On-arrival EVS training - Day 1

        I'm just writting this short message to let my readers know I'm now in my EVS training in a small city called Viljandi (pronounce it Vilyandi). When you start an EVS, You will have two trainings you have to attend. The first one is after you arrive, no later than one month after your arrival. They explain you what is you should expect for your EVS, they give you more information about how you can use your experience or simply about the country you're in. The 2nd is the mid-term training. As I just arrived I don't know for sure what we will do but the trainers told us we will share our experience so far, give and take feedback from what we did so far in our organisation.

        This week, we are a group of 8 people: Alicja and Dominik from Poland, Heli from Czech Republic, Simone from Italy, Sean and Daire (sorry guy, I thought you were a girl ;) ) from Ireland and of course Katerina and me. This  just  afternoon we get to know each other, our background, our project and organisation. We had fun with some games to "break the ice". 

            I will try to keep you posted this week but as I might be a bit busy with the training and have fun too with the other volunteers, I don't know if I will post much. Pictures will also be a bit late as I will have to check them all. Just stay tuned to knwo my adventures in Viljandi.

The Ice Festival (3): the concert given by the mayor of Pärnu

                When I was looking for some information about Estonia, I discovered this little country has two independence days. Or better said, one independence day and one re-independence day. The first one that happened this week on Feb 24^th was for the first independence time Estonia had back in 1918 when they liberated themselves from the Russian Empire of the fallen Romanov. The 2^nd I.D. was for their pacific liberation after the explosion of the USSR in 1991. That 2^nd I.D. is called by some people the re-independence day as they got it back after more than sixty years of foreign domination (German during WWII and Russian after WWII). The latter will be talked later as Estonians organize every year huge singing festival to commemorate those events.

 The Pärnu City Orchestra

                My tutor thought about us as he was the one to give us his invitation for two to go see this concert. Since he can go every year, he offered us the two tickets. I already had the necessary clothes for this event as I planned to go on some interviews if I had passé the first stage of my entrance exams. But Katerina, the other volunteer, just had one dress but no shoes or stockings. She was a bit panicked about it but in the end, she went shopping and found something useful for this night. The difficulties began when we had to go the concert hall. Since she was wearing high heels, it took us about 20 min when it takes us only 5 in the morning to walk on the same road. We managed to arrive just on time, just before the national anthem. 

 The two soloists

                This was followed by 1h15 of speeches and songs by children. For one moment, when they gave the city and county medals, it would drag on forever as some people couldn’t stop talking. When the music finally started, it was nice to listen to some nice music even though I couldn’t understand a single word of it. They only sung in Estonian. In a future I hope that won’t be too far away, I would be able to understand part if not all of what they said. At the end of the 45 musical minutes, we had a cocktail in the lobby. Depending on what you prefer (the finger food or the free champagne) it was better to stay in the main lobby or in the 2^nd floor. In the end, they offered us some nice chocolates truffles with tea or coffee. I had a nice red tea and to avoid having two plates (one for the drink, one for the chocolates), I put them next to my cup. I just forgot chocolate melted next to sources of heat!!

The Ice Festival (2): ice hockey games.

        It may sound not as interesting for my north-american readers, both Canadians and from the USA, but I wanted to see some hockey games during this festival. I didn’t know anything about it and never went to one game in my life. The closest thing I’ve done was watching the Olympic final between USA and Canada during the Salt Lake City games in 2004 with some of the Canadian students who lived in my student hall. So I was looking forward to it.

       So on Saturday, I managed to waked up not too late to go and see some of the games in Vallikäär where they had the opening ceremony. The players took it seriously but it wasn’t as violent as a game in the NHL. Moreover, they had some women playing with them. One of the goal keepers was one the woman from Tallinn. They had small matches of two periods of about 10 min each not to make it too long for people to watch. When we had the teams from Pärnu or the women team playing, more people were encouraging them. I didn’t understand a word of what my fellow supporter said but I guessed it. I don’t understand the rules of the game but it’s always fun to cheer up for one of the teams, especially if they’re playing well and fair.

The international French speaking days (1): first thoughts.

One of the projects I will be working during those months here will be the organisation of a day dedicated to my country or to be more precise to the French speaking countries. I thought at first I would do something around my national day which is on July 14^th but summer is a very busy season in Pärnu. So we decided to focus on the International French language day which is on March 20^th. My tutor wants me to organise this to make people discover my country and the regions that shared/are sharing common history with us.

As the previous volunteer were also from France, it make easier for me to think and organise that day. I can use some of the materials they created for the event, use the feedback to change some of my ideas. Something that has always success is the cooking classes or lunch. Even though we’re not from the same culture, sharing food make contact easier and better. So far I thought about an exhibition on the different French speaking countries, a small presentation about France and its tradition or some cooking classes to prepare our lunch, meal we will share like a buffet. In the afternoon, I think to do some activities when people can participate, when they can be pro-active and not just watchers.

Along with this day, I will help the French teachers with their French cultural week. I have plenty of games to do like tongue twisters but very difficult ones are more fun, games around vocabulary (hangman is always a winner), maybe some cooking classes when we will do pancakes. My only limit is the participation of pupils and their will to make those events a success.

Shrove day!!!!

As it’s an international day, I had to do something. It was more I had to discover what they were doing it while being unaware they do something. LOL. When I was talking to my tutor’s wife who is cooking for us every day, I saw her preparing some kind of soup with peas and pork and also something like brioche, some Vastlakukkel. I was very interested in tasting it for dessert. What I didn’t know was those dishes are usually made on Shrove day in Estonia like Mardi Gras in France with " the tourtisseaux" (donuts made especially for this day). So I had (too bad for my waist line ;) ) to try some lovely sweet buns she prepared. So here is the recipe she used to do:

Vastlakukkel with whipped cream and home made jam

Ingredients: 

• 500grs of wheat flour
• 100grs of butter at room temperature
• 250 ml of warm milk
• 25 grs of fresh yeast
• 1 egg
• 1 dl of sugar (use a mesuring glass and use the liquid mark to weight the sugar)
• a pinch of salt

Recipe courtesy of Kaia, my tutor's wife.

Mix the yeast and the warm milk and put the preparation in a salad bowl

Introduce the salt, the sugar and the egg yolk.

Then, by smal portions, pour the flour. When it’s finished, mix it with the butter

Leave the bowl covered by a cloth in a hot space for about one hour

Knead the dough for about 5 min and roll it into a big sausage

Cuti t into small pieces to make some small balls of about 10cm diameter you put on a cooking tray

Leave the tray to rise for 30 min in a hot place. At the end of those 30 min, mix the white of the egg with some milk to brush the small brioches

Bake it for 10-15 min at 490°F in the middle rack of your oven. Temperature and time of baking to be adapted to the oven.

After you get it out of the oven, leave it to cool down under a cloth. Eat it while it’s still warm.

To eat the Estonian way, cut the top of the brioches, and spread some homemade whipped cream and jam.

Minu nimi on Pierre!!!

      I so wanted to start my Estonian classes. It’s been 2 weeks I’ve been here in Parnu and it was frustrating not to be able to talk to people in their own language. You feel like a stranger in a room full of people. I hate this situation so I prefer to be able to understand the local langue people talk when I’m staying long enough in a place or in a country. Talking the same language makes contact easier and you are more integrated. You can have good laugh when you try to say some difficult words!!

     So this morning after passing at the bank to get my card, we arrived at our organisation and finally meet our Estonian teacher, Katre. It’s a shame Katerina and me are not both French or both can speak this language as Katre is also a French teacher. It would have been easier to have the teacher using your mother tongue for a new language. We started our class by spelling words that are very similar to English or French, like bus, coffee (kohv in Estonian), and move to the alphabet. That will be the hardest part for me as some letters are very similar to what we use in French but they make it harder, lol. For example, U is pronounced as the same sound OU in French and if you want to pronounce it separately, you will need to write Ü. They also have the ~ in some vowels. The “J” is pronounced like a “Y” but they don’t really use the latter. Or is it simply because I haven’t met one word using this letter?

     The book we will use is not the simplest one but the more efficient according to our teacher. It has some kind of vocabulary at the end for Finnish, Russian and German. That may sound weird to you but Estonian is very close to Finnish and Russian but also to German as they were a German territory for centuries. I will need to be very good and work hard during the classes as the previous volunteer in just 3 months could speak very good Estonian and was able to write almost on his own the small exhibition he prepared for the French Speaking day he organised last year. The next one is next March, 20^th but I will talk about it in due time!! As they say here, Nägemist !!

A little bit of auto-promotion: Wheelchair dancing.

As I can go to any class to check them and see for myself what they were doing, I went to a class given by Kaie, the folk and line dance teacher. I was surprised to see the doors of the dancing hall open during a workshop, something that normally doesn’t happen to avoid the noise in the other class. But it was for a good reason. That afternoon, the dance class wasn’t for valid but for wheel chair people. That is really cool of the teacher to organize such activities even though she is valid, she also uses a wheel chair to dance like them.

The Silver Wheels dancing in a contest

Even when Nooruse Maja is organising their annual Linedance festival, they are not left on the side of the road. No pun intended here but one the main event of the festival is a single line dance on a road in the countryside. It could be perfectly understandable for the organizers not to care about wheel chair people but they decided to include them in the program, in the dancers. They accounted for 1% (29 people for 2354 dancers) of the total participants for the Guinness world record they achieved in June 2008. Record we hope to break this year with more than 3000 people. I’ll be there to tell you all the latest news about it and more!

The Silver wheels during the Line Dance Festival

For pictures of wheel chair line dance, go there. For the linedance festival, click here.

Pictures courtesy of Kaie Seger, dance teacher at Nooruse Maja.

Why not go sledging on Sunday

As part of the student festival, they organised a sledge ride competition on Sunday morning. Since I wanted to go out at least a little, I decided to go there. When I arrived early, I only saw young children with their parents on the hill. It brings back memories when I could do it behind my flat in France a few years ago. Too much nostalgia...When 12.30pm came, I saw some students coming. They brought some cardboard and plastic bag to make it better to sledge on the snow. Of course for everybody and especially for those not participating the competition, beers and redbulls couldn’t be failing. 

One of the guys we followed the day before was there too. He was even more drunk that the previous day at the same time. When everybody was preparing their sledge, he had this curious idea to transform himself in one human sledge. Yup, you read it right. He turned himself into a human sledge. First, he scotch taped some cardboard around him and some plastic bags with the help of his friends. As expected, he couldn’t move much, he felt on the ground several times before arriving to the top. Then, two of his friends sit on his back, him facing the snow and here they go. Unfortunately, they came last among the participants. They should have been first for the creativity of their sledge ride.

Who the f*** brought water today?

Ok, I must tell you first this is not from me. I heard it while I was watching some student events. Last week-end was the local college’s student winter festival. So I decided to go out and check was they would be doing for the football/soccer and ice hockey. I decided to go for the ice hockey since it would be a great idea to see firsthand a sport I thought was popular here.

On Saturday morning, I meet this local student who brought me there. She decided to go through the beach to let me see how their famous summer site was during winter time. I knew there could be ice and snow on the beach but I wouldn’t think some penguins (see this post) needed to go 2 or 3km on the sea to have a decent depth of ice to be able to fish. At first they were the only people we saw so we were wondering if we were going the right direction. 

 the Baltic Sea in Parnu in Winter

After confirmation, we saw some people driving to the place where the beach or should I say snow football was taking place. Like in all student festivals, it was impossible to see some guys already a bit drunk or not yet sober from the opening party of the night before. That when I heard someone saying “who the f*** brought some water?”. My friend was laughing so much when she heard it. It wasn’t surprising from him as he got one beer in his hand and another one in his coat.

We decided to check some of them and we had it right. One of them was absolutely crazy. After they found out a promotion sign with Britney Spear with few clothes on, he offered “her” his coat, his scarf, pink chapka and invited “her” to the blanket he put on the frozen ground. When it was his turn to play, he tried to shoot the ball but couldn’t manage to do it as he felt on the ground before. We had a good time watching him. 

Football/soccer game on a icy and snowy groung

As for the ice-hockey, it was not what I expected. It’s logical they didn’t use normal ice hockey skates. It would have been too dangerous for them and their opponents. They simply played with hockey sticks and tennis balls on the frozen ground, so frozen it was not anymore snow but very much ice. It was when I saw them playing, I really started to feel the cold. It was time for me to go back home and have something nice and warm to drink, to help me warm up.

Home cooking. Well almost. (2)

After the presentation of the dishes by Paul, everyone put on an apron to feel like a real chef and went for one of the station to start cooking. One of the participants, a tall blond tattooed guy, brought his own apron and more surprisingly his own cutting knife. When I checked what it was, I saw the price he paid by ordering it from the Internet (230€/300$) I was a bit shocked. What I didn’t know at that moment was he’s working as a chef on a boat. That explains certain things.

As I was already shooting pictures when everybody arrived, Paul put me in charge of the serving the wine and make sure everybody always had something to drink. I essentially helped with finding the necessary utensils for the preparation. As we had trouble to find enough glasses and cutlery, I knew where to find things in this big kitchen. When everything was slowing cooking in the oven on the gas cooker, we sit down for a while and talk about nothing and everything at the same time. Of course, food and good cuisine was our main topic of conversation. When the dished were ready to be served, everyone went for the dining table and the tall long tattooed guy help in cutting the meat and made a wonderful work with the chicken. 

 Dishes we made during our cooking evening

When everyone was sitting down and had a bit of everything, we could only hear flies flying. It was impressive and the best compliment a chef can have for his food. Why would you talk when you are having such nice food. We only started to talk after tasting all the dishes.

After the chef served the dessert, only one small portion was left but not for long as Katerina, the other volunteer, took it back home. After cleaning the table, nobody was doing anything with the left-overs. I was very strongly recommended to bring everything back home with some doggy bag. It would have been a crime to leave it there or worse, throw it away. With all that boxes, I have enough food for several days!!

Home cooking. Well almost. (1)

When my tutor asked me to join a cooking class, I didn’t take too much time thinking about it. I knew they would make one chef coming from Tallin just for the evening. I wouldn’t have missed such an opportunity. When I saw all the preparation, I was very impressed by what I saw. Paul, the South-African chef, got all the food and ingredients needed for the cooking.

I didn’t know where we were going exactly. I thought we might be in a bigger than usual kitchen but not something as big as we got. When I saw the place, it was bigger than expected. It was in a room used by some local school to organise cooking activities. They got all we needed and more. Enough space for everybody to cook without walking on each other every time we move around.

Central station with the wine station in the left hand top.

When Paul arrived, I knew I would have a long and delicious dinner. He brought with him, three kinds of meats (lamb, pork, chicken), butternut, rice, some apple to go with the pork and of course enough for a dessert. The big advantage of the room was we could all cook at the same time without waiting for dished to be ready to be cooked to do the following ones. On the first table, at the entrance, we had the aperitif which was a nice dry south-african wine. Then in the middle, the main station for the meats and butternut. The dessert and the rice were prepared on the table next to it to avoid too much travelling in the room. Finally in the back of the room, our dining was dressed for 10 people decorated with some items from his country brought by the chef.

When he was explaining what we will have for dinner, he made the promotion of the local producers where he went for shopping. All products, vegetables and meats, came from local providers. He was very surprised most people preferred low price over quality. By just paying a little extra, you could have delicious and high quality ingredients. He tries to use them as much as possible. The only item that weren’t from Estonia was some kind of special spice mix he lives on when cooking chicken.

Welcome to the Penguins!

When we were given a small tour of of the city on Friday afternoon before going shopping for food and necessary things (hurray for a warm pair of shoes), our driver showed us briefly where was the river that flows inside the city. As it was very cold outside, we just saw it from the car window. We saw some people on the icey river and we were told they were fishing. Some people are coming during winter times to the river, make a hole and then fish by -20°c/-4°f with some wind of course. They’re called the penguins by locals as they try to get their fish from the ice. 

As I wanted to do almost like them, walking on the ice, I decided to do it on a better day. I can’t really warmer day as I had to wait for temperatures of around -10°C/14°F. This was done this Thursday morning when I was going to my organisation. I went with the other volunteer walking from the simpliest way possible and it implies going over the river. I told her I would do it and she was a bit scared of falling in the ice. I wouldn’t have done it in France but here, it’s ok as we have around 30/40cm/1.4 feet of ice. If local people are doing it, why not me? After we both arrived on the other side of the river, she was relieved I was ok. I wouldn’t mind though doing it more times…

Au revoir la France, Tere Eesti !! (2)

Upon arrival at Charle-de-Gaulle, I went directly to leave my registred luggage at the counter to be more free to wander in the airport. As I suspected, the stewart asked me to weigh both of my luggages which was a first time for my hand luggage. Even when I was travelling with other low cost companies, they never did that !! so I feared to pay for those 3 extra kilos. He asked me to take away enough things to put in my registered suitcase to finally « offering » me those 3kgs. He told me he won't make me pay this time but I should be careful next time. My flights went ok, except the lay-over in Riga. We were all waiting for the plane to take off but we heard several times the pilot telling us not to worry as they were waiting for the control tower to give the green light. I still don't know why we left the airport when we were supposed to arrived as I didn't understand the reasons for that. 

After we landed, I rushed to the luggage claim to take my suitcase and join my tutor, Uudo, and the other volunteer, Katerina from the Former Yougoslavian Republic of Macedonia who arrived 5h earlier than me. I couldn't make her wait more time as we were all tired and wanted to crash in our beds in Parnu. Uudo directly took us to our guest house where we will be spending all our night while in the city. After quickly connecting to the Internet to leave a message to the parents (very important!!), I went straight to the arms of Morpheus zzzzzzz

Au revoir la France, Tere Eesti !! (1)

Going to Estonia wasn't that easy to prepare at home and thanks to the different transport companies, tt would have been even « better ».

Preparing my suitcase wasn't an easy task. I could only take 20kg/44lbs in my registered luggage and 8kg/17.6lbs in my hand luggage. This is not very much when you're supposed to travel an stay in the same place for 8 months. I didn't know how this company, Air baltic would do with my suitaces, if they will be very strict or not about the weight. I finally ended with 20,2kg/44lbs and 11kg/22lbs which was still ok I thought. I haven't counted my laptop and kept my finger crossed for the check-in not to weigh this and make me pay for some extra kilos.

So I woke up on Thursday at 5am (ouch!) to get prepared to go to the train station for my train to arrive at Paris Airport Charles de Gaulle around 10.45am. Until my first change, it was ok but from there until a lay-over near Paris and the airport, I got delayed. Usually the french TGV (High speed train) is going very fast and on time but that day, other trains had problems and we had to wait for them. In the end I was about 45 min late at the airport. It's for those kind of events I prefer to arrive early at the airport as I don't want to rush to the registring gate.

My sending organisations

Maisonde Quartier du Val d'Ornay (Neighborhood House of Val d'Ornay)

This a place of gathering for people of this district locate in the south-west of my home town, la Roche sur Yon in France. She offers permanent activities like art and crafts, a choir, yoga, hiking, gymnastics, sports (basket-ball, BMX), sign language classes, judo, activities for mums and very young children, etc.

Maison du Monde et des Citoyens

The « Maison du Monde et des Citoyens » is a department dedicated to international affairs created by the city of La Roche sur Yon more than ten years ago. Citizens can find : information on international subjects (solidarity, twinnings, development in less-favored countries, the European Union), advices and help for individual and collective projects on international matters, a section on animations and organisation of lectures on Europe and international themes.

Accredited Centre Europe Direct, she also aims for helping the internationel mobility of young people thanks to the documention and information at their disposal on financial logistic supports (Grant « Ulysse » to help for solidarity, discovery and intercultural exchanges ; Grant « Discover Europe » to encourage youngs from 16 to 30 years to discover at least two european countries outside any school or job programs), travelling and internships in foreign countries. Inernet information.