Johan

At the charcoal kiln on the Gålö peninsula the other day, I decided to find me a stranger among the burners to photograph. This guy stood out a bit with his t-shirt (they were all wearing the same type of hat). Meet Johan Borg. He invited me into the burner's hut for a chat. The temperature in the hut to me felt like something you would experience in a sauna ( I had a 20 km bike ride behind me and it was 20C from a clear blue sky). So it was kinda warm in there with a fire burning! Johan is of course one of the members of the Gålö historical association that built the kiln. As I started to sweat I asked Johan some questions. Bonde means Farmer in Swedish and that's his occupation. His family operates the Stegsholm farm that I happened to visit earlier this summer. Three generations of his family still lives at the farm. Johan has lived there all his life. Today he is married to Åse and they have a couple of kids, the son Victor and their newborn daughter Emma, who the charcoal kiln was named after. I asked if he and Åse had any fun hobbies or any interesting holidays to tell me about. They just laughed and said: we work 22 hours every day and have been away on vacation one time over the last six years. Running the big farm take all our time! And then there's the kids. And the café and bakery that they opened eight years ago. As Stegsholm is a part of the nature reserve, they get many visitors and the café is a huge success.

This is my 73th photo for the 100 Strangers project. You can see the rest of my strangers in my Set.