Every year like clockwork, a small crisis erupts in the final countdown to Folkmoot as a result of visa or travel problems.

One year, a group of Mongolian performers was denied visas for their musicians — only the dancers could come and had to perform to a poor-quality cassette tape the entire festival. Almost every year some group has to literally camp outside the U.S. embassy in their country so they won’t miss an interview that is necessary to secure visas.

This year, the festival director Jamye Cooper got an email from Turkey announcing that their interpreter had been left behind because of a visa complication involving his 5-year-old son. The rest of the group, however, would be arriving as scheduled that evening.

That’s 10 hours to track down a Turkish speaker in Western North Carolina, thought Cooper. She quickly sent an email appeal to the Folkmoot Board of Directors.

“We have had an unexpected development this morning,” Cooper wrote. “The Turkish interpreter’s 5-year-old son was not allowed to board the plane because he didn’t have a VISA... The reason for this e-mail is to ask you if you could put your feelers out to help us find someone who can speak Turkish.”

Sue Swanger, a Folkmoot board member who works at Western Carolina University, read the email and immediately sent one of her own. It was a long shot, but perhaps there was a Turkish exchange student on campus this summer.

The director of WCU’s international program replied with the names of two Turkish students, but warned Swanger the students could be away on summer break. Swanger sent emails to both students and kept her fingers crossed.

Meanwhile, Folkmoot board Rolf Kaufman was tracking down a lead for Togar Rugs, a Turkish rug store in Asheville. Kaufman found a Turkish-speaking salesman, but learned the owner of the store was on a trip to Turkey and some of the other employees were at a rug show in Atlanta.

“He will probably not be able to come over tonight or tomorrow, because he is short of help at the store,” Kaufman updated the others via email. “I have his home number for use in case we get stuck and need some help this evening.”

Back at WCU, Swanger got a knock at her door and opened it to find a Turkish graduate student who had stuck around for a summer course.

“He just showed up at my door. I shook his hand and said ‘I am really glad to meet you,’” Swanger said. She explained that a bus full of Turks was arriving in Waynesville in about seven hours for Folkmoot and had no interpreter.

The student had never heard of the festival, but Swanger had some Folkmoot brochures in her office and handed him one. She also pulled up the Folkmoot Web site and they looked at it on her computer monitor.

The student said he would help anyway he could. The only caveat was that he had no vehicle and no way to get to Waynesville.

Kaufman, a founding member of Folkmoot with more than 20 years of communicating with foreign performers under his belt, advised waiting until the Turkish group arrived before rushing down to WCU to retrieve the student.

“The first thing we are going to do when they get off the bus is ask them ‘Does anybody speak any English?’” Kaufman said. “I think their concern is they don’t speak enough English to communicate the more complicated details about scheduling or where they’re performing. I’m not going to get nervous until they get here and we find out no one speaks anything but Turkish.”

The WCU student gladly provided Swanger his cell phone number, adding a second translator to the arsenal that would be on stand-by for the Turks’ arrival thanks to the Folkmoot team work.

Thankfully, when the group arrived there were enough who had a limited amount of English to get their message across. The group is currently staying in the Folkmoot center and taking part in this year’s festival.