IFYE Program Newsletter

I want to send everyone greetings from Denmark. The people have welcomed me with open arms. I find the culture in Denmark very similar to that of the US. Most of the people here in Denmark do not know that I am a "foreigner" until someone tries to talk to me and then realizes that I cannot speak Danish. That has been one of the biggest changes, learning the language. I get asked two questions most often: do I live on a farm and can I speak Danish?

When I first arrived in Denmark, the landscape reminded me of Ohio and the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Once out of the city, all that you can see are miles and miles of farms with a few trees. What made me realize that I was not in the US were the windmills in fields in all directions. In Denmark the windmills produce a small percentage of their power.

Denmark has an area of 16,632 square miles with many small islands making up part of it. The size of Denmark is close to the size of Vermont. The capital is Copenhagen, which has a population of 1.6 million people, very close to the population of West Virginia. Denmark has a population of 5.1 million people.

Denmark has a very big agricultural sector. They have a lot of dairy and beef farms. They are one of the largest exporters of pigs in the world. There are many wheat and barley farms. In the summer they have long days. The sun rises very early in the morning and sets around 10 p.m.

When Dusty (the other IFYE) and I arrived, two former IFYEs from Denmark met us. We traveled southwest from the capital to the city of Køge where we stayed for two days and had our IFYE training meeting. We met many IFYEs who have been to the U.S. We learned about the culture and things to expect while staying and becoming a part of a family here. The training meeting also allowed us to get used to the six-hour time difference. If it is noon in West Virginia, then it is 6 p.m. here in Denmark.

My first host family picked me up at Køge. They live in a small town near Haslev, on a 4-H farm. Their house is a two-story red brick. Aff, the mother, is studying to become a teacher. She has been a dairy farmer and a caretaker and worker with troubled youth. She has always been involved with 4-H since her youth. Aff has three kids: Marie is 19 and likes to read, watch movies, and is chairperson of Denmark's 4-H Youth Council. Niels is 17; I'm sharing his room. He likes computer games, movies, and works at a furniture store in Haslev on the weekends. Troels is 7 and likes to play (sometimes with Legos, which were invented in Denmark) and have fun. Kure is a family friend who lives here and helps out around the farm.

We live on what is called a 4-H farm. This means that Aff has animals here that the 4-H members of her club can use and train. There are horses, cows, pigs, some sheep, 20 rabbits, three dogs, and two cats. As a note, the school children here have a summer vacation that lasts 8 weeks. This allows them to have camp and other kinds of vacations.

On Tuesday, July 3rd, the Teestrup 4-H club held their club camp here at Aff's farm. The camp had 26 kids, 3 males and 23 females. The kids slept in two big circle tents near a pond. A few of the mothers and fathers of the campers who volunteered cooked the meals in Aff's kitchen. In the morning after they groomed their horses and trained them, they had a course that the rider had to guide the horse through. One of the kids let me ride his horse for a few minutes. Some of the kids use the horses here and others bring their own. Some of the leaders and older kids help the younger 4-H'ers learn about the animals. In the afternoon they had a water fight one day and went to the beach another day for three hours. In the evening the kids would train their horses to walk or jump. A volunteer teaches the kids how to exercise them. Then we had a campfire where we sit and talk. Niels and I put up a tent on the second night and slept outside.

THINGS I HAVE DONE AND PLACES I HAVE SEEN:

· Young Farmer Weekend: An annual weekend where they take tours and play games. I went out on a ship to see the one of the longest bridges in the world and visited a Viking village that shows the way people lived at that time. One of the games I played was driving a tractor through an obstacle course. The tractor's steering was reversed from what I think of as normal operation.
· Visited the Hans Christan Andersen Museum in Odense. I saw where he lived and worked. http://www.odmus.dk
· Den Fynske Landsby is a Living History Museum of early settlers. It is constructed of many old buildings that have been brought to the area. It shows the way they live and farmed at that time.
· BonBon Land is an amusement park that was created by a candy factory.
· Aff's father took us out in his boat. We went out on the water near Copenhagen and sailed to an island that is owned by the old farmers of Copenhagen where they grazed cows in the summer. Aff's father has a house on the island.
· Helped Aff lay 700 square meters of brick floor in a barn/machine shed.
· Denmark 4-H web site is: http://www.denmarks4h.dk
· Special thanks to Ulla og Bjorn Dahlberg for the digital photos for the IFYE TIMES.

Things in the next edition of IFYE Times:
· Zealand 4-H Camp
· Norway Camp

David Hartley