Minu Eestimaa - L'estonie et moi

    Now, I'm in the final month of my European Voluntary Service in Nooruse Maja. So I have to think about how to arrange things to go back to France and how I can leave a footprint here. The latter being of course exceptional because I will do it. XD

   When I arrived here in Estonia, my tutor Uudo told about an exhibition we should do by the end of our EVS with Katerina. He told us to think about this when we are travelling around the country to take some very good quality pictures to be used for this exhibition.

   And now have come the time to do it. We agreed on the dates (Sept 8th-19th), the preview (Sept 8th, same day as our open door afternoon). I selected about 19 pictures from which I should only take half since I have to share the frames with Katerina. I also asked for some help from Hana, the new volunteer from Czech Republic who will take our place. She did a really great job for the photo montage I kindly request her to do for the exhibition. You can see it on the poster i made today. It is a montage made of pictures I took, except one I must say (thanks Daire ;) to recreate a map of Estonia and its provinces. 

   I'm trully happy with this work. The montage also shows the effort of dissemination and collaboration between EVS, the handover of our work here to the new person volunteering in our organisation. During my EVS, I had to help Uudo about reports for projects he took part in and lots of times we had the question how we could do follow-up and dissemination. Having Hana preparing this with my pictures can be also a good presention of her skills. 

    So if you want to join us for this exhibition, please come in Nooruse Maja, roheline 1b, Pärnu 80036 from Saturday Sept 8th to 19th and enjoy our pictures and arts about how we see Estonia, the places we visited. I haven't thought much about it, but if there are some pictures you like, it might be possible to make a reproduction so you can get it back home for a fair price.

Estonian LineDance Festival - Pärnu, Aug 4&5th

    We had a great time this week-end with all the participants of the linedande Festival in Pärnu. thanks to some our volunteers, we could have this video. One more is coming and I'll post it when I will receive the link.

The Porcelain Days (July 27-29th, Parnu, Nooruse Maja)

    In my early days in Nooruse Maja, I was doing some porcelain painting with a very nice lady who came earlier to the office to teach us some porcelain painting. At first I was ok, let’s do it once. But she kept on coming back. We did a few things like a tea mug, some plates and one jewelry case. The latter was proposed by her since I did something for my mum for her birthday. Mai, the porcelain teacher told me I had to do it. We did over a few weeks as it needed different layers of paint. I was a bit afraid it would continue too long as I would like to take everything back home when I will get back to France. 

    The main event for her is the porcelain days we are organising in Nooruse Maja. During days, people can come have some classes on different styles, techniques from teachers coming from other countries and Estonia. We even had a few years ago, a teacher from Japan. They made some calligraphy on porcelain and it was so beautiful. A Shame I wasn’t already here because I would have participated in this workshop. 

    Now, the porcelain days are just in a few days. People will have the chance to study how to paint nostalgic country houses, small animals and the tinga tinga technique or how to paint berries. Visitors can enjoy an exhibition of the items painted during those workshops, arts brought by people from our winter classes. The exhibition is free so you can come and enjoy a nice drink.

Estonian Linedance Festival (Aug. 4th & 5th, 2012): record broken!!!

Dear Readers,

We received a thrilling news a few days ago. A group of people in the USA broke our record by around 200 people, the official number being 2569 beating our record of 2354 people. So now we definitely need our 3000 people to come!!!!

Please register now in our website (linefest.com) for the chance to get a  discount for registration before July 1st!!! You can contact us through our website, or write us directly at kaie@estonianlinedance.com or info@noorusemaja.ee or simply drop me a email.

Come one, join the fun!!!!

Share the news with your friends, colleagues, families.

We can accomodate people in wheelchairs if needed!! 

Pakri Island, Estonia

Two panoramic pictures taken during my mid-term training when we went to Pakri Island, 

at about 60km from Tallinn, next to Padilski.

Just a few picture from places in Estonia

Tallinn - view of the old town on the right

Tallinn - view by (almost) night

 Tallinn - Kadriorg Park

When in Pärnu?

    I took this picture recently just outside my house, my new house next to the river. I've been told about this before I arrive here in Estonia but I didn't belive it. So when I had the opportunity to take this pic, I seize it. 

    The most surprising feature about this is the time when it was taken. Make a guess about it, I'd love to know your idea about it. Please give me a good laugh. 

My first official Italian ice-cream

     Ah it was a great day for my stomach on Friday.  After participating in some activities with some French learning pupils in a local school, I went shopping and bring the food back home. I had to check my emails and i saw this very good news: Mama Toni's gelato is officially open!! I just send my friend a message and set off for the shop. I drive my bicycle pretty fast for once since I really wanted to get my hands on the new flavours they had to offer. 

     So when I arrived there, I checked directly what's on offer and decided for Belgian Chocolate, Pistaccio and Vanilia. What a treat!! The nice and warm weather invited me to have it on their terrasse while talking to Paul, Toni's husband who help setting the shop, Bas, deputy gelato maker and when I was inside, talking with Toni, my delicious American friend who decided to set this up in Little Pärnu. 

Estonian LineDance Festival (Aug 4th & 5th, 2012)

Hello everybody,

     As Summer is coming very fast, you have to decide what to do for your holidays. Here is an excellent idea. You can come and enjoy a few days in the Estonian summer capital dancing with lots of people. We need your participation as we want to beat a guiness world record, the longest single line dance. So please visit our webpage to register or send me an email,  we will do you best to answer you as fast as possible. Do not hesitate to share the poster or any information about our festival to anyone who might be interested.

Bon Appétit: Wheat Fricassee in Provence style

For the recipe, click on the picture (in french only).

Preparation : 15min, cooking : 20/25min.

Ingredients :

150grs of bulgur - if you can’t find it, use wheat grains

1 big can of tuna in brine or oil – around 100grs or 3.6 oz of fresh tuna

(if you want to do it with meat, 250/300grs of chicken will do the trick)

2 big tomatoes

½ a medium onion

I red pepper

1 courgette/zucchini

½ eggplant

1 big can of Tomato Purée

Olive Oil, salt, pepper

Preparation :

Wash, peel (except the pepper) and cut all vegetables, and meat if needed, into small cubes.

In a big frying pan, cook until golden the onion along with the pepper

Then add vegetables, salt, pepper and stir

At this moment, you should put the bulgur or wheat to cook like rice

Just before the water is completely evaporated, add the chicken if you choose meat. In case of fish, wait until there is no more water from the vegetables.

Pour the tomatoe purée diluded in water (to your convenience) ; let it stew for a few minutes at low heat

About 5 minutes before the wheat is al dente, pour it into the frying pan with the preparation and let it stew during a few minutes on low heat.

Be careful : do not let the tomatoe sauce stick onto the pan. You should be able to have lots of sauce ; Add more water if you want.

And the winner is…..

    Early last week, we were told by our tutor Nooruse Maja will the place where a children and youth theater competition will be held the Friday after this conversation. I was curious about it and already wanted to check this. Uudo asked us if we wanted to be part of the jury who will give away some awards for best group and best actor or actress. We were a bit afraid at first but the challenge was appealling. The only downsize I saw from this was the time of start for this contest. At 9am, it’s a bit early for me. As I work mainly in the afternoon,    I can go to bed late and sleep through the morning.

    So when the day finally came, I went to my organisation for 9am to meet with the last of the jury member. This old lady was very friendly and at the nice age of 73 years old, she was still pretty active in the drama are. The day was divided into two parts. The 1st one was dedicated to after-school clubs when we had 3 groups to judge. This was more easy than I think since we agree on all the awards we had to give away. The 2^nd part of the contest was for school drama clubs. As we already had some experience before we all thought it woulld be very similar but on the contrary, it was harder. Even with the list of actors, some times we couldn’t get who was who in the play. Even the last memver of the jury who was Estonian couldn’t make the difference between all the actors and actresses. We managed to overcome this difficulty but i’m pretty sure if it was not that hard we would have made other choices.

    I was pleased with our choices. We were there to judge for drama acts not musicals as some of them turned out to be. It was a shame as two classes were very good and made a huge effort on the decoration. We went for those with the less songs, and we elected the first group who played something about the twelve months. Apparently it was some kind of fairy tale know in Eastern and South-East Europe. We give them the Mask for the 2012 best school drama club. I really like the idea of the trophy being a Mask. Instead of having a ugly cup with which you cannot do a thing, on this mask, they could write all the winners from the first year of this contest. I also appreciate the white chocolate with strawberries we had as part of the thank you gift for being in the jury.

6 things you should know before doing an EVS in Estonia

Hilarious video I found on the Internet about what you should know before doing an EVS in Estonia.

Enjoy!!

Welcome to my blog !

In this tiny piece of Internet, you will find texts and news about my experience as a European Volunteer in Parnu on the west coast of Estonia.

I will share my thoughts, what I like or hate, my visits, my photos and all those little things that make an experience unforgetable.

Whether you like or hate, want to make comments, do not hesitate to write a message in this blog. I will try to answer to all and update as often as possible. 

Enjoy!