International 4-H Youth Exchange

Hello Everyone,

I am writing my first newsletter to keep you informed of my great adventure in Sweden. I got to Sweden on June 23, 1999 and began my adventure. I had no clue as to who I was suppose to meet, where I was suppose to go, who my first host family or anything. Adrienne and I got off the plane and the person that was suppose to meet us found us and took us where we needed to go. This lady, Inga-Lill, who was an IFYE in 1961 to the USA, took me to my first host family. The Haulin's had a house just outside of Vittinge, Sweden. Vittinge is located about 30 minutes west of Uppsala and Uppsala is about one hour north of Stockholm. My host family consisted of Börje, host dad who works at a workshop as a manager and designer of agricultural machinery. Börje also plays the keyharp. It looks like a violin with a keyboard on it to change the tune that it plays. It sounded nice. My host mother, Karin, hasn't worked since Ingrid was born. She used to work for the Kousum grocery chain hiring people. She is looking at going back to school this fall to do the same kind of work but needs to advance her skills in computers and other topics including English. I also had two host brothers and one host sister. My host brothers were Lars, age 11 and Nils, age 9. My host sister was Ingrid, age 5. They live on the family farm but do not raise cattle anymore. Instead they have three pigs, which were bought the day that I came to this family. The Haulin's also have three chickens along with baby chickens. All of these animals are raised just for fun. To round off the family, Karin has a pet turtle who is 70 years old and has been in the family since 1964. She said she plans on passing her on to her children when they grow up.

I have learned many things about the Swedish way of life. First off, the language, for me, was quite a struggle. Fortunately, both Börje and Karin spoke English fluently. Lars also spoke fluent English and improved a lot during my stay with him. On the way to the Haulin family I noticed that all trailers and campers had to be registered with the government. The trailers also had to have a triangle on each corner of the back of the trailer for safety reasons. Swedish people are very safety conscious. The most common vehicle that was driven around Sweden was the Volvo although I did see several Fords, Chevrolets, Jeep, and Dodge. It was very interesting to find that tractors that farmers used also had to have a license plate on them. Any time there is a license plate on the vehicle or trailer there is some kind of tax on that item. The family also gets charged some kind of payment for the use of the three television channels that they view coming off the television antenna. These three channels are government funded and 2 channels have absolutely no commercials. Gas prices are about $4 per gallon after you translate liters to gallons and krowns to dollars. The reason for the very high price is because Sweden has to import all of its oil products from elsewhere. People are suggested to either take the train or ride share because of the very high price in gas and oil products. Another interesting fact was that none or very few of the houses have screens on their windows and the doors are left open most of the summer, except at night.

June 24, 1999 was the annual Mid-Summer Celebration in which they gather around a Maypole and dance and celebrate. A Maypole is a long pole that is in the shape of a cross and you put birch branches around the pole. You then have two circles that have flowers hanging off it. Also, the girls all have a circle of flowers around their head. At each family's home they put up birch tree branches at the entrance of each door to the house in celebration of Mid-Summer. I had a chance to help Börje put up these birch tree branches at their house and on the Maypole.

Meals consisted of basically the same kinds of foods that we have in the USA. For breakfast they have cereal but it is put together differently. They start out by putting a yogurt sauce in the bottom of the bowl and then put the cereal on the top of that. They also had oatmeal that you could put applesauce on. Usually there is more yogurt then cereal. Dinners and suppers consisted of meatloaf, Swedish meatballs, salmon, potatoes, corn pie, and blood pudding that looks like patties. (had pig blood, flour, milk, and few spices). They also had fika in the Swedish language. This in English is tea time. During our tea time we had tea, cheese, crackers, bread, and coffee, coffee, and more kaffe (Swedish way of spelling it). The Swedish people sure do drink a lot of coffee! They also had saft which is a type of juice made from liquid concentrate and all you have to do is add water. They do not have any type of powder for juice like for Kool-Aid for home consumption. They do use Gatorade for sports though.

On Sunday, June 27, 1999 I went to visit a church. Karin, my host mom, told me that many of the Swedes don't go to church but if they were asked if they believed in God they would say yes. The church that we attended only had 11 people in attendance that day. It was very interesting to listen to it in the Swedish language because I was able to pick out the sections from the Lutheran church service. They were almost exactly the same.

Another thing that I found interesting about Swedes that Karin pointed out to me was that Swedish people don't like to stand out. Actually there is a law, not written in the books, called Jantelagen that counsels people to not boast or try to lift themselves above others. The law state that you shall not believe you are somebody, that you are not as good as others, that you are not smarter than others, that you are not better than others, that you do not know more than others, that you are not superior over another, that you are not good enough, you are not to laugh at people, that you do not believe that anyone cares about you, and that you cannot teach people anything. This, I thought, was a very negative attitude. I am glad the people of the USA are not of that type. It would be, I think, a very negative way of looking at things.

Overall, I had a really good experience with this family and found them very informative about the way Swedish people live. I have a new understanding of a different culture. If you would like to send me letters please send them to:

Jason Fouks, IFYE
Riksförbundet Sveriges 4-H
St. Malmsvägen 7 / Box 2012
S-641 02 Katrineholm, Sweden

or you can send letters to me via email at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it . I cannot guarantee the speed at which I can respond to emails because I don't know yet if my next host family will have email access. I will try to respond as quickly as I can. Thanks for all the support you have given me. I have appreciated everyone who helped me make this trip possible. It will definitely change my life. I will be headed to Luleå next. Luleå is located in the very northern part of Sweden. I will send my next newsletter after that host stay. It will be roughly Thursday, July 22, 1999.

Thanks again for all of your support,

Jason Fouks