The Baboon Congress

Are You Among Friends?

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Today’s guest post comes from Jim in Clark’s Grove..

My first trip as an overseas agricultural volunteer for ACDI/VOCA was the one that I took to bring information on sustainable farming to Bulgaria.

This was a great adventure, giving an interesting perspective on a part of the world that was new to me. Before making this trip, I didn’t even know where to find Bulgaria on a map. I did know that it had recently emerged from behind the Iron Curtain in 1994 when I visited. I was not an experienced international traveler, but I was willing to give it a try. There were some hardships encountered during this trip due to the somewhat difficult traveling conditions. The many fascinating experiences I had there learning about the country and its people more than made up for the travel problems.

Most of my time on this trip was spent in Butan, a small village in Northeast Bulgaria. I arrived there late at night with my Bulgarian host and my translator. A welcoming committee of people from the town was pleased to learn that I was willing to drink rakia with them. Rakia is a drink similar to brandy that is very strong and has a unique flavor that I learned to appreciate. There were no hotels in the town, but there was room for me to stay in a home.

I enjoyed touring Butan, which has cobblestone streets and homes surrounded by walls. The streets are lined with fruit and nut trees and through some openings in the walls you can see chickens and other livestock that are kept in back yards. Grapes grow everywhere. I drank homemade wine at several homes that I visited. The mayor invited me to his home where he offered me three kinds of wine made from grapes that he grew. One family was very proud of the water buffalo that they owned. Most of the homes I saw had outdoor toilets and some had cars. Both donkey carts and trucks were used as commercial vehicles.

I could go on for a long time about my experiences in Butan. Instead of doing that, I want to tell about how I was helped out of a difficult situation.

Stancho, who hosted my trip, turned out to not be completely reliable. He became dissatisfied with my translator, she decided to leave, and Stancho left to get another translator. No one in the village could translate for me. I was on my own for a couple of days among people who didn’t speak my language.

I decided that I would be okay on my own because I thought I could trust the people where I was staying. That turned out to be true. They cooked a special meal for me and invited other villagers to the meal. Guests at the meal included a man who I learned later had been separated from his group on a trip to Cuba. For a number of days he had to find his way without being able to talk anyone, just as I was doing.

I was treated well by everyone I meet in Butan and they all knew that Stancho had his shortcomings.  I learned latter that the people at ACDI/VOCA were not sure that Stancho would make a good host and had some reservations about using him in this capacity. However, the change in translators, because Stancho drove away the first one, turned out to be a stroke of good luck for me.   The second translator did a very good job and is now a friend of mine who invited me back to Bulgaria to visit him. 

Talk about your experiences with giving or receiving help from people you don’t know.

63 thoughts on “Are You Among Friends?”

  1. Thanks for sharing your story, Jim. I am very curious about what you were able to pass on about sustainable farming and what you learned in Bulgaria.
    I once had a flat tire along a highway on the way from grocery shopping to my home, with a seven year old who wanted to get home in the car. It was not bad weather, but it was very frustrating . A kind young woman stopped to help me, and as we talked it turned out that we had actually met once, several years before. That’s not much, compared to what you experienced, but it was amazing and wonderful to me.
    OT: PJ, I posted the ostkaka recipe in yesterday’s blog.
    I hope that everyone can stay warm today. The weather is an enormous change from what we have had!

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    1. I was near the end of a job I had doing educational work in the Midwest on sustainable agriculture. I had a very good video about two farmers who were leaders of the educational project, Dick and Sharon Thompson. That video turned out to be my best tool for the work I did in Bulgaria. Arrangements were made so that I could show this video to various people involved in agriculture there and then answer questions.

      It was not a well organized project because the host didn’t have a good plan. I think he thought he could start an educational project about sustainable ag in Butan, which he would lead, based on my visit. He wasn’t the right person to do that. I did get information from farmers about what they needed and sent them information when I got home. I have no way of knowing if they used any of the information I sent to them. On trips like this you really need to know what people need in advance and be able supply the information while you are there.

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    2. Thanks, Vicky, I saw that. I’m wondering whether goat’s milk would work? I’m asking because I have ready access to raw goat’s milk, but no idea where I might be able to get my hands on raw cow’s milk.

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      1. Raw cow’s milk can’t be sold in stores in Minnesota. There have been some people selling raw cow’s milk directly from farms to customers and some of them have stopped doing this. One farmer was taken to court because he was accused of selling raw milk that made some people sick. Also, there are claims that raw milk is better than pasteurized milk and that raw milk from dairies that handle it properly is safe to drink. In the past we served raw milk at the annual meeting of our sustainable farming chapter and it had a very good flavor.

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        1. When I was growing up we had one of those home pasteurization units on the kitchen counter. Did a gallon at a time. When it broke we drank raw milk. I’d bring a gallon up from the barn at night, we’d skim the cream off in the morning and return it to the bulk tank and drink the raw milk. Loved it.
          When we had kids, we bought whole milk for them for a while, then when I sold the cows and had to switch to ‘store milk’ it took a while to acclimate to the taste; it is different.

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      3. TIm’s right – it’s not easy-peasy.
        I don’t know why goat’s milk wouldn’t work. You’re just trying to make cheese, and then not actually making cheese. I would try it! But we have a neighbor who will sell us raw cow’s milk, and nobody nearby who raises goats. (At some point in the past, we had a few goats, but I didn’t have the ostkaka recipe then.)

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  2. In 1978, two weeks after my daughter was born, Kathe and I took a grouse hunting trip in northern Minnesota. We hired my niece Mary (then about 10) to be Molly’s babysitter when Kathe couldn’t be with her. So we had two adults, a kid, an infant and two dogs in our old Volvo.

    Since we got to the Park Rapids area early, I drove into a state forest looking for grouse even before we’d checked into the resort. I picked a bad road, a tiny two-rut dirt track that didn’t lead to good grouse cover. When we were deep into the forest the Volvo’s front end made a nasty noise and lurched to a stop. We had a broken tie rod, so my two front wheels pointed in radically different directions. The nearest Volvo parts would be in the Twin Cities, some 250 miles away, and meanwhile we were in the middle of a state forest nowhere near a house, road or telephone and our car wouldn’t go one foot forward or back. Molly began bawling. It would be night soon.

    We would have to walk out, although we were probably ten miles from a road that would have any traffic on it. We had expensive shotguns and camera gear, so when we began hiking out we had to take that stuff with us. Sensing our tension, Molly was howling like an air siren. Mary was terrified. Kathe still hurt from childbirth. We packed up and began hiking.

    To my astonishment and delight, I saw a Jeep bouncing along in the woods. It was driven by two Indian foresters from the White Earth reservation. The foresters crawled up under my broken Volvo with baling wire. They “fixed” the car enough to make it marginally capable of operating.

    I had no cash to reward our saviors, but I did have a bottle of tawny port. I wondered if it was right for a white guy to push booze off on Indians, but they were happy to get the port. They told me to keep my speeds below 45 mph so the baling wire didn’t break, and I should “avoid making turns.” That gave me a lot to think about on the long highway back home!

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    1. Tawny port is the perfect showing of appreciation for all of gods children.

      Always hesitant about picking up large groups of hitch hikers carrying shotguns

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      1. Worse than I’ve indicated, Jim. By the time we drove home my springer Brandy had taken a full whack across the face from a porcupine. Quills in her nose, tongue, lips, around her eyes, etc. She hadn’t been able to drink water for two days.

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  4. Boy am I steamed! I don’t feel like I have any friends right now since I have no land line or internet service at my house due to the malfunctioning equipment of my service provider. They, of course, are closed today, so it may be many days before i can get anyone at my house to fix it. I will be off the trail unless I am at work.

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    1. Oh my! That stinks!
      The land line is supposed to be the safe one. People have been commenting about how many people had no way to contact friends after Superstorm Sandy because the cell-phone towers were only about 40% for a while. (So if you didn’t have a land line and you were in the wrong area you might not be able to contact anyone.)

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      1. My phone service is connected to the internet modem, so if that if the internet is down, so is my phone service. I believe I need a new modem, which is odd since it was just replaced a month ago.

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    2. My refrigerator went out at 12 yesterday and it was pointed out at 2. The Centerpoint home service plus is un damn believable. He was out by 3 had it fixed by 4 and I got to sleep comfortably instead of worrying about food going bad as I tried to figure out details. Demitry from Russia had thanksgiving day shift til 430. His wife was at home getting thanksgiving dinner ready and he was thankful our job took him long enough that when he finished up writing the parts he ordered for later installation he would be timed perfectly for going home to turkey dinner. He’s been here 15 years and thanksgiving is when they do American food other days the eat Russian but thanksgiving is turkey and cranberries no borsch

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  5. I just read Tim’s response to my one coment yesterday. Oh,Tim, I was not offended in the least and my comment was made in jest. My internet service crashed right after I commented.

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        3. alright i think youve squirmed enough. i will send the internet fairies to the oil fields and when thy are done over in sin city they will be back to look after you renee.

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        4. This is weirder than weird. I just came home for lunch and i have internet and phone service. Those internet fairies work fast! Thanks,Tim.

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  6. Morning–

    Great story Jim. I admire your work there.
    My mom is a great believer in the statement ‘It will all be fine’. My parents will go off on some adventure and it always works out. More times than I can tell you people just show up at the right time and in the right place.
    Some of that is going into it with the right attitude and being receptive to receiving the help.
    I’ve dropped them off at the MSP airport with instructions to wait for me while I go park the car. Half way back Mom calls to say someone got them a wheelchair and took them to an empty security lane and got them through and got an escort and they’ll be waiting at the gate for me.
    As Owen Meany says, ‘Faith and Prayer; they work. They really work.’ (A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving)

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  7. I have told the stories on here about the many times I helped stranded truckers and tourists in front of my house on the North Shore.
    Good blog Jim. I envy you the moment.
    Good blog yesterday tim and all. How nice to hear from Catherine.

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    1. I’m glad you like the blog, Clyde. I guess there can be lots of opportunities to help people who are traveling if you are in the right spot such as living in the country next to a main route, like you did, Clyde. I don’t live in a spot like that, but I did get a chance to help some people stuck at the service station in Clarks Grove that is near the highway. This was a group of young men from a Scandinavian country who were traveling in an old car they had obtained to use to see the USA. The car was over heating. I took some extra time to help them because, having returned from my trip to Bulgaria, I knew what it was like to travel for the first time in a country that differs considerably from your home land. The people at the service station didn’t seem to understand that these guys needed extra help. We don’t get travelers from other countries here very often.

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      2. i always wanted ot buy a clunker and drive around a country and give it away at the end of the trip instead of paying 1000 bucks for a rent a car for three weeks or whatever.. worst fear is having a deep problem that needs looking after. what did you do to help with the overheating. ?

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        1. When I had just finished college, I worked all summer and hadn’t found a real job yet. I wanted to go see a friend who had worked for the summer at a biology camp in Colorado. My parents let me use their 59 Ford Galaxy. At that point it wasn’t quite a clunker yet, but the tires were quite warn, so my dad put three or four mounted spare tires in the trunk and sent my brother and me on our way.
          This was in 1970, and if there was a speed limit on I-80 across Nebraska, it was very high. Anyway, we were probably driving eighty when one of the tires blew. For a while after that, we didn’t drive eighty again… That’s about as close as I want to come to driving a clunker cross country. It was a wonderful car, but it eventually only a few years later. Too many hard driving teenagers and young adults, probably.

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        2. I went with them to a place where they could buy a part for a repair and I’m not sure if they were able to take care of their problem by the time I had to leave. I also helped them get water to fill the over heated radiator.

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  8. Your Bulgarian sojourn sounds like a real adventure, Jim. Glad it all worked out in the end.

    In early March 1968, when wasband was being discharged from the Air Force at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyoming, we rented a uHaul truck to haul all of our habengut from Cheyenne to Carbondale, IL. We had rented the truck a couple of days early so we had plenty of time to load it, and also give husband an opportunity to practice driving it around town. On our final morning in Cheyenne, we said good bye to our neighbors with whom we had stayed the last night, and headed south, the uHaul towing our 63 VW with two dogs and a cat in it. A few hours later, we were in Colorado and wasband announced that he was tired of driving, could I take over? I ended up driving the rest of the way to Carbondale.

    Neither of us had any experience with rental cars or trucks. We made the erroneous assumption that if we returned the truck to uHaul with an empty gas tank, we’d save ourselves a wad of money, a commodity of which we had precious little at the time. In fact, we were so poor that we didn’t stay in motels along the way; we’d just pull into the rest areas and snooze for a few hours when I got too tired to drive. A few days later, as we were nearing Carbondale, we’d put only as much gas in the truck as we thought we’d need to go the distance. By the time we reached a steep hill just outside of Murphysboro, less that ten miles from Carbondale, we were bone tired and weary, and nearly out of gas. About half way up the hill, there was a scenic overlook on the left side of the road. When the uHal started sputtering, I steered the truck toward the lookout’s parking space, but by the time the truck with the VW in tow was blocking the entire two lane road, it stopped and wouldn’t budge; we were out of gas. It was a Friday, near midnight, and we were blocking the main road. Within minutes cars were lined up as far as you could see in both directions, and no one seemed inclined to help us. That’s when wasband got the brilliant idea of unhitching the VW from the uHaul so that we could drive the bug around the truck and clear one lane for traffic to pass. Unfortunately, neither of us considered that I was not strong enough to prevent the VW from rolling down the hill where it would crash into the car first in line behind us, and in the process crush my legs between the two cars. It wasn’t until wasband had actually unhitched the VW, and it began to roll toward the car behind me, that the driver of that car, no doubt alarmed by the prospect of being hit by the VW, jumped out of his car to help me stop the VW. Wasband managed to get into the VW and pull the emergency brake, start the car and get it off the road. A few minutes later, all the cars from both directions had driven around the uHaul, which was still blocking the westbound lane, and we were once again on our own. Well, not quite. A pick-up was sitting at the top of the hill with it’s emergency blinkers on. I found this puzzling, so I walked up to the truck and asked the driver why he was sitting there; there was plenty of room for him to get past us. He responded that he had radioed for the cops, and was wondering if the tank of gas he had in the back of his pick-up truck would be of any help. Apparently it never occurred to him to approach us and ask. We gratefully accepted the gas offered, and with it were able to get the truck off the road, and he drove off into the night. Wasband and I remained there for another 15 minutes waiting for the cops to arrive, but when they didn’t, drove to Carbondale in the VW, leaving the truck at the overlook.

    Like Steve’s story above, this wasn’t the end of our troubles. The following day, after we had retrieved and returned the truck to uHaul, and refilled the tank with the gas we had borrowed and left it at the agreed upon site, we went to gas up the VW. There the cat escaped from the car, and completely spooked

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    1. don’t know how that happened. Here’s the rest of the story:

      ran into traffic; we couldn’t catch her. We found her two days later, run over and killed by a car.

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      1. now we know why he is the wasbund . you drive the rest of the way because hes tired. oh well . sorry about the cat, that kind of adds to the dispair of the story was carbondale his next assignemnt with the service or off into after military service?

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        2. interesting view of america in mid 60’s wyoming and then il in the part of il that is the south. nearer kentucky tennesee and the ozarks than chicago. st paul had to feel like civilazation after those two intros.
          ill never forget pulling off at a gas station in cheyanne and asking the kid behind the register how far to rapid city sd. he said he didnt know. i said like is it like 4 hours or 10? he didnt know . he’d never left cheyanne or looked at a map. wow

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        3. tim, you’re right, Cheyenne, the wild west and surrounded by military, and Carbondale, copperhead country surrounded by college students, were quite the introduction to America. Of course, it was a different time then. The war in Viet Nam was becoming a more and more contentious issue which played out quite differently on an air force base and a college campus. Interesting times for sure.

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  9. That sounds like quite an adventure, Jim! Kudos to you for taking a big risk and doing it.

    I remember landing in Marshalltown, Iowa, a few days before I started 6th Grade. I will be forever grateful to Mrs.Latch, my new teacher, for her help “integrating” me into the class. She would, for instance, pair kids up for projects, and she put me with Diane Ranney, who lived right around the corner from me – I have no idea whether or not she was aware of that – but it helped me get to know some kids in my neighborhood.

    Thanks PJ and Vicki for recipes yesterday… Off we go to our belated T’giving dinner at a nephew’s (comfortably spacious) house. Life is good.

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  10. jim
    i love going to countries where the pace and way of life is so different from ours. i would thin there would be great opportunites today for the messages you have to pass along in eastern europe africa central and south america.
    i have told about landing in banff in the winter and befriending or being befreinded by the restraunt workers in the employees house. they let me have a couch and had to tell me you cant take a bathj every day. it was considered a big deal that everyone waited in line for their turn in the rotation. every 4 days at most. my engine blew up as i left town but it ws no big deal i had friends now who covered for me . loaned me a car to dive a couple hundred mile in to get my part and a heated basement to put the engine in and rebuild it. had problems bbut turned out the guy who was the vw guru in banff was someone i had buddied up with on the cross country trail . i love traveling and i suppose i will get stuck sometime but it so far has only led to interesting experiences with interesting people and the knowledge of the culture i would have otherwise not been lucky enough to learn.
    i think jim you could have a good success helping out some of these places with your knowledge and way of working with people. i encourage you to loook for a way to get to the less fortunate places maybe with guidance instead of just traveling to far away places you could go in and set it up and help others to do the extended stuff. sustainable farming is more important now than ever. go find your own contact in eastern europe or where ever and help one group at a time.

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    1. I want to go to Haiti and do volunteer work at Partners in Health. I understand that Partners in Health, which is primarily oriented toward health care, also does some work in agriculture. That is my first choice at this time for doing more work in another country. I’m sure there are some other possibilities. Also, ACDI/VOCA might offer me another assignment. Right now I have more than enough stuff to do related making the move from Clarks Grove to Minneapolis.

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    2. I’m sure some of us know that, tim, you are always more than willing to help people that you don’t know. On one occasion, Linda and I stood by while you took time to tell a dog owner you had just meet about options available for training dogs. When you were done giving advice on dog training I remember that you told us that other people often have to wait for you while you take time to tell strangers about something you think might help them.

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  11. I think I have told the story before of my little white Honda throwing a rod outside of Shakopee on my way to a weekend of working at the Renaissance Festival when a nice man in a Jeep pulled over to help – let me use the phone at his apartment in Shakopee to call my mechanic, got me out to the Festival site on his way to Mankato (his ultimate destination for the weekend)…still grateful to that guy 20+ years later.

    A completely different kind of help came at the end of a show I had gathered props for: it was the night of strike and I was packing up the props to either return or get stored at the theater’s storage spot. The assistant stage manager – who I had not met more than once until then – pitched in to help me get stuff moved and had a good laugh about just how bad the show had been (the “concept” for the play was awful). The following summer we ran into each other again at another theater. We have been friends ever since – and still refer to “the show that shall remain nameless”.

    Fun reading the guest blogs this week – yesterday’s poem, if I didn’t say, was inspired. And love hearing your travel stories Jim. How fabulous to have been to these places in the world and see what you have seen.

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    1. I’m glad you like the travel stories, Anna. At this point I have covered the three countries I visited: Bulgaria; Bolivia; and Azerbaijan. I have spent more time in Bulgaria than in the other two and I do have some more stories to could tell about my travels there.

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    2. I worked today. People like having thier children seen on days there is no school. I avoid shopping this time of year. As we are having our Thanksgiving feast tomorrow evening, I can hardly wait to get home to start rolling out pies. Husband is doing all the vegetable casseroles and brining the turkey. Daughter planned the menu and keeps asking me “are you sure this isn’t too much, mom?”

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    3. I went to Animal Ark’s thrift shop – I had some stuff to donate, also bought a few things since I had a coupon. There are some beautiful cats in the window at the adoption center there. I have a full house, so I just looked.

      Tomorrow we do Thanksgiving leftovers at my sister’s place.

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    4. all my kids did/ my sons go to the annandale out let mall and hit all the shops. my oldest son who has done this for about 5 or 6 years running was proud of the fact he held off and didnt get another coat at 70% off that he will look at a year from now and realize he didnt really need. they took the kosovo newbie to get some designer jeans. ( they really are a little like dan ackroid and wild and crazy guys) and the other son did but the 4 million dollars designer jacket for only 63 dollars. hes still a pup.
      daughter took little daughters out and i think they did christmas shopping for special little specials they must have at walmart target and the other places that would drive baboons crazy. i am glad to have an older sib to look after the munchkins. you know what they say about those older parents… dont get out and do all the wild ass stuff the 20 something parents do.
      the girls are lucky enough to have sisters as their good friends so sleepovers , movies bowling outings in general are done at the other families house. mom is 40 ish dad remarried a younger woman of 30ish credentials they have a whole differt energy than their old codger dad.

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