The End of the Camp, the Begin of the Trip

18 - 19 August 2007

Hello everybody!

I have an hard job today, I'm the last that have to write on the blog!

It's very difficult because it's not easy describe all the excitement of these days, all the funny moments, all the melancholic moments and all the tone of this emotions.

There were some moment in which I really perceive the force of our group, I can't say with precision what is this force, but I percived a great unity around us, our lives melted each other.

We worked hard here and everybody tried to make his best for this project. We leave here part of our spirit and our work and we know that our work is only a part of the life of this place. Much people arrived before us and much other will arrive. The camp is finished, but this project will continue for all the people who belive strongly in it and for everybody who need our work. Now we have to travel again. Other project we have to support, there are choose that wait us, and we have to live our life as best as it possible because is a new day and we have to go...

THANKS EVERYBODY!!!

SEE YOU...I belive in it!

HAVE A NICE TRIP!

Gianluca

Worcamp's highlight

Yesterday morning we prepared it all for the Cultural Night : we built benches, tables, the stage, we made some decoration for the stage (blue pieces of clothes all around) and made sure all will be perfect for the evening ! Carina finished the camp sign : the Åland flag decorates the building's wall now.

When we came back after one free afternoon, we prepared in small groups the sandwiches, coffee, tea, cakes, hotdogs that would be sold by Emmaüs.

At 6 pm, the music program started with young and different groups : some guitar, a rock girls band, some more traditionnal music, country music. Most of these people are starting their career on this stage !

Lots of people were arriving, in a very good mood, and at 9 pm, when the Fashion Show started, it was crowded and very busy ! The Show consisted on ten numbers and we the volunteers, Emmaüs' friends and workers, Britt-Marie, the EVS Miquel from the Peace Institute, etc, were playing the models. Carina was explaining about Emmaüs and discribing the Show while we were walking graciously on the stage.

Immediately after the Show, people began to run to the changing room to buy the clothes !!

Later, the Cultural Night was finished and we had to remove the benches, tables, the stage, etc. But as we are so many and dynamic people, it all went very quick and well.

Then, as we couldn't seen him the next day, we had to say goodbye to Mate... How sad ! He was very pleased about us and our work with him. During that time, we all shared some beer that we deserved completely.

That long day had been heavy but beautiful !

Work´n´fun

thursday, 16 August 2007

Today was such a full-work day: cutting trees, putting together the stage, setting lights, bailing, cleaning... But like every other day in Emmaus it was an amazing day, even if it's a raining day (but I love rain so for me was even better...)

During the morning someone of us cut some branches and a little tree behind Emmaus shop... then Leo found a very funny job: cutting grass... He had so much fun cutting all grass around and if we didn't stop him, probably he will cut all grass in Mariehamn!

(this photo sustains what I'saying...)

Meanwhile Anita and Sofia tidied up a room in Cirkeln, which is necessary for the Fashion Show, the other volunteers were all busy in other works: bailing, cleaning outside, preparing candle, painting...

Then we had lunch under the stage curtain because it'raining... I could see weariness in other volunteers'eyes...that means that we worked a lot... That's good!!!

After a (really neecessary) break, we could start again!!

Bailing, cleaning all the garden (3 time because the wind every half an hour brought new leaves...), bailing, set lights for the Fashion Show, bailing, put together the stage for the Fashion Show, and bailing again (at the end of the day the container was really full of bales!!!)

After a fast dinner, the general rehearsal could start!!!

At first we had a rehearsal without costumes, just for the last advices... Then we could rehearse like the properely Show... I hope it will be a sucess...or rather...I'm sure it's going to be a success!!!

wednesday 15th

Today, it wasn't a very long working day. In fact we worked only the morning! A welcome half day off for everybody after the long day of tuesday ( and I can say longer for someone of us).

So the morning we worked for finishing some task we had began yesterday. For exemple some people like me was arranging the shelves in the "cirkeln" while the other did the traditional work "sorting and balling".

After the lunch which Marco and felix had done, we come back to the uncan. Me and Sebus took this time for sleep all the afternoon, but the other was outside. They was on the beach or to the beachvolley open. Someone said to me when he come back he had seen the french team defeated by cuba's team.grrr

At the evening, we went to Åland's parliament, where Carina work. It was interresting because Åland has a strange statute in the finland'government. After some body came to the concert of rock next to the beachvolley stadium where gaia should one day sing in... but for the moment we wait always, lol.

So it was a soft day but a good day, like every day at the emmaus work camp ;) .

Léo, worker at emmaus

Tuesday 14.08.2007

The day started bright and sunny. It was a new day for us with a very exciting program, which included a visit to the Ålands Peace Institute and the first rehearsal of the Fashion Show !

The very first morning time accomplishment was the group picture. It features all the volunteers, workcamp responsibles at Emmaüs, and light-haired Walter wearing F.C. Barcelona shirt.

We were chatting for a while before dispatching the day's tasks when, incidentally, Carina told us about a couple unusual facts of Ålands. One odd thing is that some of the elderly crows in the world reside here. The oldest denizen crow of Ålands is 30 years old. It is healthy with feather still shinny black all over. Some of you might wonder how one could find out the age of the bird. The answer comes out very simply as ravens are well known to be watchful and inventive. Therefore, our crow had learned enough elements of our language to tell his age.

Then, tasks were assigned to us. Most tasks were the continuation of previous days, like mounting shelves for the cirkeln, painting the sign for the Peace Park, renovating sunk floating candles and making more new for next year's Hiroshima commemoration. Anna, who is specializing on painting, started a new job consisting in repainting parking places. Of course we continued Emmaüs perpetual sorting and baling movement everyone knows so well.

About this endless work everyone knows so well, it reminds me of that ancient story, Jonas and the Great Bale. It tells how Jonas, who dared disobey God commandment, is thrown overboard during a huge storm to calm the seas. Jonas is miraculously sballobed by a large fish, who many believe is a Great Bale. The ageless Bale and his playmate Jonas live by the seas for years, but eventually Jonas grows up and loses interest in adventures. One day Jonas prays to God and asks forgiveness and thanks God for being so forgiving, and, as a result, God commands the Bale to vomit Jonas out. Jonas alands in Ålands. The Great Bale is left alone and depressed. People tell that henceforth the Bale workaholically attempted to drown his sorrow by starting the endless work everyone knows so well now.

After having lunch and some rest, we headed our bikes to the Ålands Peace Institute. After the so warm receptions our Emmaüs group was offered at every place we visited in Ålands, I was secretly expecting of being welcomed by a taking off flight of doves. Nothing in that style happened, indeed the Institute was very peaceful when we arrived. We met the managers, Justina and Miquel, whom we already met before, and the trainee, all working there. We learned about the history of the institute, about its missions, and its links with other organizations both national and international. Miquel (who comes from a catalonian speaking region of Spain as me) told us about the EVS volunteering program in which he is participating.

Later on we all had diner at Emmaüs. Excitation became increasingly visible on everyone eyes when the hour of the first rehearsal for the Fashion show came. The first show rehearsal was an amazing experience for us the workcamp volunteers and the many other enthusiastic models and women who are working a lot to make this great event a reality.

Typical work day at Emmaus

Monday, 13.08.2007

It´s already monday, the beginning of a new week of hard (but satisfactory) work here at the Emmaus Work Camp. Monday´s always an awful day for those who have passed a wonderful weekend as us and want to keep relaxing and having fun ; however, we feel that we are in the middle of our adventure, so we try to live totally, day by day, this life experience.

The first thing I thought when I woke up was: "Oh no! Only a week and then back to Italy...I don´t wanna go home!"

Anyway, at 9,00 am in the morning we were (almost) all outside the kitchen of Emmaus, ready to listen to Carina who was talking about the activities to do that day.

In the morning I tried to help Matte and Marco to mount some new shelves in the Cirkeln, but I´m not an expert as them in this kind of "men´s work" so I decided to help Arianna who was arranging children stuff in other shelves.

The others were doing the traditional emmaus works like bailing and sorting, cooking, emptying the blue container, writing on the blog...

Then finally we heard the ring´s bell calling us for lunch... * __* HUNGER!!!

The two french guys, Leo and Marcos (who´s Spanish but lives in France), had prepared pasta with a souce made of meat, eggplants and I don´t remember what... however, it was deliciousssssss... and if an italian like me says this, well it´s true! :)

In the afternoon Anna and Carina took our places at the Cirkeln...

...so Arianna and I decided to join at the "bailing and sorting" the other italian girls Anita and Sofia (who´s hiding behind a pair of jeans :P)...

This is me, Gaia, weighing some bags to shunt...

And here our two "chefs" in a free moment, repairing broken headphones...mine are broken again! :) ahah...but it doesn´t matter, they´ve made a good job!

In the evening, after dinner we saw the movie "Lilja 4-Ever" talking about a young russian girl who wants to start a better life going in Sweden, but there she´s imprisoned in an appartament and forced to perform sexual acts. The movie ends with her suicide.

This story, which I think is a critic at sexual slavery, reflects the life of many girls that like Lilja, are tricked and exploited as they were objects and not women.

Anyway, I´m having a real good time here in Åland, this is an experience I´ll never forget. So thank you to you all :)

>>-Gaia->

Paper-Pizza!!

That´s finally Sundey... today no work but neither trips, today total relax! The whole group woke up late, around 10.00 am and had a big good breakfast..maybe too big 'cause we run out of all breakfast-foods.. wow...!

Anyway after breakfast the italian group had a great, fantastic, wounderful, incredible idea: make a delitious italian pizza for dinner!!! But to make a good pizza you need good ingredients that you can find at the faboulous Åland's supermarket!
All together we went there to buy something for lunch, for de next day's breakfast and for the pizza, by the way we decided also to make an italian cake for dessert: the Tiramisu' and so we bought all the expensive ingredients for that delitious cake..mmmh! :)

After the good lunch which had been prepared by Claire and Marcos, the italian staff started the hard work for pizza and tiramisu'.. I won't write everything 'cause I probably will spend the whole day..but I'll put some amusing pictures..... :)

WOW!! Unfortunately I haven't got any picture of the tiramisu'..I'm sorry!

Anyway during the afternoon we also had time to go to the beach to swim and sunbathe a little bit after the hard work for the dinner.. :)

Back from the sea we baked the pizza but we forgot to put some oil under!! So after the baking pizza and paper were the same thing..peeling it was very difficult and someone (like me) decided to eat it..! How embarassing!! Anyway the salad was quite good and the tiramisu' was perfect!!!

After dinner we washed the dishes and than layed all together on the sofas, talking or watching TV..Has it really been a relaxin day?? :)

-SoFiA-

Trippin´ to Källskär

Saturday , 11.08.2007

guten morgen!

this is sebus writing about our first day without any work! ooohhhh!!!!

but for this day we needed to get up a bit earlier, coz we wanted to go to a little island in the very south of åland, called källskär!


so, we drove to lumparland(i love this name), coz their was the ferry waiting for us!

we were allowed to drive with the cars of katapult and byggreturen! we picked them up yesterday!

the ferry-trip was for free - thanx to all the åland-people paying taxes for it! salute!!!!



it took roundabout two and a half our and the sight was impressing! only water and inbetween some pretty little island!

after leaving the ferry in kökar we entered a little boat to finally reach källskär!


here we met our guide from estonia! she introduced us to the life on kökar!






after an hour we arrived and started our sightseeing-tour!

to be honest , i didn´t liked to group walking around on this beautiful island!


it was almost untouched natur, so a group of roundabout 25 people walking guided by a loud-speaking girl was a bit absurd to me!

so i did my very own thing, relaxing on the rocks, enjoying the beautiful silence of mother nature!! for a short moment i felt like robinson crusoe!






but i needed to go back to the group, so i found them all laying at the stoney beach, relaxing , swimming, sunbathing! after joining the island for nearly two hours in the sun i also needed to go swim, and what shall i say, the water was fantastic! more,more,more


after another hour of relaxing it was time to go back, our little boat was waiting for us!

källskär isn´t that big, but all of us were so tiered after all, so we really needed a rest! so we used the trip back for sleeping and doing nothing!






back at home, gianluca and anita were so nice to prepare some italian-style pasta - DELICIOUS!!

later on, anna and me (the german-poland -connection) went out to explore the mariehamn-nightlife! for such a small town there were quiet a lot of people around! we were talking to lots of people, coz their were really interested in us foreigners !the more i don´t want to write about this evening! i just wanna mention that it really got late!

right, enough for this day, let´s see what will happen tomorrow! bye, bye

bears and Birger's day

Friday 10th of August

This is an other day of rain but fortunately it stopped in a few minutes...in the morning we went with our bikes to Byggreturen.
This is a place where some volontaires recykle building materials and also bears...if you don't believe me look at the pictures!!!!

In front of this big structure there is an other one called katapult. In this place some young people, who have left the school for some problems, are employed to work. Their work consist into repair and sell forniture. The volontairs talk with them about their future plans and thank to them about 70-80% of the guys get a job or decide to continue the school...

Later in the evening we went to Birger's house near the sea where his daughter Sofia cooked for us very good vegetarian food...after the dinner someone wanted to use canoes or to do a very very hot sauna (80 degrees!)

Look Gianluca with his life jacket!!!! He is afraid of deep sea..but before the end of the work camp we'll be able to put him in the water...I promise you!!!

Anita

(any kind of) Music day

Yesterday was a kitchen day for both Felix and me, picture here proofs it ! We got loads of fruits from the supermarket, which gave us the idea of making some fruit salad in the evening. Actually the bowl didn't last long !! Emmaüs volunteers were really starving after one more day working.

By the way, what about yesterday's tasks ?

There was some more painting outside on the doors, and also on the sign for the Peace Park ; Carina had to paint some letters very carefully on it and she did very well !

A path made of tiles to the entrance of the Peace Park was built. And of course the usual sorting and baling had to be done, the endless Emmaüs work everybody knows so well now ! It's really amazing how fast the amount of given bags and boxes grows again after having been weighed and sorted a whole day... And all this is brought by the people from here, Mariehamn area, that's one of the things I was wondering about before coming : how come can an Emmaüs send containers to other countries and have a shop too, if located on an island with a small amount of inhabitants ? But, yes, it is so and it works very well ! I like being surprised that way !

But back to yesterday, we had several events and the first is where the music day starts :

- A lunch concert in the church St Görans (next to Uncan), it was part of the "Katrina chamber music festival". We could listen to clarinett, piano and viola. It made us a bit sleepy, because we were getting hungry I reckon, but it was very nice.

- After dinner, we had a visit at Uncan : Justina, from the Peace Institute and Emmaüs. She's Lithuanian and came to explain us about the social projects in Lithuania, helped by Emmaüs and the Peace Institute. These projects are refering to single-mothers, children, families with social difficulties in Lithuania, Kaliningrad and Belarussia. She told us about sexual slavery as well, and the Missing Persons' Families Support Center in Vilnius, the girls' groups (in order to prevent girls to be sold as prostitutes), and what is done to help the women who escape and come back after. That was very interesting and tough. I'm looking forward to visiting the Peace Institute next week.

- And finally, to end that day, the main part of our group went to another concert in a pub, but not exactly the same kind as earlier... power metal hardcore rock noise punk music ? (Choose what it sounded the most to you) Unfortunately we don't have pictures of it, but Sebus can perform the music players very well !

That's it for today and in part from the mosquitos' bites, everything's all right !

Emmaus doesn't stop because of the rain!

Yesterday when we woke up it was a little bit colder but after a good breakfast we all went to work with a big smile on our faces. There were a lot of possible things to do:some guys continued painting emmaus buildings (and not only buildings!) as you can see in the photo, some other guys were very busy in tidying rooms with a lot of emmaus things to sell in the shop,some others tried to make a little street from emmaus building to the peace garden (as you can see i m in sitting on the street just done) fighting with a lot of spiders and stones.

It was coffe time when Carina told us that a girl of the local radio came to interew some of us.After some questions to some guys, she asked Gaia to sing a song:Gaia will become a new star here i think!

Leo and Anita had to cook for us a delitious omelette and some salad.after lunch break we all returned to our work until five o'clock and was in that moment that it started raining.so we returned to our comfortable house where after a shower we had time to relax.outside it was keeping on rainig so we ate our dinner at home.Leo and Anita prepared a very good tasting chili.After dinner some of us played some italian cards game an then chatted and chatted.

We were all tired from the work day and slowly everyone went to sleep.

Arianna

Another sunny Åland Summer Camp Day

After an exciting night in which a number of us saw an elk walk throught the quiet streets of Mariehamn (did it really happen or was it in their dreams the others wondered) another sunny day full of activities and impressions started.

I myself, Carina W, was working in the kitchen together with the Italian Marco (see picture). It was our duty to make sure that everybody would be fed and would have enough to drink. So we made coffee and tea, let the machine do the dishes, did the shoppings and prepared food and cleared up the mess. Britt-Marie was our guide and gave us any advice that we needed.

In the meanwhile outside a lot of scraping, oiling and painting was being done to make the Emmaus building look shinyer and fresher than ever before. In the picture at the left her you can see Gian Luca happily painting one of the doors.

The result was astonishing. An there will be more to come!

And then another part of the group tried to work themselves trough the ever growing heap of clothes that are being brought in daily. W're all really suprised about the amount of clothes and other things that are being given to Emmaus by the Åland people, as there are only 27.000 inhabitants.

The second par of the afternoon we all helped prepare the evening diner. This would be a meal fot both the summer camp people and the local Emmaus workers. So the terras had to wept, a lot of food had to be prepared and the tables had to be organized.

The result looked very nice. We sat down at the tables, we enjoyed the food and talked. And before the desert was being served (and while we saw the ice cream melting) we all introduced ourselves: our names, where we come from and what we like most about Emmaus. And so we found out that people can have very different reasons to work for Emmaus or to join an Emmaus Summer Camp. For some people Emmaus feels like a special family, where people from many different backgrounds work (and live) together. For others the recycling part is very important. For many Work Campers meeting other people is the main reason. For many of us it's very important that Emmaus is not only an idea, but most of all it is an organisation that really works. An organisation where people can work happily together.

In the picture below you see Britt-Marie Lundberg on the left, Prcka in the middle and chairman Birger Lindholm on the right.

In the other picture on the right you see the French Leo enjoying his ice cream.

After all these nice words we ate our melted ice cream and we could look back at a satisfying Emmaus Summer Camp Day.