EVS in Estonia

Recently, we’ve been giving a couple of presentations about our experience as volunteers in Estonia. We went back to the highschool where we had learnt estonian and given a tourism course, and spoke with some young people in their lastg year of highschool about volunteering. It was more to give them ideas rather than to convince them to stop their studies to volunteer, but planting these ideas early, can be useful for them one day. If they want to take a break or want to feel useful, or even try working in a domain which they’ve wanted to try, they can turn to the EVS program, or talk about it to their friends. Actually, that’s how most of the volunteers we’ve met got the information about this opportunity, including us !

We also went in a local school, in the nearby village of kostivere, a few minutes by bicycle (a little more riding in the snow). They were having a “citizen day” where they talked about being a citizen and what could be done to change things. We told about what we did here in Estonia, but we had them work in small groups, to discuss what they could do themselves to find solutions to problems near them. the answers were pretty good, especially one group which said they wanted to find a solution to bring more young people to a place where they can meet. They had the room and even some money already, but nobody was coming… we all tried to see what they could do about it. At least it got them thinking about it. Volunteering was proposed as only one of the aspects of being an “active” citizen, as opposed to a regular citizen. Being “active” is not about saving the world right now, but make little changes which make everybody’s life better.

It’s been a while since we’ve posted anything, since the first snows… it’s getting towards the end of our project, so we’ve been finishing thing. Actually, this is one project which we started mid october, just before the snow. I don’t think we’ll be able to finish it now, but here is what we did.
Some of the crosses in Joelahtme cimetary are getting pretty old, and were made in forged metal, a real art-work. regularly, some of them disapear, broken, ruined by time or men. This is why the reserve wanted us to keep a trace of the crosses that were there, so as to have a list at least, which they could start protecting.
We therefore started a catalog, with pictures of each cross, and mesured the length and width of each one. The hardest part is reading a cimetary map. It’s very detailed, but it’s hard to see if the one you are in front of is 27b or 38c, especially in estonian cimetaries where they have trees and grass growing. there are no strait gravelled alleys the idea here is to bury people in a pleasant, natural setting. I think that’s much prettier, a bit like in these irish countryside cimetaries, with the silhouette of the crosses overlooking the sea…
Didn’t want to get into a long dissertation on cimetaries, but here is a short movie clip, to show what was our work, with a gospel-blues music taken from the film “O’Brother where art thou”.
Enjoy !

Here it is at last ! the first snowfall of our estonian winter. After having seen the seasons pass by, the days which used to end around 11h30pm or later now end at 4pm. It’s incredible how much life here is dependant on the weather ! We were exited like children to see the first snowflakes falling. I woke up and was jumping up and down and soon, we were throwing snowballs and telling everyone how happy we were. I even caled a friend in India to show her the snow through my webcam ! unfortuneately she was at work and didn’t think it was a good idea. Anyway, we managed to speak with amélie’s parents through skype, directly from the snow-covered tombs, thanks to the new Wifi connection. We hope more snow will come, the countryside is just marvelous in white.

Yes, Again ! As you can see, we are enjoying the last moments of our stay in Estonia as much as we can ! Last Friday, we went to our traditional dance session in our local culture house. We had been to Parnu, and tought some bretton dances, but this time we were ready ! Amélie and I had practiced some real dances and we knew this time, there would be more people than usual and also some of the musicians from Parnu. It was even better than we had thought. Undoubtedly, this was the best we’ve had since we’ve been here. We danced all our favorite dances (and filmed them too!) there was candlelight for all saints day, which gave it an intimate atmosphere, and the session ended with some singing. Our breton dances were a success and I was able to play some Irish music with Eike, a violin player (the one we’d brought back from Parnu). We spent a great evening. We don’t know if this was our last dance session, but it sure was the best ! Enjoy the video !

Last week, we were called by the National Agency to come and give a presentation of our experience in volunteering to some young people in Narva Joesuu, a small town on the coast, on the banks of the Narva river, which serves as a border with Russia.
It was a long way by bus to get there, about four hours. Though Estonia is not that big, it stopped in every single village along the road. We had to get up before 6am and got home somewhere around 9pm, but it was really worth it. We were welcomed by two very nice people, a couple which was giving this two day training to about 20 russian speaking youngsters.
We then took a walk with Marika, from the National Agency, on the beach nearby. The sun was out, there was hardly any wind, the trees still had their autumn colors and the beach, unlike many in Estonia, was long and sandy. It was perfect for a stroll by the sea. We headed back to the center, just in time for lunch, where we started talking with some of the young people. They were from Kohtla Jarve, a mining city nearby. They were in search of ideas for their lives and had just finished High school. Studying was not necessarily their wish, one said he was thinking of signing up for the army. When we started talking about this volunteering program, we could see they were interested. After a little game together, Marika did her presentation (in russian) and we followed (in english) telling about how we found our project and how it has been living as volunteers for the past 8 months. They seemed pretty alert and interested (though they had not slept much we were told) and asked some more personal questions at the end of our presentation. They were all quite sweet and gave us a drawing they had done and some balloons. It was all they had, but they insisted in thanking us and one girl accompanied us to the door and waved goodbye. It felt good to have been there. We hope it can be an inspiration for them.

Quite suprising that we should be telling you about us dancing in Parnu. Why ? Well, first we do not usually dance except for our monthly session in Joelahtme, but also, Parnu is at the other side of the country. Estonia is really small of course, but still, it’s a good two hours drive to Parnu. It Just happened, that last sunday afternoon, when nothing could have suggested other plans than going back home after church, that Silja (pronounce “Celia”) mentionned about something in Parnu. She asked if we wanted to come, and as we know never to say no to experience the real estonian adventure, we agreed instantly. We could only make out that there was something “greek” going on. Our minds started imagining greek singers and dancers giving a show and people from all over the country coming to see them. Not at all, it ended up it was a dance session just like in our village, but with a little more musicians and older dancers.
We were not displeased, that we hadn’t understood right, but we were not dressed for dancing at all. We had put on polar expedition-like clothes which were not appropriate at all for dancing. It happened that a good group of our Joelahtme crew was there and the dances we knew the parnu people didn’t. Never would I have imagined Amélie and I along with Silja and other of our friends showing older estonian people from Parnu how to dance their dances. Worst, the musicians insisted that we taught the rest how to dance french dances ! What is a french dance ? The only one we could think of which would be representative and not totaly ridiculous was a breton dance. They usually go with people holding little fingers (which the estonians had a hard time believing this could be true) and Amélie and I made up something to match the music which was being played. It was a bit hilarious, but we did our best not to laugh too much, for we didn’t want our dancers to feel like they had been fooled (which they hadn’t. We found out later, that we came very close to some real breton dances! it must have been in our genes…)

anyway, we left for Parnu at 6pm, came back at midnight, with one of the musicians in the car, with whom we had a good talk. A good way to end our weekend.

Last weekend, we decided to take advantage of being in Tallinn to visit the Kunsti Museum better known as “KUMU”. The building itself is one of the most interesting architechturally speaking, among the city’s modern constructions. A part of it is below ground, but the entrance has a sharp end stiking out in the air. Suprisingly, even in the rooms below the surface, there is a lot of natural light. A perfect showcase for estonian’s modern art, which has followed its own development, marked by soviet times. Whereas some artists tried to copy western ones as a form of protestation, other artists, seperated (physicaly and idiologicaly) with the occidental representations of modern art, found their own original definition. Though we’re not art gallery fanatics, ethnologically, it was interesting to explore how estonian artists have found means of expression throughout the years. There were also some more classic paintings, with portaits of young ladies by the river, peasants ploughing fields, but these too differed from the ones we knew, for the dresses they wore and the sceneries, reminded us the costumes we saw and the landscapes which we passed on our trips around Estonia (I tried to show this quickly in the movie clip). It was not the best museum ever, but we certainly had a nice time and appreciated it better I think, after having spent some time here, knowing a bit more about the history and the people.