International 4-H Youth Exchange

Hello Everyone,

I have finished my host stays in Skåne county and have changed to Kalmar county. I had a great week with this family that I stayed with. I moved host families because Ingrid started work again and the kids were starting school this week. The family that I stayed with this week was Tomas Persson and Charlotte Olsson. Tomas is starting is own business and works at picking peas during the summer. Charlotte is a nurse down in the university hospital in Lund. They live in an apartment in Hörby. It has been a very different experience living in an apartment because I have always lived in a house in the country. I lived in town this time also. It was a little different always having neighbors and always locking the car and house every time we left it. The other thing that has been very interesting is Tomas and Charlotte's relationship. "Dating" is different from the way it is in the USA. Here in Sweden the couple may be engaged for many years and may even have their kids before they are married. When they get married they could have their kids in the wedding. That doesn't happen in every relationship though. Tomas and Charlotte have been engaged for 8 years.

We did a lot of things while I was with them. The first evening Tomas had to work with the peas. His job consists of driving tractor to all of the pea pickers to pick up the peas and take them to a truck that will take them to the pea factory. He is also in charge of taking samples of the peas to make sure they are not too wet or dry and estimate the weight. He works about a 12 hour shift then he is off for 12 hours.

The second evening we took a road trip. That was a lot of fun. We were taking Charlotte's parent over to Åhus but took the long way. We went south to a place where there were ancient ruins from the Vikings. It is called the Ales Stenar. It was from over 4000 years ago and the Vikings built it in the shape of a ship. It was intended to be used to worship their gods. Also, along the way we stopped at a café to have a little snack. There we had coffee, tea, and a whole assortment of cookies and cake. That was a nice break from being on the road.

We also got a chance to travel to Malmö several times. The Malmö Festival was going on this week so we got a chance to go down while there was quite a crowd. Both Sweden and Denmark are working on a bridge that will connect Malmö to Copenhagen. The project started about 4 years ago and will be completed by July 2000 in which they will have a marathon across the bridge. I still don't understand the reason for the bridge. The Swedish people voted against building the bridge because of the huge expense that is attached to it. Also, once the bridge is completed they will be charging people a toll to cross on it to help offset the expenses. A huge downfall to this bridge is the wind. When there is too much wind people will not be allowed to travel on it because the bridge will sway too much. They will have to go back to taking the ferry for that time period. From the information that I gathered while visiting the bridge this was a very unneeded expense but the government never listened to their people. Also while we were in Malmö I got a chance to visit a castle from the 1600's. That was a very interesting castle. They had several exhibits in that building including an exotic animal exhibit and history about people from over 4000 years ago. It was very interesting because we really don't have any of that. Our country is way to young to have this kind of history. I really enjoyed visiting the castles. That was the most interesting part of the whole trip to Malmö.

We spent one day at Tomas' parents farm. That was very refreshing. I never thought I would feel refreshed to go to a farm. Tomas' parents were pig farmers but were getting out of that business to raise dairy cattle because of the pig prices. It smelled like a dairy farm and I was glad not to have to smell the pigs anymore. While we were there we worked at putting an electric pump on the fuel barrel. During our day together we talked about several things. I learned about the barbed wire fence law. In Sweden you are not allowed to use barbed wire fence any more because of the harm they cause to animals. People in Stockholm decided on making this into law and didn't even ask the farmers what they thought. Farmers also can't have the electric bar that hangs down from the ceiling in the stanchion barn. Again, people in Stockholm think that is abuse to cattle. I think the people of Stockholm regulate farmers way too much. Tomas agreed with me. He thought that the people in Stockholm should let the farmers do their job and not regulate them like this.

On the final full day with Tomas and Charlotte we took a trip down to a farm that was experimenting with using robots to milk the cows. This farm is a university where high school kids can go to complete their high school education. The high school here in Sweden is run differently then it is in the USA. Children go to school from 1st grade starting at age 7 and go to school for 9 years. Then you choose whether or not you are going to go to high school or work. If you choose to go to high school you have the option of choosing what topics you want to study while you are there so it is kind of like college. That is where this farm comes into play. The kids get a chance to learn how to farm while they stay in the dorms on this farm. The robot that I mentioned earlier answered a lot of questions that I had about milking with robots. Cows can get milked whenever they feel they need to. While I was there, there were 7 or 8 cows waiting for milking time. The cow is let in by the gate and gets fed some feed according to who she is. The robot would start out with two brushes and wipe each teat to make sure the dirt got off it. Then it would put each milking cup on the teat by moving the entire unit. While the cow was milking if the milking cup started to make noise the robot would move the machine and also the rope attached to the cup to make it so it wouldn't make noise any more. When the cow is done milking the milking cups are pulled off using a rope and attached to the robot in the upright position. Then the gate opens and the cow leaves the stall.

Overall, I had a real enjoyable time at Tomas and Charlotte's home. They were really nice to show me around and be with me. They showed a lot of enthusiasm towards the IFYE program and I thought that was great!