My volunteering experience in Estonia

Last spring, I got to go in a Youth in Action project in Estonia. I'm still wondering how could it happened, but it did. An email arrived to my inbox, asking if I was interested -silly question- and in a minute I sent my CV and motivation letter. One day later I was in the project, and two weeks after that I was in a plane going into the North.

My project was called PAPER, which stands for "Planning, Analysing, Preparing, Evaluating and Repeating (for life). It lasted one month (this means it was a short term project) and took place in Tartu, the second most populated city in Estonia, supposedly well known for its famous University.

There I joined with the people who was going to do the project with me. We formed a pack of five: Adriana and Sara, from Portugal; Grega and Ziga, from Slovenia; and me, from Spain. We lived all together in a small village -Vana Kuuste- in the countryside near Tartu.

All of us were going to work in some of the projects that our Hosting Organisation, Öökull (which means owl in Estonian) was developing in Tartu and its district. More or less, we would working two weeks in the Lastekeskus -children centre- they have in Annelinn neighbourhood, one of the most troubled in Tartu, and another 2 weeks in a Work and Rest camp that was taking place in Kambja, a small town near our house.

But just before arrive, our HO asked us if we would like to volunteering too in an international festival that was going to take place in Viljandi (for some and my mentor Agniezska, the most beautiful city in Estonia). None of us said no to this different "meta" experience: a volunteer been a volunteer. So we all worked there too.

Our work in the child centre was pretty nice. We had to prepare the decoration and the food for their Spring Festival, which was the official closure of the year. Also, we prepared a little presentation about ourselves and what was we doing so far away from our home. As the centre was going to close for summer holidays, we did some repairing and cleaning works too.

But that wasn't all our work there. We played with the children too, even without speak a word of Estonian or Russian. Here we got some help from the workers of the centre and from our mentor Agneszka, who translated almost everything they were saying. Before we go, some of us worked in prepare a peddy paper or treasure game for them, to play during Children's Day.

Then, we moved to Viljandi for a long weekend (4 days). There took place the 35th International Hanseatic Days, where we volunteered by cleaning the main stages and streets of the festival. It was a bit difficult, for the task to do (we even hadn't the proper equipment) and for the lack of information about what we had to do. Every paper, every contract, every timetable was in Estonian, so we were "lost in translation", literally.

After that we went back to Tartu. Our new workplace was going to be the Youth Centre of Kambja, where the Work and Rest camp was. We had to prepare some activities and games for teenagers who were working in the morning in the local factory or cleaning the local graveyard. Although we had to face some communication problems and misunderstandings with the management, we got to do everything nicely and solve the problems.

I don't have the feeling we worked that much, maybe because it was only for 30 days. But the thing is that we did. Actually, I think we spend more time knowing Estonia and its culture than working. And that's good!

Thanks to our mentors, Jane, Agnieszka and Ragnar, we travelled along the country (and even abroad!) and we had the chance to live an authentic Estonian experience. They introduced us to the ritual of Estonian sauna, which I miss so much. With them we got lost into the wilderness of Estonian nature, sleeping in the forest with only the moonlight and sailing the rivers with our canoes.

I can't forget all the beers, wines, ciders and Vana Tallinn hot shots we drunk, and which introduced us to a lot of nice talks between us. They gave us almost everything we needed, translated every single word (because Estonian is one of the hardest languages to understand and learn) and tried to introduced us into the local community.

Sadly, it lasted only one month. When we wanted to realise we were there, we were already evaluating our days there. As soon as we arrived, we had to go back home. But we did it with our backpacks full of memories and teachings.