Blog from the 10th International Vegan Festival, Denmark
July 30 - Aug 5, 2006
By Ulla Troëng (chairman) and Monica Engström (member), Swedish Vegan Society. Translated from Swedish by Nicky Brown. |
August:
Day 3: Aug 1
Day 4: Aug 2
Day 5: Aug 3
Day 6: Aug 4
Day 7: Aug 5
Comments fm participants
July/day 1–2: 30–31 July
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Day 3: Tuesday, August 1
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We woke at 6 a.m. hearing the rain. It stopped after a while. We started the day with a spell of yoga. Today we worked a lot with our shoulders. That's relieving after sitting for hours listening to lectures. Breakfast was especially wonderful today, with homemade soya yoghurt with peanut flavor, plenty of fruit, nuts, seeds, freshly baked bread, muesli, porridge, and nut spreads.
The day's first lecture was held by Linda Gentille. The title was "Helping the animals around the world as an Animal Guardian Angel". Linda is a professional musician from USA. As pianist she performs all over the world. She has recorded several albums. China is the country in which she has performed most during the past ten years. She has taught herself Chines, and now speaks it fluently. At each performance in China she starts with speaking about animals and their rights. Her organisers know that she eats only vegan food, and many of them now share the same food with her. She has adopted several children's homes in China, to which she donates funds, and at which she also performs. She showed us a film about her performances at several places in China. Linda has promised to come to Sweden and perform for the benefit of the Swedish Vegan Society. That's something we want to elaborate further on. Hopefully it can come true in 2007.
During lunch, we talked with the Danish participants. They told us that there are only few vegans in Denmark. Several of the participants had never before met any other vegans, despite that they had been vegans for years. Scottish George Rodger is the chairman of The Vegan Society (UK). He travels several times a week to the headquarters in Hastings. He is also very active in the many undertakings of the Society. He took the car with him to Skagen, filled with books, shirts, and other material that is sold during the Festival.
Patricia Tricker works voluntarily for The Vegan Society. She is a professional translator, fluent in English, German, French, and Italian. Presently she does a lot of work for the Society.
Both George and Patricia emphasised the importance of cooperation among vegans. They sought more contact with us, so that we all can improve at running our various projects.
Lunch today was minced soya stew, brussels sprouts au gratin, mashed chickpeas in filo pastry, beetroot paté, various salads, and boiled chickpeas, kidney beans, and lentils. As usual, there was freshly baked bread.
The outing of the day goes to Raabjerg Mile (Dune). It is a so-called wandering dune, one of the biggest in Europe, about 1 km2, 35-40 m high, moving up to 30 m a year, depending on the wind, northeastwards. The area looks like a desert. In the direction that the dune is moving, the trees in the forest as well as the houses are covered with sand. In order to get to the dune, we walk for about 3 km on small paths through the forest. Accompanying us is a teacher from the folk high school, who describes for us all the plants and sand formation. It is rather strenuous to climb up and down the dunes. For a while, the sky is dark blue and it rains a bit, but soon the sky clears.
The English cook Tony Bishop-Weston and his family have come along too. He has two teenage children and a baby. It's a pleasure to be with this family, as they all are happy and considerate toward each other. The teenagers lark about with their baby brother. Often they have him in straps at their tummy. Tony and his wife Yvonne have been in Sweden and are very fond of the country. Therefore they have employed several Swedish trainees at their restaurant. Tony helps out in the kitchen at the festival. His vegan recipes can be purchased over the net.
The personnel are very adept at preparing good and exciting dishes, and they're congenial. When we come back from our outing, we're greeted with tea and fruit muffins. There is both coffee, black tea and Danish herb tea. Many participants drink coffee. There is rice milk for the coffee and tea. I talk with Annika from Göteborg in Sweden. She has been vegan and member of the Swedish Society for over a year. Swedish Eric Karlsson is well known in the Society as a self-healing doctor. For many years he has nourished himself with living food. He also likes walking long distances. When the boat gets him back to Göteborg, he will walk the remaining 200 km to his home in Lönsboda.
Suddenly it is time to eat again, this time with gratins and masses of salads. Afterwards we are off to the sports hall again to participate in folk dance and circle dance. Most people join in. There is a very friendly, familiar atmosphere here. It feels as if we have known each other for ages. We feel entirely at ease with each other and can play and make fun together. Believe it or not, when we take a break at 11 p.m., there awaits us freshly baked rolls and tea in the dining room. We then sit and talk with each other till late at night.
Ulla Troëng
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Day 4: Tuesday, August 2
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Margaret Gunn-King, our yoga teacher, is really fantastic. Although she retired due to old age many years ago, she is still lither than most others. She is slim and has a facial expression that radiates energy and youth. She teaches yoga classes in her hometown. Today we practice shoulder stands.
After breakfast we pack lunch boxes to take with us on the day's outing. It's amazing to see all the many things that are laid out for us: all sorts of salads, bowls with salad leaves, slices of cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, falafels, patties, and more. It's almost as if we needed provisions for several days. On top of it, we're treated with bread, fruit, and fruit and nut sweets.
The bus took us to Skagen, first the old town, where we were guided around, and then along the beaches on each side of the town. We visited The Sanded-up Church outside of the town as well as the castle that the Danish royal family once had as their summer residence. At Skagens Museum, we looked at paintings by Anna and Michael Ancher, P. S. Krøyer, and some other painters. There was also an exhibition there called "Artist Couples", with paintings by Carl and Karin Larsson, and Sigrid Hjertén and Isaac Grünewald.
From there we went further out on the cape of Skagen, where we walked the last stretch barefoot to the spot where the two seas meet. At the sailors' home by the harbor, we ate the lunch, we had packed. We then went to see the exhibition "The Earth Seen From The Sky". It had already been shown in Sweden, but one just can't get enough of those fabulous photos.
Thereafter we had an hour, in which we could do what we wanted. I visited two health food stores. None of them had groceries or vegetables. They had mainly cosmetics, nutritional supplements, and candies. In Brugsen, a small supermarket, I could buy Castus fruit bread, which consists of dried fruits and nuts. It is sold in shapes like sausages. You can cut off thin slices that you put on bread or eat just like that. You can also get it in slices in smaller packages. In Sweden you find them in Netto-shops only.
Back at the vegan festival, Stephen Walsh conducts a workshop on B12 and omega-3 fatty acids. Simultaneously Alex Bourke has a workshop on "How to get your message out", in which he explains how one can run campaigns, produce flyers and books, and meet the media.
Supper is pasta with various salads. After supper we are treated to a lecture on WSPA, the World Society for the Protection of Animals. We hear about their many campaigns and projects. After the great tsunami, they ran several projects to help animals in Indonesia, Thailand and Sri Lanka. They have a project in Romania for the rehabilitation of bears that have been wrongfully trained to be so-called dancing bears. They have built a veterinary hospital in Jordan. They run campaigns against whaling, animal transport, as well as educational projects for youths and children in Africa and Asia.
Late in the evening we hold a formal meeting as Vegans International to discuss future vegan festivals. The Indian Vegan Society has offered to organise a festival in Goa in 2007. Instead we propose that we combine our next festival with the European Vegetarian Union (EVU) congress in Vienna in April 2007. For 2008, EVU is planning a congress in Dresden. Maybe we Swedes can organize an EVU congress in 2009? Our Italian participants tell us that there is an Italian vegan society with the website address www.viverevegan.org. There is also a vegan group in Torino that organises a vegan festival every year with thousands of guests.
A longer interview with Tony Bishop-Weston will follow in coming issue of the Swedish veganassociation's newspaper "Tidningen Vegan" together with the recipe of his delicious chocolate cake..
Ulla Troëng
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Day 5: Thursday, August 3
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Today's yoga lesson concentrates on stretching legs, hips and backs. The type of yoga that Margaret Gunn-King teaches is called Iyengar yoga. At home in Stockholm, I take lessons in power yoga and ashtanga yoga, which are more physically demanding. Iyengar yoga feels very good.
Breakfast is freshly made soya yoghurt, sliced hazelnuts, sunflower and pumpkin seeds, and fresh fruit. Next is the lecture "I Do Extreme Vegan Sports" by the Australian veterinarian Andrew Knight. He tells us how well trained vegans can be and how much fun they can have. Some do long-distance running, some cycle across countries. Many Australian vegans enjoy a sport called rogaining, which is a type of orienteering that can last up to 24 hours. Vegans also climb mountains, jump from cliffs, and investigate caves. A group of some 40 vegans started nude jogging in Pamplona in 2004 as a protest against bullfighting. They ran naked along the same stretches as the bulls that traditionally are tortured. In 2005 there were 400 naked joggers. At that time the organisation was much better, with tents having sleeping accomodations, vegan cooks, and book stalls. In 2006 there were over 1000 participants.
At our festival, a new sports discipline has been introduced: dune hopping. The competitors are to climb to the top of the highest dune, 41 m, and then make their way down, partly hopping and partly rolling. The whole festival assembly participates in the voting. The winner of the competition is Italian Steffano Mazzarano. Andrew Knight then lectures about his experiences as a vegan vet and how one can avoid experiments on animals in education and academic work.
I take the opportunity to purchase several packages of Veg 1, the nutritional supplement that Stephen Walsh has developed in cooperation with The Vegan Society. I also buy books, stickers with the vegan symbol, and a poster showing all food items and nutrients that a vegan needs. I journeyed here with my suitcase packed with issues of our Swedish vegan magazine. Now my suitcase is heavy with all these other things, all for our webshop.
There are several festival participants who have requested to become members of our Swedish Vegan Society, even Danes. I talk with Martin Lake from Kingston upon Thames. He tells me about a vegan group in the area that meets once a month to eat a vegan meal at different restaurants. American medical doctor Jules Oaklander represents both the vegan organisation Earth Save and American doctors for vegan/vegetarian nutrition. This afternoon Ilene Stenson continues the workshop on living food, and Alex Bourke tells more about making a vegan book. Tonight Linda Gentille will play a concert for us.
Ulla Troëng
Food is central here at the festival. Breakfast, lunch and supper are really excellent. This afternoon, Swedish Ilene Stenson showed us how fast one can make a healthy breakfast of bananas, various berries, and avocado sauce. She also made a "birthday cake" with these contents, decorating it with a real rose instead of one of marzipan.
She believes that everyone could benefit from an energising drink of wild plants, as they contain i.a. a lot of chlorophyl. She mixed a drink containing yarrow, dandelion, goosefoots, and other edible plants that she had picked outside of the building, adding maple sirup and apple juice. It tasted just great. She also recommended that one had a Clysmatic colonic kit at home and explained how to use it.
The day before yesterday, English Kathy Silk showed how to prepare good desserts, i.a. a vegan cheesecake. She has performed in many food programs on TV and has written a vegan cookbook. She also showed how one easily can make a "living foodcake" consisting of mixed dates and figs with fresh fruit as decoration.
Today Swedish Eric Karlsson spoke on "the science of self-healing". He finished his education in Australia in 1992. Self-healing is based upon the conviction that under optimal conditions, body and soul will naturally work together to heal the person.
In the evening, Linda Gentille gave a piano concert that was well received. Afterward we were treated to a delicious chocolate cake that Tony Bishop-Weston had prepared to celebrate the 82-year birthday of Danish Elsie Helland. Then we gathered in front of the fireplace, where we sang songs, accompanied by guitars. We sang until well over 1 a.m.
Monica Engström
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Day 6: Thursday, August 4
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Margaret's morning yoga lessons have become more advanced. This time we had to try to stand on our heads. She also showed us how to use walls and chairs to get a maximum stretch. Breakfast was delicious, and the homemade yoghurt quickly took an end, as usual.
At 10 a.m. Stephen Walsh held his second lecture on vegan nutrition. He presented recent investigations that showed that vegans on average do not live longer than meateaters, an unexpected and unfortunate fact as seen from our perspective, and further, the investigations showed that lactovegetarians live longer than both meateaters and vegans. He has attempted to find an explanation for these surprising facts. He discovered that vegans have relatively high concentrations of the substance homocysteine in their blood. This could be a reason why vegans are hit just as often as meateaters by strokes and heart attacks. When the European Vegetarian Union (EVU) held it's congress in Italy in 1997, many of the participants were checked for their homocysteine contents. It turned out that the concentrations in their blood were significantly higher than those of meateaters and lactovegetarians. This was surprising considering their healthy lifestyles. A plausible explanation is that homocysteine combines with B12, so if a person has a relatively low B12 content, s/he doesn't get rid of superfluous homocysteine. Therefore vegans should take B12 supplements. Stephen Walsh went on to present documentation to prove that dried nuts should be nutritionally just as good as fresh nuts. He also discussed the importance of omega-3 fatty acids. The audience was very attentive.
At lunch, several new delicacies were served, of which we had our fill. After several grey and rainy days, the sun peeked out of the clouds. Ilene Stenson invited a little group of participants to follow her outdoors to a small green oasis just outside of the high school. We discovered a wealth of nourishing plants in nature's pantry: thistles, fleaworts, dandelions, and other so-called weeds that in reality can give us humans masses of energi and that Ilene advises us to mix into energy drinks every day. Unfortunately we got a lot of horsefly bites too. With us Scandinavians, who are used to horseflies, it hurt when they bit, but the ensuing itches and boils were minor. On other people, the bites flared up. Ilene had some arnica with her. She dabbed a big boil on an Englishman with it, and after a few hours, the pain and itch vanished. Some people went swimming. As I didn't have my swimclothes with me, I went back to the high school and listened to the last part of Eric Karlsson's lecture on self-healing.
After tea and cakes, English Brian held a lecture on hypnosis. An interesting discovery was that people who have the need to control are not as affected by hypnosis as other people. Therefore also hypnosis therapy is more difficult with them. Then Margaret led a laugh meditation, where we all laughed and relaxed. Several people outside the building stopped in their tracks and wondered what was going on.
For the farewell dinner, everybody had dressed up. A very colorful and tasty buffet had been laid out. People were in high spirits. Several participants officially expressed their gratitude to the activists who had made this festival so memorable, particularly thanking Kirsten Jungsberg, who was the chief organiser, and Tony Bishop-Weston, who had taught the kitchen personel how to make tasty and nourishing vegan food, something that they had no experiences with before.
After the dinner, in accordance with the traditions of our vegan festivals, we planted two fruit trees in the garden outside the building. The first tree was planted by Jules, representing USA, Martin (Scotland), Brian (England), and me (Sweden). After the tree planting, we sang and ringdanced. We also took some group photos.
Concluding the festival, several participants performed spontaneously: English Barbara had written some vegan texts, Dutch Beatrice sang and accompanied herself on guitar, Scottish Martin sang. To honor the evening, Martin had clad himself in a scottish kilt. Danish Andrea had written some vegan songs, which she performed. Linda Gentille played some pieces on the piano. She also brought together some participants in a band to practice a song that after half an hour was performed in full. This was acknowledged with great applause. Lastly, Ilene Stenson did a swedish "murder tango" (Lill Lindfors).
We finished off a wonderful evening with a cup of tea. Then we collected our items and went to bed.
Monica Engström
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Day 7: Friday, August 5
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Our wellknown delicious breakfast buffet was laid out. Today, as we were leaving soon, there was an additional buffet for making lunchbags. A new course had started at the high school, and a few of the participants had arrived. Accordingly there was a third buffet on which there was written "Non-vegan", with milk yoghurt, cheese and margarine. It was a strange experience for us to see this after having gotten used to having only our own delicious vegan buffet.
At 8.30 a.m. the bus came to take us to our respective ferries and trains. We said goodbye to each other. Many participants expressed a wish to come to Sweden sometime and therefore hoped that we swedes would organize a vegan festival soon!
Monica Engström
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| Comments from participants... |
• Hi everyone
Thank you so much for the most fantastic week. It has been one of the best things ever happening for me. I regret that it has taken me so long to realize that such gatherings exist, as I discovered how wonderful it is to be with likeminded people - well, at least I know now, and I hope we'll all meet again...
Jan Sommer/Danmark
• Hi Everyone!
Just to say it was great meeting you all and spending time with you at the Vegan Festival in Denmark. We had a wonderful time and it was great being with such kind, warm, like-minded people. A very special thank you to Kirsten for all her hard work and making it all possible. We hope to see you at other festivals in the future.
If anyone is in London on 10th September, we have a one day vegan festival at Kensington Town Hall from 10.00 till 22.00. Details at
www.londonveganfestival.org.uk/
Best wishes to you all and keep eating those carrots!!
Love Julie and Brian www.veganlondon.co.uk
• Girls and boys,
Thank you all for making my holidays the best ever so far!
I consider you as my family, if you allow me. Of the sample of about 50 vegans I feel confident enough to say that vegans are the most kind, caring, lovable, huggable, pretty, witty, fit, funny, thoughtful, sympathetic, surprising, courageous, multitalented, attractive, massagable, radiant, (com)passionate, crazy, sensible, sensitive and gentle people I've ever met, some loud, some more quiet.
And don't forget photogenic! I'm writing an article to our Vegaia magazine. If some of you could e me a photo or two it would help a lot. I could use a photo of the speakers, specially Ilena and Alex at the moment. Also a general picture of the festival would be very appreciated. But the photos would be needed in a few days because Vegaia is rushing me a bit. I need to see you again, soon.
Hugs, Merja, finlandese
• hello dear vegan friends
I would like to tell everybody that for me it was also a great week, I had forgotten how nice and inspiring it is to be with like minded fellow vegans since the last festival took place in san diego, california, in 1995. I hope the next one will be organized very shortly, not in 10 years time. As for vegan extreme sports, at the moment there is no dune tumbling here in italy but Stephane has managed to get extremely good at a new sport, which is basically getting bottles of wine out of my cellar and up to the 5th floor. My wine reserves are going to be seriously damaged before he leaves for the next leg of his cycling trip...
love to all, stefano
• It was a real honour to be there with you all for the 10th Int Vegan Festival. Thank you for making our family feel so welcome. Our lapsed vegetarian Josh seems re-inspired (mainly by Andrew, Stephane & Stefano ) and plans to hone his dune tumbling skills back home in Achiltibuie, Wester Ross.
Love, Tony, Yvonne, Josh, Catriona & Johannes
• Hello Jane
Thank you for your note and you saved me the trouble of typing in all those e-mail addresses! I just also want to express my thanks to everyone. The week in Denmark was one of the most wonderful experiences of my life! Thank you to everyone for being such an inspiration!
Linda Gentille linda@pianoprincess.com
• Hi Everyone,
Hope you all had safe and pleasant trips home. I really didn't want to leave, it was fantastic. Thank you all for making it such a wonderful occasion - I never knew there were so many like minded spirits out there. Shall definitely have to venture forth to another event in the near future. I have sent my films off to be developed (yes, I'm still using film!!!!) and will try to master the technology to get them to Alex for the Vegan Photo site once they are returned. Hope to see you all again, take care of yourselves.
Love, Jane
xxxx
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