IFYE-I Follow You Everywhere

The Colorado alumni had it right when they renamed the program “International 4-H Youth Exchange” (IFYE) to “I Follow You Everywhere”. You go along to appointments at the bank, the hardware store, the library, the grocery store, ambulance training, grandma’s house, birthday parties… My first family was the Eckerstorfer family. They live in a rural area, but don’t have a farm. The parents didn’t speak English, but I was able to speak with the daughters. It rained the first few days I was here, so we were unable to do the outside activities they had planned. We were able to find some things to do inside including visiting a church, going to an indoor water park, attending a birthday party, and touring a university. The students at the university works in conjunction with a brewery to learn the science involved in beer making. There is a vending machine on campus that sells the beer. When the weather cleared up we toured Linz a large city nearby. Even though it doesn’t have a large population it had a big city feel. The daughters are involved in the Red Cross, their ambulance system, so I attended two training sessions with them. The first wasn’t that exciting because they were all just speaking German, but the second was more interesting because they were practicing CPR and bandaging wounds, so I could watch even if I didn’t know what they were saying.

I’m not exactly sure how to describe the area. I can’t think of anything at home to compare it to. This part of Austria is very hilly with very narrow, curvy roads. Everything is very green and there are a lot of trees, both deciduous and coniferous. Even though there are rural areas you can almost always see houses and the villages and towns are very close together. They have similar crops here such as corn, wheat, other grains, and grass but the fields are very small. You can be on top of a hill and get the patchwork affect that you need to be in an airplane at home to get.

Due to an unfortunate crisis in my first family I have now moved to a substitute family. They will be hosting a girl from England in August and I will be with a family in the next village at the end of July. The König family has a renewable energy business. The easiest way I’ve found to describe it is they replicate the digestion process without any cows. They have a large silage pile and every hour the silage is put into a machine where it is mixed and the gas is separated off and turned into electricity that is sold to the power company. The byproduct is sold back to farmer to put on their fields as fertilizer. Heat is also a byproduct and they allow farmers to use it to dry harvested crops and wood.

Both of the parents in the family speak good English. I didn’t know I should have brushed up on my English vocabulary before I left because they want to learn new words and I sometimes have troubles coming up with an English word that fits their descriptions. Their oldest son is 18 and was an IFYE to Colorado last summer. He speaks very good English. The two younger children have learned English in school, but don’t use it much. The youngest and I have learned to speak cat though. She’ll bring me a cat and we’ll play with it together.

This area is a bit flatter than I first area I was in and with all the rain they’ve been getting there has been a lot of flooding. The Danube River is near both this area and the first area I was in and it is much higher than normal and has caused flooding in some places. Many people have water in their cellars.