EVS in Estonia

At last ! Tuesday 27th of march, we finally left France to Estonia, after months of waiting.
We said goodbye to our parents and took a taxi to the airport, loaded like crazy. When we checked in, we had 20kg of excess luggage ! Hopefully the lady was quite nice and only counted 8 kg…

We flew with Estonian Air, the national company, and were surprised to see that on a flight which only goes thrice a month, there were only 18 passengers ! As usual, I ended up talking with my neighbour and spent the 3hour flight discussing about Estonia and other things…

At the Airport, we were welcomed by Margit and Merle which were to be our two co-wokers.They picked us up and drove us into town.

We walked through the medieval streets of Tallinn, with a nice sunshine and a weather very similar to the one we had left in France. Our two guides brought us into a nice restaurant which was located in an old cloistre.
This was the occasion for us to test some of the local cuisine : a delicious fish soup for me and Amelie had broiled ham with a selection of mushrooms and vegetables. All of which were accompanied by the Nanional beer : Saku.

After having gone shoping for food (quite an interesting experience to read the labels in Russian an Estonian !)

We were driven to our house, in the middle of nowhere, near the highway. It can seem a bit remote but in fact it is very cosy and well equiped. After only a few minutes we already felt at home !

For those who would not know us, here is a brief presentation of both of us :

At the moment, we probably are the only couple doing a european volunteering service (together !). Without indiscretions, here is a little description of when and how we found ourselves involved in this story…

Jonathan, ex-parisian, came to settle in the Alps Region, to follow a two-year tourism diploma. This is how he met Amélie, originally from the North of France, but who had been living in Savoy for several years already and who decided to follow the same studies in the internationally known Ferney-Voltaire (near Geneva). After two years together, with a tourism diploma and a guide card, we both choosed to do a bachelor degree, Amelie in Amiens, and Jonathan in Erasmus in Barcelona.

This year, we opted for a European Volunteering Service, for it enabled us to be together as well as staying in the same field as our studies. In addition, the idea of volunteering corresponded to something we both had wanted to discover.

The “Youth in action program” which covers the 2007-2013 period, replaces at present the “European Youth programm”, which Amelie and I are probably the last to benefit from. This change in title does not fundamentaly change the previous programm but is a way to show the evolutions of european mesures. For example, the new programm is now open to people from 13 to 30 years old (when previously it was only accessible to people between the ages 15 to 25). It also offers a larger selection of countries, enlarging the destinations to countries neighbouring Europe, promoting youth initiatives towards the construction of Europe. About 915 million euros have been dedicated to this programm in which the “european volunteering service”, “youth exchanges”, and “youth for the world” are part of. We discovered all of this during our training near Bordeaux. Important information for us for we might be interested in some of these actions during or after our european volunteering service.

http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/education_culture/newprog/index_en.html

“Euralp has for mission the development of international exchange, training, advice and research to encourage a better knowledge of the different european cultures”, this is how the association which is sending us presents itself. Created in 1992 (after the Olympic Games), its offices are located in Albertville. In a small discreet office, near the train station, two people work at informing young people on the different european programms.

From the 12th to the 16th February, we followed a special training to prepare us for our volunteering, in Villandraut, near Bordeaux. This seminar, was aimed that answering our questions about the volunteering period as well as allowing us to meet previous volunteers. We had the opportunity to meet the regional director of the Youth and Sports state departement, who presented the new programm in which European Volunteering Service will now be part of (since January 2007).

Out of 23 volonteers present, most people headed towards the south-east part of Europe (picture above). The training took place in a relaxed atmosphere, with games, debates, songs, etc… All of which were accompanied by delicious meals prepared by Gilles, the cook.

After these 5 days of meeting all the other volunteers in France, Amelie and I, had the impression of having already started our volunteering service. Not easy to put ourselves into the wait-until-the-end-of-March mode !

Hopefully this was for us the occasion of promoting our blog as well as to make contacts with very nice and interesting people with whome we are keeping in close contact (by email) which helps us patient until we leave.