Thursday, March 29, 2012

The city of Pärnu


After a few weeks of adaptation in the city I will stay during the coming months, I will present you the city of Parnu or Pärnu as they write it in Estonian.
5th city of the country, Pärnu is located on the Baltic Sea in the South West of Estonia. Due to her location, she was a key port for the german Hanseatic League since the port was free from ice during winters. More recently, since the middle of the 19th century, she became a famous spa and seaside town. The first spa opened in 1838 and in 2004, the Tervis spa was then the largest of its kind in the Baltic states. The tourism industry strongly developed since the 2nd independance and they were the first city in the region to obtain the Blue Flag which states the quality of its waters.
The city was also the stage of some landmark events for Estonia. The first ever newspapers in Estonian, the Posttimees, was published there in 1857. The Manifest for independance of the country was read in front of the Endla Theatre on February, 23rd 1918. There is a copy of the speech on the former location of the Endla theater. Every year, they organise the Ice Festival with sport events (ice hockey, cross country ski, ice fishing, basket ball, etc), ice sculpture, music and singing events, etc. The city or organisations from the town organise lots of festivals especially during summer time like the GrillFest (June 8th and 9th), the Porcelain Days (July, 27-29th), the LineDance Festival (August, 4-5th), etc. 
 the coat of arm, the official logo and the flag of Pärnu
Pärnu in facts :
Inhabitants : 44,024 (2009, numbers from the 2012 census unknown)
Area : 32,2 km²
128 km from Tallinn and 180 km from Riga (Latvia capital)
Official website of the city : http://www.parnu.ee/lang/eng/
Tourism information: http://www.visitparnu.eu/

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Tallinn (1): Capital of Estonia

 Song Festival Ground - on stage, more than 30 000 singers can gather 
and sing with one voice. Impressive.
 City hall of Tallinn
Liberty Square. The monument is dedicated to those who fought for the 1st independance 
of the country between 1918 and 1919.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

I’m not biting.


Well, not at the moment.
I went this week to meet the French teachers and their pupils in the local highschools. I found it strange that none of the three teachers are French : two Estonians and one Greek. I was told they haven’t been learning French for too much, usually for several months at most. I didn’t prepare much for them as I didn’t want to scare them away from learning my beautiful language. I just went for some tongue twisters. Those little things are nasty for us, native people.
When I arrived in their classes, they were surprised to see me next to their teachers. I presented myself without revealing too much about me as they wouldn’t have asked me anything after. They were so shy to talk in French, so I said I wasn’t biting, they could talk. I’m actually proud of them as I know French is not an easy language. I was asked the usual questions about my hobbies outside my work, what I like to listen as french music. I also asked in return what they would advise me about Estonian musicians they listen. And of course, I couldn’t avoid answering the classical questions « do you have a girlfriend ? » and « do you like Estonian girls ? ». The former was asked by a7th grader girl ; they were gigling in the back of the classroom so I assume they were going for this question. Quand j’ai répondu non, elles avaient l’air soulagées. Katre the teacher told me they like me a lot. I don’t want to now what they had in mind exactly. The 2nd question was asked when I went to meet the 10th grades kids. The guy who asked me that question was a bit embarrassed to do so. Talking about this class, when they entered the room, I was wondering how many litres of soup they had each day to be sot all and so thin. I’m not particularly tall nor small but at just 16, they were already taller than me.

There was one class I came back since I was told by the teacher they would bake something for their last french class before the holiday. She didn’t know herself what they would do. I was surprised they did everything without the supervision of an adult. They even almost clean everything before leaving the kitchen. They had baked : waffles, some light vanillia flavoured biscuits, chocolate truffles, chocolate cupcakes, oats cookies and some kind of salty canapés with fish and eggs. The three boys of this class made the latter which coincidentally was the only I repeat because I like it and also because i twas the only I could repeat !! After the degustation, we played as the day before some tongue twisters but not only in French also in Estonian. They wanted to get revenge. After we played a snake and ladder game where the actions were replace by some simple exercises in French like counting from 1 to 10 or answering simple questions. To make it mor fun for me, I decided to do it in Estonian. I was lucky it wasn’t very hard. The kids were looking at me to see if I could pronounced correctly numbers or if I knew the corresponding words. I have to say I was very proud of myself during this game !!

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

The French Speaking Day (3): "Official Program"


Laupäeval, 24. märtsil Nooruse Majas, Roheline 1 b, Pärnu
Journée de la Francophonie – Prantsuse keele pave
Ürituse korraldaja Pierre-Marie Brianceau, vabatahtlik Prantsusmaalt
Tule omandama teadmisi ja kogemusi prantsuse keelt kõnelevate maade kultuurist ning toidust. Kogu päeva jooksul saad vastata teemakohastele küsimustele ning õigesti vastanuid ootavad ilusad ja maitsvad auhinnad.
10.30 avamine, päeva tutvustus, esitlus, näitus, mängud Prantsuse sümbolitega.
Esitlus „Kui hästi tunned Prantsuse kööki“
12.30 Lõunasöök. Buffet lauas on Pierre-Marie valmistatud toidud. Eelregistreerumine vajalik info@noorusemaja.ee Lõunasöögi hind 3€
14.00 Tutvumismängud, et raputada alla maitsev lõunasöök
15.00 Räägime stereotüüpidest Prantsusmaa ja prantslaste kohta
16.00 Kokkuvõte päevast ja viktoriinist. Räägime erinevatest võimalustest, kuidas ja kus õppida prantsuse keelt Eestis ning kuidas saada informatsiooni prantsusekeelsest maailmast

What? You  got scared? 

Here is the program in english. :p

Saturday March, 24th. Nooruse Maja, Roheline 1b, Parnu
Journée de la Francophonie – Prantsuse Keel Paëv
Come and enjoy some activities about French speaking culture, food and games. During the whole day, you will have some questions to answer for a small quiz to win a beautiful and yummy prize.

Start 10.30: Official opening
Presentation of the events of the day, exhibition and some games involving French Symbols
Presentation: How well do you know French Cuisine?

12h30/13h= Lunch with a buffet made of food cooked by me. "Reservation to be made before at info@noorusemaja.ee, limited number of place, Price: 3€/person"

14h= Energiser Games to digest my beautiful and delicious food.
15h = French People and French speaking people stereotypes

16 = Results of the quiz and Presentation of the different way to learn French in Estonia or have more information about French Culture.

Monday, March 19, 2012

The international French speaking days (2): Ask for the program

In Estonian
In English


What a week-end...

Hello dear readers,

I feel sorry to let you down like this last week. I was called by Saint Patrick to visit him in Tallinn. I couldn't say no to him as I alwasy wanted to meet him celebrating his day with some fellow compratriots from Eire. I will need to write messages about:
  • My intervention in the French language classes.
  • The program of the French Speaking day (March 24th)
  • my visit to Tallinn, the capital city of Estonia
Stay tuned to read the articles this week.

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Media Review: on the net

Hello all,

Here is a link to a blog whose owner interviewed us last week. We talkd about our implication in the EVS projects, why we came to Estonia, what our plans are beside working in our organisation.
http://blog.maaleht.ee/parnumaa/?p=39889
Yup, the link is in estonian, the translation will follow (hopefully soon).

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Media review: In the press

Here is an article published in a local newspaper, the Parnu Postimees, about me and Katerina, the other volunteer in Nooruse Maja. English will follow next week.

Friday, March 9, 2012

Thursday, March 8, 2012

The Ice Festival (4): the concert for Independance Day

After our concert of Thu Feb, 23th, we decided to do it again the next day. On Friday, there was concert in the open air area of Valikaar with some youngster choirs and dancing group. They also invited two lead singers, Birgit Õigemeel and Tanel Padar – the latter won the Eurovision song contest for Estonia in 2001. Denis, Katerina from Macedonia, Anne-Marie and her friend from Luxemburg and me went to check that place to avoid staying at home doing nothing.

As we were running late, we went directly to the concert zone and keep the Ice Market for later. As we thought, i twas full of people. We still managed to get a good spot to see the stage and take some pictures. The most surprising part was the singer we saw the night before in a hard rock concert and the same dressed in some kind of traditional knitted clothes. We really enjoyed the music and the songs they had. Since we was pretty cold outside, we had to move after about 20/25 minutes into the concert as we didn’t want our feet to get frozen. The ice Market was small but interesting. Some people were selling honey lollipops, roasted almonds with garlic (nice, a bit too salty for my taste) and some smoked fish. Along with some traditional wooden ustensiles, two ladies were sellign some Tupperware items. It was a bit wierd to see them there in a « traditional » market, I’m not sure they were completely authorised as it was clashing with the rest of the items sold on the market. 

When our stomach asked for some food, we decided to go to some pizzeria they had in the area. Denis heard about Stephanie’s Pizza in Tallin and wanted to check if i twas that good so Katerina brought him there. I decided to join Anne-marie and her friend who were in another small pizzeria, Roberto’s, more authentic and traditional. That’s a place I will remember when I will be too lazy to cook and/or have nothing in the firdge or the cupboards.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

On-Arrival EVS Training – Day 5


    For the last day, Kasia, Siiri and Kristina, our trainers left us with another person who explained us project management. I think this last workshop will be the most essential part to help us with the majority of the 8 key competencies of the Youthpass. Project Management is not only related to the working world but to any kind of activities that need to be planned. Anna, our trainer, showed us the different steps with an orientation towards the characteristics of our projects which could involve working with difficult population. We bounced back on the different steps she was talking about using our own experience. We managed to see some videos made by current or former volunteers. What I would remember from all this is the will we have to go through our projects is the keystone to our success. Even if we don’t know exactly how to achieve our project (two Ukrainian volunteers decided to renovate a room for their youth center even though they never did anything close to that, including in their spare time), our enthusiasm will give or help us find the means to complete our projects. 
    After that, the least pleasant moment of the week: going back to Parnu and leave those people, those friends. We were very close to each others. We all had lots of fun and promised to see each other again in a near future, why not organising some short trips around Estonia or even to Saint Petersburg. Our suitcases were done in a surprisingly short amount of time, in about 20 minutes. I pushed everybody a little since I was the first one with Katerina to leave and wanted to eat before taking my bus. And I found nothing to eat, except some weird hot dogs at the bus station newsagent. Of course, Heli reminded me our deal and I won’t be able to pass on this lunch I owe her. We were told students wouldn’t go as early as 2pm back home but unfortunately for me, it wasn’t true for our bus. It was packed and we had the last remaining seats in the back, of course not next to the window where it is easier to sleep after a short night. 

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

On-Arrival EVS Training – Day 4


   The last with the three trainers was dedicated to the Youthpass, how to learn from everything we will be doing, how we saw the future during our EVS.
   As a European Volunteer, the European commission decided to create this diploma, the Youthpass. The EVS is all about non-formal learning, meaning we learn outside any school structures while doing preparing projects and doing activities. We won’t add to the 8 key competencies exactly the activities we did but more how we did it, how we managed to get it completed and the means we used to achieve our goals. The Youthpass is recognised throughout the European Union, it is just more used in some countries. Germany almost considers it as another diploma equivalent to university ones whereas in France, it is still pretty anonymous. Talking about future, some of us already took in account the Youthpass when they decided to join the program. 
   Our trainers had a good idea. As we were all actives and willing to do more than just sitting in one room during four days, they let us go outside to talk our plan for the projects in our EVs and outside our activities. I think they got this idea after we talked with one them while going back to our hotel. It was good they adapted to our ideas, like when they asked Sean and Heli to do some energising activities when the latter mentioned it during informal talks. After our lunch, we had a lesson of Estonian but it wasn’t a lecture. They gave us a list of 7 subjects and let us choose the words we wanted to know like colours, food (asking for some good food that exclude potatoes is pretty important), etc. After that, we made the balance of our week with them what we thought about the training. I gave two words to resume it, Communication and Connection. Communication as we talked about ourselves, between each other. We also had to interact with some local people on Tuesday afternoon. With communication, we sit back and thought about our own actions and shared our ideas on projects. Connection, since the EVs is based on that. We couldn’t do this training without relations with other volunteers, our trainers, and the local community where we are working or during our leisure time. All of us gave similar answers with their own words. It proves we were really closed together, shared some strong bonds during this short period of time. 
   The climax of the week, or better said what everybody was anxiously waiting, was the sauna moment On Thursday night. Some of us never went to a sauna since they had arrived in Estonia. To do like locals, we went downtown to buy nice liquids while buying our return tickets for the next day. We took advantage to go back to the castle while we could still see it in broad day light. The longest part was the waiting time after the dinner. I used this time to recharge my batteries with a little nap. When it was time to go downstairs, I changed to go not to the sauna but the saunas. The hotel prepared the two saunas, the dry one or finish sauna and the wet one or steam room. The latter wasn’t so hot was we used to open the door too much, hence the steam needed time to get back to a normal temperature for this room. We used our breaks during the sauna session to play poker while drinking (with moderation) our beers and cider. Those two hours went pretty fast and we had to go play billiards if we didn’t wanted to go to bed too early. After a few games and a lost bet to Heli (sigh, I have to pay her a lunch), I went to bed to rest and try to sleep a few hours before the last session of our training.

Monday, March 5, 2012

On-Arrival EVS Training – Day 3


    This third day was orientated towards the culture of the country, how to learn from the point of view of the stereotypes, how to improve self management by resolving our problems and the unplanned event.
    We should have talked about Estonian culture during the first part of the day but we continued our talks about the movie The Singing Revolution, the consequences for the country, how it was seen from different perspectives, from Estonian politicians, the Russian minority and some events that happened a few years after the rebirth of the country as Estonians call this day of August 20th, 1991. I don’t think it was the way they planned to talk about Estonian culture but since we were older (>24yo, except for little Sean who was 20) than the average group they usually had, we could talked longer and get into details, something that could not have been possible if the group was younger. After we had to make a list of the possible problems we could face during our activities projects as volunteer and rate them by probability and importance if they happen. I only thought about four problems and without deciding before hand to make a ranking, the results reflected my thoughts. It was interesting I rated it that way since it wasn’t planned at all.
    An important part of the EVS is to learn from others. Our trainers went for a different approach by using stereotypes. They made a list of the countries we were from and told us to write what we thought about any of those. Surprisingly, all countries got a lot of stereotypes and not only Italy, France or Ireland. Since we couldn’t talk about everything written on the board, they decided to go for some unusual ones. Like for me, although people wrote a lot about food and how we enjoy it, I had to talk about our character and some aspect of our nature. It was better not to go for the obvious. 
 How to sing about stereotypes
   During the last activities in the morning, Kristina asked us about what we wanted to for the evening. We knew it was supposed to be the sauna moment but she wanted to propose something else. She talked about a concert given by a local group of jazz from the 1930 and 40’s. As soon as she said the word jazz, I raised my hand like Kristina did. I didn’t hesitate since I love this kind of music. She didn’t know if we would agree to pay the entrance fee since it wasn’t free. But for 150 cents, it was nothing. We had the Thursday night to go to the sauna so we opted for the concert that night. It resulted in a good choice. The band was great and I appreciated they announced their songs in English for all the audience. They alternated fast and slow songs, known ones and their own compositions. At one point, the leader tried to imitate a Frenchie talking about music in the Latin Corner in Paris thinking no French would be in the room but nope, I was here. He as so confused and was ashamed to have done it but I actually found it very funny. After, we went to see the old castle ruins. As it was already night time, we couldn’t see much of it but we found on the way back home a nice big swing. We were all grown-ups but it was nice to be a little child again!

Saturday, March 3, 2012

On-Arrival EVS Training - Day 2


       After a (short) night sleep, we started our second day of training. This day was focused on the idea of volunteering, our rights and duties as an EVS, the impact on communities.
     The reason why we were all here was obviously the will to be a volunteer in a community or a group where they need someone to help them out. During those two hours we thought about ideas or obvious facts that were normal or just logical for us like Organisations choose to host an EVS a cheap employee. We had to think about it and find a common ground in our duo and then show and explain it to the rest of the group. We had to position ourselves on a line drawn on the floor depending if we agree or not. With Alicja, we agree on almost everything and we didn’t have to talk much about the common point of view we had to adopt and then show to the rest. The only time when I decided not to step on the line was when I had to answer a question when I couldn’t agree on the statement. After, we talked about what the EVS was really about, its definition, objectives and some question we had like for our insurance.
      One of the main objectives is to interact with our local communities. Our main exercise was to go on the streets, find someone to needed help and then find someone who could help that person. We couldn’t be the latter as it would have been too easy. With Simone, we decided to go to a supermarket where we could find an elderly person and may be a teenager who could help the former. It wasn’t that easy as all elderly women we saw were pretty active or didn’t have much to carry with them. We finally succeeded in finding a girl teenager who could help someone just a bit younger than the person we thought about at first. As we were in a supermarket, we decided to offer a chocolate bar to the girl to thank her for the help. Two last things: we completely forget to ask for her name and we met a local celebrity who was doing a show sharing the same objectives as us.
     We finished this day by watching a movie about the 2nd independence of Estonia, in august 1991. It was very fascinating to watch it, see how 30 000 people singing in a single voice. When I think about this, I still have goosebumps. Without going into too many details not to spoil the movie, The Singing Revolution, You can see how people can change the face of history with their only arm available, their songs, without shedding a single drop of blood. After the movie ended, we couldn’t speak or say anything. We were so impressed by the intensity of it we stayed in the room talking about the movie, the consequences of what happened and some clarifications about how it really happened by asking our Estonian trainers.
Trailer of the Documentary, The Singing Revolution
for more information, visit http://www.singingrevolution.com