Not much luck in Brig

A few days I traveled to Brig, a town near the Italian boarder.  It’s most known for its Catholic community and for this castle:

My hope in traveling to Brig was to hike above the town and find some farmers to interview.  I did manage to have a great hike, and I did find many farmers, but they all had “zu viel Heu” (too much hay, i.e. they were busy).

Haying in Brig

After finding this to be the common situation and starting to feel shitty about myself bothering these busy workers, I figured I needed to find someone who was too old to be farming. I thought I had found the perfect candidate—an old man sitting on the side of the road, watching the younger members of his family move bails of hay with pitchforks, occasionally barking out commands. I walked up to him, introduced myself and my project. He didn’t understand a word of what I said, and had one of his working relatives come over to translate, at which point I felt terrible for causing such a disruptance. A teenager who appeared to be the grandson translated, the old man understood, and immediately

declined to be interviewed.

            Well that was that. I was done trying for the day, feeling discouraged, nosy, like a disturbance and a novice. I need a new strategy, I thought. No more randomly walking up to people. I need to build my contact list and plan these interviews in advance. Give my interviewees more background and somewhat of a warning. My first friendly guy from yesterday was, unfortunately, an anamale and not the norm. Ah well, these things are to be expected, and it’s all part of learning.

            On the bright side, I did find these goofballs:

Off to Zermatt for just a hike (and no interviews)!