EVS in Estonia

Last thursday, we were asked, by the association VITA, which we had been to previously in Narva Joesuu, to come back once more, this time in Sillamae. Now, this town has an interesting history, for it was a secret city during the soviet occupation and was not on any map. The reason was that there was some research being done, as well as phospore extracted, for military nuclear uses. No need to say that today, the city still wears the marks of soviet occupation, with block buildings, concrete everywhere, a strong proportion of russian speakers, very similar to Narva. So, for us, it was as if we were taking a trip to Russia. We were welcomed in the school as princes, and everybody, from teachers, students, the principal, all treated us as if we were some important guest. This impressed us a lot, for never in France would we have received such a welcome ! Students were saying “bonjour !” clearly, everybody knew two french people, maybe the first, were coming. We were shown around the school, and cookies, coffee, everything was done to make us feel at home. We were helped by Ilona, which was our translator from english to russian. We were suprised to meet Yelena also, the girl who had stayed at the door to say goodbye in Narva Joesuu. She told Amélie how she had impressed her and motivated her in her studies, and thanked us for our presentation which gave hope and ideas for the future. We were both very touched (especially Amélie) by this, and the gift she had made for us.
We then did our presentation, with no Powerpoint this time. Everything we said was translated into russian, which was interesting, for the small jokes we made would be understood moments later, once they were put into russian.
We then had a talk with the french teacher, and a small group of students, who want to organize a youth exchange with a french school, and study Napoleon during their trip to France. They asked for our help to find places to visit and also a school which they could do this exchange… Not easy, but we will do what we can to help.

We were then accompanied back to the bus, by a group of students, which we enjoyed talking with, and were back to Joelahtme in the evening. Wow, what a day, what a warm welcome, it is things like this which make us feel useful, even after we finished our project in Rebala.

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.

About a week ago, we decided we were through with staying inside. It can be colder, darker, humid outside, one just becomes crazy locked up for a long time. We hitch-hiked to Tallinn, with an interesting russian kite-surfer, which told us without laughing, that he was going surfing, on a rainy and cold day (on the baltic ! important detail to mention !) you would have to pay me to go there with him that day. We then got a bus, which brought us to Rakvere, a medium sized town, which is famous for its meat, and its castle.
We headed for the castle, after some wandering in the streets of Rakvere (we were loking for the train station, a bad idea, only 2 trains a day) it was impressive on the top of the hill, overlooking the town. It was mostly in ruins, but inside, many animations were taking place and we spent quite some time there, with the castle almost only for ourselves !
We headed back to Tallinn at the end of the day, to meet with other volunteers, but our day in Rakvere was memorable and a good opportunity to go out for an afternoon.