Black Heidi

She is Black, left-wing and extrovert - and loves the Appenzell region.

How yodeling helped Kenyan Yvonne Apiyo Brändle-Amolo survive in Switzerland.

Webreprt: With Apiyo at the Appenzeller Wrestling festival.

TEXT: YAËL DEBELLE
Everyone stares at her. Men click, women fall silent, boys giggle, girls giggle. Yvonne Apiyo Brändle-Amolo is Black. That's enough to be a sensation at the Appenzeller Canton wrestling festival in Schwende.
She grew up in Kenya. She also feels at home in Appenzell. She learned to yodel there, with Rempfler Josef, even before she could speak German. "Yodelling saved my life in Switzerland," she says.
In the tent she sits down at the beer table. "What do you have that is vegetarian?" – “Uh, nothing” says the helper in the oversized sponsor shirt. Then she ordered french fries. Furtive glances left and right. “I just like wrestling festivals. I feel comfortable here."
She didn't find any friends for three years. "My yodeling friends call me 'Black Heidi'," says the 40-year-old. She started yodeling over ten years ago. Out of despair.
After three years in Switzerland, she still hadn't found any friends and sat at home for days while her husband was on duty. Switzerland seemed cold to her. Brändle-Amolo comes from a good family in Kisumu, her father is an engineer and his mother was the first female car mechanic in the whole country. She herself worked in the hotel, as the guest-relations manager. Among them was a Swiss policeman. The two fell in love and married in 2000. The marriage went well, but she felt isolated in her new home. After three
years of loneliness, she asked herself the question: «What am I actually doing here?» But she is stubborn, and doesn't easily give up.
"I had to find a way to connect to the Swiss." She found it through singing. She googled «Swiss traditional singing»,
ended up with yodeling and wrote to the first suggested address:
«I am a Kenyan woman, I would like to learn Yodel.» («Ich bin eine kenianische Frau und möchte jodeln lernen.»)
Josef Rempfler from the folk music trio Appenzeller Echo wrote back on the same day. She should
come by that Saturday. There were 20 people waiting when she came by.
Everyone wanted to get to know her and asked a lot. Brändle-Amolo felt welcome in Switzerland for the first time. And that was the beginning of such welcoming experiences. In her first appearance, the whole thing
hall got up, yodelled and clapped along. "You just have to find the key. The Swiss have
a warm heart."
A patriotic film is showing in front of the tent, in real life. Two men with bulging bellies and long alphorns, between them an elderly woman in traditional costume. They blow on the lush green meadow, next to them two boys whirl Swiss flags in the air. Brändle-Amolo's light afro
shines in the sun.
"You really good" For the federal yodelling festival two years ago, she straightened her hair. "Today I think: if you are going to do it , go all in." She always attracts attention anyway, and people always see her as an African, no matter what she does. Today she wears a short, black dirndl-style costume, sewn by herself. Embroidered pink flowers adorn the hem, white lace ensnares her décolleté. The feet are in high booties.
"Winner, first place: Horner Peter," boomed the loudspeaker. The wrestler takes off his edelweiss shirt
and pours well water over his massive body. It's over 30 degrees hot. Brändle-Amolo pulls out her cell phone and films what is happening. A young man rushes towards her, beaming. «You really look
good, can i have a photo with you?” He is Michael and finds it casual how she dresses and in general, and
he absolutely had to show his brother the photo. "It was sweet," says Brändle-Amolo.
Michael isn't the only one who wants a photo of her. A German Schwing fan, from Schwingfest to
Schwing festival says: "That's crazy. My wife doesn't believe me if I don't have a picture of it
have." Two farmers guide them to the live prizes, the winning muni Flatteri and the cattle Bambi. "have to have a photo with her, what fun."
Gladly, no problem, says Brändle-Amolo, but she has to keep her face in the sun: "Otherwise you just see
Black." – «She can speak German!» wonders a woman.
"Why does she have Chrusla like that?" “Appenzellers are direct, they say what they think. I like that." She can handle that better than political correctness. "The people
in the country are sometimes like children." When a white and a black child play together, both are just curious, without prejudice. “Why is she like that Chruslä?” asks a girl.
"You climb down!" calls a boy. Brändle-Amolo climbed a rock to take a picture with a mountain panorama. "Why?" she asks back. «because you are a N**gerli!»
She has no business here, she is not Swiss. "Yes, I am," she replies.
When she was supposed to give a speech on the national day, 1st of August, near Zurich last year, she found dog faeces in her mailbox and hate mail in her inbox. A yodelling friend found her an apartment in the Limmattal after she couldn't get one for months. “Maybe because of the colour of my skin,” she says.
“Racial Profiling” is the title of her master’s thesis, Racism in Authorities. She is studying intercultural communication at the University of Lugano, her third degree after economics in Nairobi and San Diego and video journalism in Switzerland. She knows the feeling of being the only one in a group being checked by the police.
She joined the SP three years ago and ran for the Zurich Cantonal Council and the National Council.
That in the yodelling scene, in which she so quickly felt at home, there were many xenophobes and almost exclusively
didn't know for a long time that there were almost exclusively right wing party, SVP voters. Today, she knows it. But it doesn't change her love of yodelling. “This shouldn’t drive me crazy.” You have to start somewhere.
«If you share a meal with someone, he can hardly see you as an enemy anymore," she says. She fell in love with a Swiss man in
love but only managed to stay and integrate in Switzerland thanks to the yodelers.
After nine years of marriage, her husband filed for divorce in 2009. His wife had become too Swiss for him. The police officer emigrated to the Dominican Republic. A little later, Brändle-Amolo received a letter from the authorities saying she had to return her Swiss passport. She was to be expatriated because of a fake marriage. She hired a lawyer and fought in vain for a year.
Then she made a short film. The plot: Brändle-Amolo yodels happily, my father is in Appezöller, düoi, düoi, düoido. Then the mood changes, she starts to cry and disappears from the picture, a poster appears - three white sheep kicking a black one from Switzerland. The film wins awards at international festivals. Brändle-Amolo sends it to the migration office, and a letter comes back a little later saying she can keep her passport. «Yodeling saved my life a second time in Switzerland.