybody at Hilltop Rescue. After she finished her story, everybody applauded.