Workaway in Denmark
Updated: 2 days ago
I'm on my second cousin's balcony, overlooking a quaint Berlin street when the phone rings, and on the other end, a Danish couple asks if I am still interested in coming to Denmark to work on their farm. About two weeks earlier, I had left them a message on the Workaway website. I'd already given up on them and all of a sudden here they are having a video conference with me.
He, a true Dane, with blue eyes and golden curls, is tall and smiling and she looks somewhat Asian. He speaks broken English with a strong Danish accent, while she speaks perfect English with a distinct American accent. He is mostly quiet while she questions, gathers information and draws conclusions. During the conversation, it turns out that the Asian woman speaks five languages and even knows a few words in Hebrew and that she is actually half American and half Filipino. I am excited, and at the end of the questionnaire, I say yes, yes, I certainly am interested in coming to Denmark.
Despite my advanced age, I am invited to come to Ørbæk, a village close to the city of Odense on Fyn Island and stay with them in exchange for work in the vegetable garden and around the house. Again, I mark yet another bucket list wish, and I will have the great pleasure of meeting Danish natives, spending time with them, and learning everything I can about them and their traditional way of life.
On Thursday, July 6, 2023, I arrive at the supermarket parking lot in the village of Ørbæk, exactly at the time we agreed upon. My lady host is late and explains that the car is overheating and that she needs to bring water to cool the engine. I should have realized right away that this was a sign of things to come. I wait for her until she returns from the local supermarket and fills the radiator with what looks like regular tap water. With difficulty I restrain myself from commenting that regular water in the radiator is not recommended.
I expect that with the slamming of the hood, we would hit the road, but no. It is now five-thirty, and at this very hour, the progressive Danish supermarket is putting out all the expired products, and the locals are invited to take for free whatever they want. Merlen, emphasis on the "len," asks me to come with her to the expired products section, and for a long while I watch her selecting a cabbage that has seen better days, white cheeses that are on their way to becoming yellow or even blue, and many other products that are still edible but, in my humble opinion, require a strong and resilient digestive system. Of course, in my new role as a workawayer, I immediately volunteer to pack the items into reusable bags and carry them to the car. Finally, she says, "Okay, I'll lead, and you follow with your van."
As soon as we enter the foyer of the old rural house, we encounter Ole, Merlen's Danish husband who at this moment is bent over a pile of waste, sand, and broken pipes, with one hand shoved deep into a hole in the ground. As we walk in "hey!" he jumps to his feet and extends a muddy hand towards me. I realize that in Denmark, a muddy handshake is part of the local tradition, and I return it with a warm shake. Unlike his wife, he asks for my name, and when I say "Havatselet," he shakes his head and says, "No, I can't say that." Again, I make a joke about "have-a-salad," and they both laugh heartily. Merlen can say my name easily. She is, as mentioned, good with languages. But Ole is absolutely useless and decides to call me "Havsalt," (pronounced How-salt) which in Danish means sea salt.
It turns out that Ole is digging the hole in the floor because the hot water pipe just burst, and with a charming smile, he informs me that there is no hot water, but I can shower at the factory where he works, which is about two hundred meters from the house. Yes, yes, there is boiling water twenty-four seven there. Merlen asks if I prefer to sleep upstairs or downstairs, and I say that I am already very used to sleeping in my van. They are quite amused, and I am happy because I know I like my daily moments of solitude.
The area around the house is huge and contains quite a few buildings that were once a barn, a stable, a hen house or a cheese factory, a winery or a storage shed for wheat or hay. "And here we used to have a pub," Ole tells me as he shows me where it would be best to park Nadedet. I find a well-hidden corner, and Ole connects me to electricity with a long, long cable. There is no joy in the world greater than mine.
At night, after a nice pizza dinner Ole had prepared, I ask him, "Say, if I need to pee in the middle of the night, what should I do?" He points to the vast garden and says, "You can pee wherever you like!" He makes me laugh and I have a feeling that I amuse him too. I think a warm bond is forming between us. It feels nice. Merlen, on the other hand, has a slightly different kind of energy, but right now, I don't really mind. I say goodnight to them and head to my home on wheels.
In the morning, I wake up and go to the bathroom, and Merlen informs me that in two days, three more volunteers are coming—a couple, she a pregnant Ukrainian, and he an Italian electrician, and besides the couple, another Italian guy she doesn't know much about. I feel a bit suspicious and am not sure if this is good news or not. Merlen tells me that the couple has a lot of experience volunteering in various places around the world, and regarding the third guy, she thinks he’s coming mainly to brush up his English (it's unclear why he would come to Denmark if he wants to learn English). In the meantime, Merlen says, "Help yourself to breakfast, and soon Ole will show you the garden and everything that needs to be done in it." She goes off to attend to her matters, and I open the fridge. It is so full of all sorts of unidentifiable things that I decide to have my breakfast in the van.
The tour of the garden is delightful. There is a tiny lake, tall trees, bushes, grass, chickens, two cats, and a dog. Ole says that although the vegetable garden looks very pretty, all those colorful flowers are weeds that need to be removed. Underneath the flowers there are hidden lettuces, radishes, beans, onions, garlic, and many more surprises. Ole gives me work clothes, and off I go to start the weeding work.
Three days pass, and the other volunteers arrive. Alessandro, the Italian and Maria, the Ukrainian, who happens to be a yoga teacher; as I said, they are a couple, and she is six months pregnant. Also joining us is Marius, a lovely young boy who lives near the border of Italy and France, close to Turin. I immediately fall in love with all three of them. What amazes me is that Alessandro and Maria have so much experience as volunteers that they quickly start managing the household. And rightfully so. It turns out that the homeowners—the Dane and the Asian-American—have no idea about the daily maintenance of a house, a garden or a yard.
I find out that Ole is a compulsive hoarder, and guess where he works? He works at a recycling plant. What is a recycling plant? It is the place where all expired items go. In other words, it is the ultimate paradise for any common hoarder. Every day, he brings home beers, cheeses, sausages, blocks of butter, canned goods, and the corners of every shed or building on the premises, and even in the house itself are filled with expired products that are "in excellent condition," according to Ole, as he cuts a corner off a piece of orange colored cheese with his pen knife and offers it to me.
In contrast, I discover that Merlen is quite the character, full of self-importance. Every time she calls me by my full name, I know I'm in trouble. "Havatselet! These rags are used only to wipe the dust off the shelves , and these rags are to be used only to dry dishes." I quickly learn it’s best to avoid her, which is quite simple since she spends most of her time doing "very important" things in her studio on the second floor, while, far away from there I take care of the vegetable garden.
However, Maria, the Ukrainian, is not at all intimidated by Merlen's controlling demeanor. On her second day here, she informs the homeowner that she is going to clean the fridge and that she, Maria, will be throwing away everything she thinks is inedible and even harmful, as there is enough cheese, smoked fish, and crackers in the house to feed an entire battalion. To my utter surprise, Merlen says, "Okay," mumbling that she has a lot of work "upstairs" and disappears. Even though Maria is a third of my age, I am full of admiration for her. She is so cool.
During this time, the broken hot water pipe goes through various existential statuses. From being just an old leaky pipe, it rises to the status of a pipe that the plumber will fix tomorrow, and the next day it becomes a pipe that needs at least one part of it replaced. After another week without hot water, it reaches the respectable status of "An expert will come tomorrow to check the situation, and maybe they'll make a bypass." In the meantime, we shower in cold water or go to Ole's factory, where, indeed, there is boiling water twenty-four seven, or we simply don’t shower. I know that the water tank in my van is quite full, so sometimes I heat some water and take a "Mexican shower" (head, neck and under the armpits) in the sink, which feels great.
It seems that this business of broken machines, devices, and appliances is quite an epidemic in Ole and Merlen's home. One day during the first week, I volunteer to clean the downstairs of the house and ask if, by any chance, there is a vacuum cleaner. The homeowners say, "Yes, yes, of course!" A few minutes later, Ole lays an old vacuum cleaner at my feet. "Maybe it's a little clogged, maybe you need to change the dust bag, but you'll manage, right, Havsalt?" He chuckles and goes off to work.
Although I put in a new dust bag, wash the filter, and check that all the suction vents are open and free before starting to vacuum, about an hour later, the vacuum cleaner abruptly falls silent. At that moment, I realize that a curse looms over the house—the curse of broken appliances. Every device that arrives in this house, whether new, used, or an archaeological artifact, seems to break down. For example, the lawnmower that Ole introduces to Alessandro dies after about half an hour of mowing the grass. And there are many other tools, such as a hedge cutter, a mixer, a washing machine, and many more. Every day I thank the universe for my little Nadedet where, thankfully, all my little appliances are working perfectly.
One day, while I am working in the vegetable garden, I hear the sound of a tractor engine. I look up and see Ole entering the courtyard with what looks like a brand new tractor, a proud expression on his face. He parks the tractor, turns it off, and jumps onto the graveled yard. It’s lunchtime, so I join him for lunch that Maria is preparing. All of us—the volunteers and the homeowners—sit around a large table, enjoying wonderful salads, bread baked in the still-working oven, and delicious expired cheeses, finishing off with coffee and tea. After everyone gets back to their tasks, the table is cleared, I wash the dishes, and Ole announces that he’s going back to the recycling center with the tractor.
I finish washing the last dish and intend to leave when Ole comes back inside. "What happened?" I ask. "The tractor won’t start," he replies. "Oh, okay," I nod and continue to the vegetable garden.
I have two truly wonderful moments during my stay on the farm. The first has to do with a chicken, and the second is about ducklings.
The farm has large regular chickens and small silk ones wandering around. Many times while I weed they stand on the other side of the garden fence and we engage in quiet conversational clucks and chuckles as I work along the beds. The soil in this garden is heavy and rich in organic matter, and since it rains every few days, it is nice and moist. As a result, it is full of worms and insects of all sizes and types, which is what really interests the chickens. However, Ole does not allow them to enter the vegetable patch because they eat everything and can turn it into a barren desert within a week.
I know there is a hole in the fence that the chickens have not yet discovered. I really want to let them into their paradise, even if it's just for a moment. So I go and stand by the gap in the fence. They arrive almost immediately, but only one of them realizes that it can pass through the hole from one side of the fence to the other, and that’s exactly what she does. The others, clucking and squawking "Did you see what that chutzpah-chick just did?!" with dismay - stay behind.
The clever chicken is the gray one, and I have a special fondness for her. She is more like a dog than a chicken. When I kneel down to weed out more flowery weeds, she stands beside me and with her feet and beak goes: scrape right, scrape left, peck, scrape right, scrape left, peck. What I love so much is that she doesn’t wander off to some other corner of the yard but stays close to me the entire time. We work like this for about an hour, and then I finish my workday, and we both leave the vegetable garden.
Two days later, I’m back in the vegetable garden, and I think I hear a faint chicken cluck. I look around but don’t see any chickens in the garden so I go about my business. The next day, as I approach the greenhouse, again I think that I can hear a soft call of a chicken in distress. I look around, and just like last time, I can’t spot any random chicken anywhere around. At dinner, Ole mentions that the gray chicken has disappeared. The grey chicken is the same chicken that got in through the hole in the fence. "Really?" I’m genuinely worried, but I don’t connect the dots.
A day later, I’m near the greenhouse again, and once more I hear a weak call of a chicken. This time I connect the dots and tell myself that I won’t leave the garden until I find the source of the sound. I drop to my hands and knees and begin to crawl into every corner that hasn’t been disturbed in a very long time.
Suddenly, in a thicket of bushes, under a big rusty wheelbarrow, tangled in barbed wire, I see my beloved gray hen. I'm too scared to untangle her myself. I'm afraid I might cause more damage so I run to the house screaming "Ole!!!" The blond homeowner comes running into the yard, probably thinking I must have chopped a finger off. "What happened?" he asks completely freaked-out. "I found the chicken! I found the chicken!" I shout breathlessly. "Oh," he says. "she's all tangled in barbwire!" I explain. He walks to one of the buildings and comes back with a wire cutter in hand, and we both run to rescue the chicken. What joy, what happiness—I’ve saved my little darling! On the way back to the house, Ole wonders aloud, "I don't understand how she found the hole in the fence....?" Silent I walk by his side.
And now regarding the ducklings. I don't know why, but the Danes have this traditional custom of taking the eggs of a mother duck that lives on one farm and giving them to a mother hen to incubate on another farm. When the hen sees the eggs she immediately goes broody, gets all excited and sits on them. After about two weeks of incubation, the ducklings hatch and immediately imprint on the hen, which, of course, is the first thing they see. They follow their mother hen everywhere, and at some point, they discover the pond in the yard. The Danes find it very amusing when the ducklings swim to the middle of the pond and dive bellow the surface while the poor mother runs around the small lake in circles almost having a heart attack.
Despite the hen having an IQ of 2, this mother understands that she should not take the kids to the pond ever again, and the poor little ones are longing to be in water. So, I decide to build them a small swimming pool right next to the chicken coop. This way, they can dive in the water and splash around, and mother hen can retain her sanity. And so I do it. I find a big metal bowl, about fifty centimeters deep and 75 cm. in diameter, dig a hole of that depth, place the basin in the hole, and fill it with water. At first the little things are suspicious of this new object but very quickly the bravest of them hops in and all the rest follow. Oh, what joy and happiness!
A week later, friends of mine - an Israeli couple, arrive in Copenhagen, and I go visit them and see the city of Hans Christian Andersen, who, by the way, was born in Odense and wrote the tale of "The Ugly Duckling" right here.
Copenhagen is a city that was built by people with a high level of self and social awareness. This city is one that only people who have never struggled for survival and who have almost never starved can plan and construct. It is a city that strives to consider the most trivial yet basic needs of the humans living in it. Things such as: "green lungs" - gardens, trees and playgrounds are everywhere, buildings made of recycled and sustainable materials are aesthetically suited to their surroundings and are functional while still resonating with history and tradition, the streets are wide, the buildings low so that the city's residents can enjoy every ray of sunshine. All of the above have obviously been given the highest priorities on every level of the city's planning. One of the things that impressed me the most was that instead of roads, cars, diesel engines and asphalt, there are canals used as pathways for public maritime transportation and endless bicycle paths. If only I were Danish...
I stay in the village of Ørbæk for about three more weeks, during which the hot water pipe is finally replaced, the hole is sealed, and the floor returns to its original state. However, the vacuum cleaner has disappeared from our lives forever, and the tractor hasn't moved an inch. But I’m having fun. I get to meet Ole's older children from his previous marriage and really connect with Maria, Alessandro, and Marius. We cook together, clean the yard, plant vegetables, go on local trips, and laugh all the time.
Unfortunately my time in Denmark and, in fact, in all the Schengen countries, is up. I have almost finished my ninety days and must leave Europe for at least another ninety days. So I am headed to Great Britain where many of my family members reside and where nobody can kick me out because I hold the not very desirable British passport.
See you across the channel.
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