My Last Mandate (part 2)

It's hard to say what was on my mind then. I remember I could figure out everything in my brain, but I just couldn't communicate my ideas; I could neither talk nor write. I could only draw. So when the doctor wanted to see what I can understand, I wanted to tell him that we were building a new fish farm. I took a piece of paper and draw the plan of fish farm, and all different fish we would breed, but the doctor didn’t understand what I was trying to explain. I, on the other hand, understood everything he was saying to me. On another occasion some woman doctor wanted me to tell her where I was from. She asked me whether I was from Šempeter. When I answered “No”, she tried again and said a number of places from Nova Gorica to Kobarid, dropping out Tolmin. That made me very angry and right then I remembered that patients always have ribbons with their personal data on the wrist. So I showed her my wrist with the ribbon and she realized that I knew what I was trying to explain. I must admit that such communication is quite difficult!

Staying in a hospital was catastrophic for me. All my life I used to read a lot, especially in the evenings. And there I stayed all day long alone only thinking, since I couldn’t do anything else. In the hospital they switched off the lights at 9 p.m. and I stayed “locked in my brain” since at my age I don’t need more than a five to six hours sleep.  After about ten days the doctor wanted to transfer me into the hospital in Stara Gora where they would teach me to talk, write and read. I didn’t agree because I presumed the exercises would probably last an hour a day, and for the rest of the day I would end up doing nothing again. I kept saying “No, no and no”. Luckily my wife Marinka knows me well and she understood my point, so she helped me conveying my idea to the doctor. I was well aware that I should exercise my speech all the time in the homely atmosphere. The doctor was offended and told my wife that he was responsible for me. Nevertheless she persuaded him to let me home.

I returned home in the evening and the next morning my sister died. She wasn’t ill, but my brain stroke was probably a stress higher than she could respond to. I had five brothers and sisters and when she died I stayed alone. I was having breakfast that morning when the phone rang. My wife answered it and I figured out from her talking what had happened. At that moment I felt a stinging pain in my skull just like at the time of my stroke. Never before something like that happened when my relatives died.

My rehabilitation began, and I will write about it on another occasion. Of course, I never thought I would be a president of Tolmin Fishing Club again. I managed to tell my wife to call Urška, the accountant of our Fishing Club, and told her to stop paying fee to me, and pay it to the vice-president. In the Statute of our Fishing Club we had no vice-president and I had never thought about it before. But at my fourth election I suggested our Management Board to appoint someone so that he could manage the club in case of my absence. Andrej Costantini was appointed as a vice-president then. Maybe I foresaw what was to happen, who knows … 

My colleagues Anka, Urška and Pele visited me and made me very happy. People normally think that it is not adequate to visit an acquaintance who had suffered a brain stroke or any serious disease. I always tell everyone that it is quite the opposite; any person who fell ill rejoices every visit.

I began going to the office in the second half of January, 2015. I also attended all the meetings on the building site of the new fish farm weekly. During winter there is a lot of work in Fishing Club.  The fishing cards of all members and the statistics are to be reviewed. In January reports for the regular assembly of members, the final account, and plans for the next year are to be prepared. In the beginning of February the meeting of Management Board should be called to confirm the materials for the assembly of members. Andrej prepared all those materials very correctly, and I decided to try preparing the report of the management board for the previous year. It was not an easy task. I must admit that in cases like this a computer is a wonderful device, and if I hadn’t had one, I wouldn’t be able to do the task I wanted. Whenever I wrote some word incorrectly the computer did the job for me and put it right. And when I couldn’t find the word in Slovene, the online dictionaries helped me a lot by translating a word I couldn’t remember from another language which I recalled. Slowly my work progressed. I found passages from previous years and copy pasted them to the report I was writing. I am well aware that the report was not on the same level as the previous ones, and it was rather short. But I was really satisfied that I managed to do it myself.

A year before we lacked some money to start the investment into the new fish farm. So I wrote a request to lend some of their own money to all the members of our Fishing Club. We needed a bit more than 60.000 €, so the minimum participation should be at least 500 €. The loan should be returned in a year or two and the interests were a bit higher than those in banks. So we received enough loans from some members till February 15^th 2014. Eventually on 28^th February we could request funds from the Fish Fund EU.

In spite of my brain stroke I was well aware that we should return money to our members in the middle of February 2015. We managed to do it in time. We also knew that we would need some more money if we wanted to conclude the investment till 30^th June 2015. Some bills were higher compared to the invoice. The contractors were paid from different sources (our own funds, long-term bank loan, bridging bank loan). All the bills had to be paid till the end of June 2015 if we wanted to get the EU funds.

The assembly of members was on 28^th March, 2015. I didn’t talk much at the meeting, here is an example of what I was writing in my report: “… after receiving ARSO (Slovenian Environment Agency) decision for water right on 11^th August 2014, I started writing all that we had been doing for the last 15 years in order to reach the aim and build the new fish farm. On top of all problems I suffered a brain stroke in the beginning of October. My writing was abruptly stopped and I didn’t believe I could have ever written a brochure before the opening of the new fish farm. I started to learn reading, speaking, and writing. It’s a rather funny feeling when you have to do it for the second time in your life! Today I am writing the report as it were for the first time, and I am not sure whether I decide to write the brochure …”

Nevertheless at the end of April 2015 I finally came to conclusion to write a brochure of our 15 year activities. In the beginning it was difficult, but in June 2015 I believed in succeeding it. In the middle of June my writing was interrupted because I had to solve problems with investment funds.

In the beginning of the year we were already aware that we would need some more money to finish the investment into the new fish farm. The investment consisted of two projects: the fish farm and fish meat processing. We received 1 million € for the fish farm and 400.000 € for the fish meat processing from EU fond. We estimated that the fish meat processing project would cost less, namely 100.000 €, whereas the fish farm project would cost about 60.000 € more. Unfortunately we were not allowed to use the money from one project for the other one; what's more, we had to return the money we had saved. So we had to get the rest of money for the fish farm on our own. We went to a bank in Klagenfurt and arranged for an additional loan of 120.000 €. We would spend 60.000 € to pay the constructors, and 60.000 € for current assets of the Faronika d. o. o. company. Waiting for confirmation of the loan seemed very long. We finally got it at the end of May 2015.

I have known for a long time that when you start a project, you should always have more options in case the first one doesn’t work. When thinking about the investment funds I often met my acquaintance from Ljubljana who is the owner of some factories. He was very interested in fish and fish farms. On June 4^th 2015 I invited him to have a look at the new fish farm and he was enthusiastic about the building. I told him that we had the funds to finish the investment provided. Nevertheless I asked him if he would lend us some money in case anything went wrong and he promised he would.

My Last Mandate

In 2013 we were preparing the assembly of members in Tolmin Fishing Club. That was not just an ordinary assembly, but elections of all bodies in the fishing club at the same time. I have been a president for 13 years then and I was seriously thinking whether to run for one again or not. All those years I was working on building a bigger fish farm. Our dream was to breed adult marble trout and graylings there in order to put them into our rivers during the fishing season. We constantly feared that the Ministry of the Environment would forbid us to put rainbow trout  in the rivers which would mean a bad fishing season. I can remember well what was going on since I was elected in 2000. Previous president Stane, the secretary Andrej and Anka used to tell me that they sold over 6.000 tourist fishing permits in 1997. When I became the president, the selling of permits decreased drastically. In 2004 we sold only 2.700 permits! There was a constant challenge to buy quality rainbow trout in time to put them into the rivers for the fishing season. I figured out that we would not be able to sell fishing permits if there were not enough fish of any sort.

After 2005 the selling started to increase due to two reasons. When Slovenia became a member of EU we could import live fish from Italy. I soon found a good fish farm in Friuli where we bought quality rainbow trout of different size and started putting them into our rivers. Until then we could put only 5 tons of rainbow trout during the fishing season. After that I succeeded to get permission for putting 14 tons of rainbow trout per year into our rivers which was included in the new Fishing Managment Plan 2006 – 2010.

Our efforts resulted in 7.150 fishing permits sold to tourist fishermen in 2008, so we surpassed the record from year 1997. Since then we had been saving some money to invest in building a new fish farm.

I also counted on bigger sums of money from the EU Fish Fond for building the new fish farm. Unfortunately I found out that it was not possible for the club. So in 2011 I suggested our management board and later at assembly of members to establish investment company for the new fish farm. The proposal was confirmed, so in April we established a company Faronika d.o.o. which became active on 1^st July.

In the beginning of year 2013 I was faced with a big dilemma; electoral board of members was to meet and I had to decide whether to run for president again. It is not normal to persist as a president of an association for so long. A new person with new ideas and enthusiasm should be found, I thought.  On the other hand I was well aware that, although we had many obstacles, we could manage to build the new fish farm in a year or two if I stayed. If a new president had been elected, that could not be the case. Few people have the guts to tackle such problem.

Finally I decided to run for president once more. Previously I had always attended district assemblies in Bovec, Kobarid, Most na Soči, Grahovo ob Bači, and Tolmin, but on that occasion I didn’t. I didn’t want to influence on the members of district assemblies to run for me. If they thought I was appropriate candidate, they would propose me, I wouldn’t suggest myself. I also wanted to see whether the majority of members would support me if I started working on such a big and risky project.  I was glad to find out that they ran me for the president in all district assemblies. At the same time I was aware that I was responsible to do the task well in order not to lose the great confidence of our members. I was also sure that it was my last mandate.

On July 1^st in 2014 we began building the new fish farm. In fact we started two weeks earlier, but we were not allowed to tell that, since we could face problems regarding the regulations of EU funds. We feared that we wouldn’t be able to finish building till 30^th June, 2015, since those were the regulations like all regulations in EU.

That was a happy period for me. We met weekly with building contractors, project leaders, and our supervisors. We had solved many small and big problems, but the fish farm was getting built. After lunch on Saturday 4^th October I went fishing in Koritnica. I have gone fishing on my own for years. I like staying by the water watching many things happening in nature. Last time when I was fishing in Koritnica I saw a wild cat. It was a sunny and chilly day. I caught and let go a big trout. Then I sat under a tree and watched the brook the trees and sun rays dancing and glittering on the water. I lit the cigar and thought about making our new fish farm. I was satisfied with myself and the nature surrounding me.

Next evening I watched the news on TV. I was interested in results of municipal elections. Suddenly I felt a pain in my skull, but it passed quickly. I realised that I couldn’t read the results on the screen soon enough; it seemed as if the picture was moving too fast. So I switched on my computer and I couldn’t remember my password. I was angry realizing how I forget things. So I went to bed and started reading “A Brief History of Humankind” by Yuval Harari in German language. I read for some time and was confused because I didn’t know what I was reading! I put the book away and fell asleep.

When I woke up I had a terrible headache and was bewildered since I hadn’t had headaches for long time. I decided to walk my dog Tiba to feel better. When I wanted to call her I couldn’t remember her name. I returned home rather soon and asked my wife what the dog’s name was. She gave me a strange look and asked me if I was joking. When I started reading the newspaper and told her that I didn’t find any sense in what I was reading she disappeared.

Weeks after that event she told me why she disappeared. She went to the garage and called the health centre. She didn’t want me to hear what she was saying.

While she was away I lit my cigar and thought that I should go to the doctor in the afternoon (on Mondays and Tuesdays she works from 14.00 onward) since I realized that something was wrong with me. Sooner than I thought my elder son came and together with my wife they had trouble getting me into the car. The emergency doctor examined me and sent me directly to hospital. Late in the afternoon, after having various examinations, I was accepted to a room in hospital. I think it was only the next day that I realized I suffered a stroke.