Goodbye Finland!

The last eight months I had the chance to live and work here in Porvoo but now it’s time to say goodbye… The time in Finland was flying but still I made so many good experiences and met a lot of friendly and helpful people. 

Youth center? What’s that?? I don’t know any youth center in Germany and so everything here was new for me. Now after working for such a long time in Nuokka I definitely know what youth center means and I wish we could have something like that in Germany too.  While working in Nuokka I got to know to so many great youngsters and we had lots of fun together. Playing, baking, doing some handicrafts… I could learn a lot with you and from you and I also learned so much about Finnish youth work. I was participating in different events and I could see how everything is going like discos, camps, handicraft evenings and now in the end I made my own cooking club. With a small group I we were baking and cooking German recipes. 

Melanie

The Finnish language is still so difficult for me and I cannot understand how you can speak such a difficult language ;) But I tried to learn a little bit and the best teachers I found with you here in the youth center. 

Beside all of that I made new experiences here in Finland like going to sauna for the first time in my life and I even tried ice swimming afterwards.
I was travelling a lot together with other volunteers. For example enjoying the winter in Koli national park, going for a husky tour in Lapland, visiting Helsinki and many small villages (I even don’t remember their names). We could also make some short trips out of Finland and so we visited Stockholm, Tallinn and Riga. 

All in all I had such a great time here and I’m already sure I will miss it, thank you to all of you!!

I can just recommend the EVS project to all of you!! Going abroad for some months and making new experiences is such a great opportunity. I’m sure you will get many new friends, you can work and live in another country, get to know to a different culture, travel a lot and for sure you will have lots of fun!! 

- Melanie -

Cakes from Farewell-party