First impressions and first interview

First impressions:

Talking to people is hard. Talking to people whose language you cannot speak (or understand) is harder. Getting people with whom you can barely communicate to tell you a story about their lives is simply mad.

Because of this slight impediment, I decided that this project would shift a little. Instead of compiling people’s impressions on their lives within this place, I will use this blog to write stories based on the information I gather from their interviews. What you read here may or may not be factual. When talking with people I cannot corroborate the participants’ stories, same as readers cannot corroborate mine. We normally know that our anecdotes and stories tend to grow with time and the amount of times we recount them. This is what happens when you share such a story with a stranger… And she hardly has a clue as to what you are talking about.

Thursday

I was walking around the village trying to talk to people. I found out that as nice as people in Cerkno are, they are keener on hearing about me than talking about themselves. Because of this, I was having a hard time with the interviews. Until I saw someone in a parked car. He had his shoes off and was clearly waiting for something or someone. Best of all, he was in no position to run away from me.

His name was Drago, and this is his story.

Drago is 49, he lives in Kropa, a village close by to Cerkno and he makes cheese in his mate’s farm. He was on his way to sell his cheese at the market in Maribor when his car broke down right in front of the school in Cerkno. He phoned a friend to come and help him. It would take him about 80 minutes to arrive. He shifted his car to the bus stop, took off his shoes, pulled out a book and started reading. Until I came along, asking him for a story.

As I listen to his story I munch on some of his cheese. It is milky, fresh, and delicious. From the way that he speaks and how the cheese tastes, its clear that he likes his job. Drago has been a cheese maker for ten years, but not always in the same place. About two years ago he was working at a different farm. It was one of those organic farms where backpackers go to work for the summer. Most of them stay there for a few weeks. In this particular farm, they tended to the goats and sheep over the summer. It was getting to the end of the summer. Lambs and goats had been born, clipped, sheared, and there was not much else to do for the next few weeks.

Enjoying the time off, the temporary workers went to a nearby village of Rudno, where there was a pub. They got drunk and caught the last bus home. When they got back to the farm, the moon was high up. Drago was in the cheese cellar, loading his car for the market the next day. He was closing up before going to bed when he heard an uproar in the chicken coops. The chickens clucking very loudly, obviously upset about something. There was also laughing and people calling others out to come and see. So Drago went. When he got there, he saw that one of the girls who had gone out that night, Paula, was squatting on the floor clucking like a chicken. The chickens, woken up by Paula’s noise came out of their coops and starting dancing around her. Partly in fear, partly in case she brought food with her.

As much as the chickens clucked and people laughed, there was no getting Paula out of the coops. She was clucking and doing some strange chicken-moon-dance. The farm administrator was mad. The chickens were upset and all the workers were out watching the show, but it didn’t stop. Finally, after two hours of chicken-moon dance, the moon sunk behind the hills. Only then Paula, the chickens, Drago and the rest of the farm went to bed. Soon after that Drago tells me he left the farm to go work for his friend. He likes his work now, but he still feels like those were the two best years of his life, and Paula and the chickens were definitely one of its highlights.

As I was leaving, Drago gave me some more cheese (which I brought back for the nomads) and a jar of cheese shavings in olive oil. Whoever wants to share their stories next will get the jar. And here is a photo of Drago and his Cheese.