finnish summer week 1

we'll iäm back in finland if you havent heard; and just like last time if i failed to connect with you while i was in so.cal i apologize. so to recap i'm still living this GAP year to the fullest (wikipedia it if you dont know what it is. my GAP started by leaving a good career in social work for the last 6 years to travel and be the good samitan with an organization called Youth With A Mission. i did this cuz i was quite sick and dissatisfied with many things (much like supertramp in the movie 'into the wild' which ya'll should watch if you havent); really i suppose i was craving life change and since i can now be found in the Finnish country side dating a beautiful scandanavian woman and working the forest and the birds, i realize i have really obtained that (although received would be the most adequate description).
my story goes something slightly similar to that of a biblical one. if you might recall, jacob worked years to marry his wife and then was tricked into marrying two women and working twice as long (dont know which is worse). fortunately leena's older sister is about to be married and i only need to work one summer. leena's dad agreed to have me work on the farm for him for the summer and leena agreed to continue what seems to be a promising relationship. not too shabby of a deal: shoveling bird shit for smelling the roses.
since youre caught up and knowing that i am currently half way around the world i'll fill you in on week 1 (and if i havent mentioned i'll be here to sometime in mid-august so look for any catching up in so.cal to happen then...yes, just in time for usc football baby):
so the first day i actualy spent with leena's older sister. we planned a surprise party for leena so my presence was kept a secret and leena thought i was arriving a day later. elina and i went to helsinki for a concert of finnish ska (nothing like so.cal ska, it was quite horrible, sorry United Beat or whatever their name was. finland is way too cold of a place to be able to play, understand or listen true reggae ska) then we went to get supplies for the party. party was great leena, i think, is still in shock. everyone had a great time.
rest of the week has been great. my back is sore but my body feels strong from all the work (which really hasnt been that bad). i have always believed in the mind-body connection and there's something truly to be said about good sweaty work that brings peace to the soul. if you dont know, her dad owns ands operates roughly 250 acres of land (one american football field is about 1.3 acre if you were curious). its a lot of property, some of it is farmable and what is not is used to forest trees. hannu plants and harvests his forests every few decades and the past summers harvest partly went to leena's dts funds that helped us meet (random fact). usually he farms various grains (including wheat) but lucky me-this year is a rest year for the fields, so the majoritiy of the work i'll be doing is in the forest, with the birds and on the cabins.
since leena and i hadnät seen eachother in 5 weeks we spent our first day at the beach; very beautiful, reminded me of the oregon coast. the next day we planted some birch and pine trees. the next few days it rained and maintained about 40-45 degrees F (cold and wet) with me shoveling bird shit. really it was kind of cool and having leena doing virtually the same thing right beside me made it almost enjoyable (ok, i loved it). birds? yes, pheasant actually; he's been raising pheasant for about 15 years and during the summer the bird runs must be cleaned, and thatäs mostly my job.
one of the days we spent staining the wood on one of the many vacation cabins hannu has on the property and rents out every summer.
typically everyday i tend to the baby birds and make sure they have food and water and the correct temp intheir coop. then its off to do whatever hannu wants. after dinner i check the baby birds again and pick the eggs the adults have laid. its quite a good routine and you think they'd be used to me by now, but i still piss the momma birds off when i take their eggs (as you can imagine), but they're all cluck no claw.
this weekend we tended the eggs and the eggs about to be hatchlings so check out the link for pics below.
this week's self discovery: i think kittens are amazing to watch and adorable and iäm not ashamed to say; a sever allergy that iäve seemed to grow out has kept me from this secret. the second is that i believe stevie ray vaughn's voice was reincarnated into john maher...who knew he could sing and play liket that? really.

photo link

the finland pics

click!!! PHOTOS!!!

the adventure continues...

so if i havnt been able to talk with you personally i apologize, but the adventure has continued after the 6 mo dts. during the school i began to date one of the girls that was part of the trip that just happened to be finnish. so now iäm typing in finland wondering where my crazy choices in this life could take me.
so far the finnnish experience has been great and for the most part i've met all the family and freinds (almost) as her most prized souvenir from the trip. everyone has been very welcoming including both of her parents who offered me a beer right after they met me (man, they really know how to make a guy feel at home). for the most part everyone speaks english or at least a little bit, except her dad who is hilarious. think of larry the cable guys with a deep voice mixed with mr.bean idioscyncrasies and youäve got her dad; o and he's a farmer. actually all of her family owns and operates farms, ranches or some derivative there of. everyone has roots here its amazing history lesson every time i meet someone new. the house my girlfriend lives in is 200 years old and has been in the family for 100 along with postings in many articles of papers and magazines.
last week i was able to ice fishing with her grandfather. it was quite the rush going from sub-zero kirgistan to hot socal for a few weeks and back to snow and ice, but its warmer now. everyone has a cottage next to a lake because there are more lakes here than minnesota, if you can imagine. the finnish have an affinity for salted licorice called salmiakki that is quite disgusting. they really donät eat dinner because the big meal is at lunch so think bread and cheese for all other meals and everyone has tea time in the afternoon, everyone. also if you didnät know they have this obsession with saunas. everyone has one, even small apartments have one that looks like a closet for two. her dad built a traditional one that is fired with wood for hours and provides a more natural experience along with the whole being naked deal (ya there's no being broken into a family like stripping down and getting all close and hot together). oh, and of course thereäs the whole polar bear deal: ya after sauna they have this tradition of jumping into the whole they break in the ice lake and then getting into a hot tube and it wasnät as bad as you might think, but damn it was cold.
we visited helsinki the last few days. its a nice european city obsessed with design and fashion. think san francisco but more clean and about 12 degrees colder and just as windy. back at her dad's farm its now time to pick eggs in the evening, pheasant eggs (a side business her dad began about 15 years ago).
that's about it for now, iäm off to a lakeside cottage for easter bbq. i'll post pics in a few days if i can and hopefully see most of you at the end of the month. my apologies if you do not receive a post card b-c i would get back before the postcard :)

The long and awaited...

I know many people have been wanting to look at photos of my trip to Kyrgyzstan [yes, that's right Kyrgyzstan NOT Russia like everyone thinks. The country is located in central asia. Go to Google and look it up!] i apologize for having taken so long to post them since i have been back for about 3 weeks.it took me a while to organize and write descriptions so take the time to read them! oh, disclaimer: my i lost all the photots that i had taken [b/c i had to reformat my card] so none of these photos were taken by me and if the picture looks quality most likely it was taken by Leena. photos are best seen enlarged; take the time [there's about 130 of them] click here
the following link goes to pictures taken by Leena Korpijaakko and give a good portrayal of the region that we lived in for 8 weeks. click here

that's all for now, but i'll attempt to post a few more stories or explanations of photos during the next week. email if ya got questions or answers

Recounting the days

Hmm, where to begin? i could start with last night's eating of sheep head, but maybe i'll back track and finish off with that.
so, first i'll talk about the village since that's where i left off last. the guy i agreed to go with was only 23 and there was something about him that i just didn't trust, but in desparation to get out of Naryn [the town i have been working in]i agreed to go. [funny looking back, in some ways both he and i used eachother: i used him to get out of town and experience village culture and he used me to teach english and buy him a few meals. i think it works.]
so, we left early in the morning and they tried to tell me that my freind Jake [17 yrs old, the youngest on the team] could not go b/c there was no room for him. but considering that most likely we'd be sleeping on the floor and there's always room for that and that we've probably slept in some places that they'd never think of i talked them into letting him join.
the journey was about a 5 hour total drive and somewhere along the way we stopped to pee and like flies to candy 3 or 4 children ran up to our taxi holding plates of fried fish. completely random, especially since there is not a lake in sight, but i figured that anything that could kill me was itself killed in the fryer so i ate one and it was great. tasted like mojarra, mmmm and that makes me miss mexico and mexican food. we got to their home which was very traditional and humble. the guys share a bed in one room and have a small desk in there; the room is heated by a coal burning stove at one end and they use cow pie to start the fire [sweet! its just grass anyway right?] meals are cooked in another room by the lady that owns the property and little round faced children bounce around the room and off eachother and their mom as she cooks. a few nights later we were given the highest and most important KR national dish a guest could get: Beshbarmat. it literally means five thumbs b/c its eaten w/your hands and all share the same bowl. the food is sheep face meat mixed w/oil and seasoning and thrown in w/noodles and then mixed by hand [of course]. really, it was pretty good and i had a great time laughing at the little boy who played with the grease and fat on his hands as it cooled and coagulated making sounds as he smushed his hands together.
the first day there was some confusion/excitement about an americans peresence in a village in the middle of no where. i was able to go around the village with a man whose translated name meant 'strong gold' [i kept wondering if it had anything to do with his teeth that the soviets gave him but i'm sure he wasn't born with them even though imagination might argue]. he took attendance and checked those who did not make it to school. we must have visited at least 14 houses and were given bread and tea at all of them. i've never eaten so much bread, i felt like spongebob and i kept having to pee on the street [that's what they do here] like a night after hanging out w/the guys. the houses are all the same and so representative of this country. usually a small room that everyone cooks in and maybe another where they sleep; outside there is usually a courtyard where the sheep are penned and a small storage shed. many of the people are warm and few are suspicious; people are people. one bobushka imparticular was so appreciative of our presence.
so the two schools i was able to help out with were so grateful that they had a native english speaker that they would completely interrupt a class and put me in front and expect me to give a full fledged english lesson. hmm, i've never taught in front of a class before and i don't claim to have full authority of the english language myself, but i speak it so that's enough right? well, it was; most of the time they just wanted to hear me talk. i taught classes of 9 year old to classes of 17 yr olds and by far the best classes were the 13-14ers. these kids were hungry to learn and made teaching so fun! i never thought i could teach, but the whole experience makes me consider doing it in the future.
our trip to the village concluded with a second tour and the hospitality of a group of 21 year olds who invited us into one of their houses. he sat us down and asked if i wanted to watch a "sexy movie" while he went to get something [of course i declined, it was funny though and what may be even more hilarious and awkward is the thought watching porn w/strange kyrgyz men. that's an adventure i never want to have]. when he came back he had gifts for me and jake! random gifts! jake got a dress shirt and i received a pair of socks [no pun intended in relation to the previous brackets] and a traditional traditional kyrgyz hat. he soon brought out the national drink: kuh-myz. this drink he insisted on calling kyrgyz tequila, but i still cringed as the cottage cheese-tasing substance made its way past my taste buds. you see, the drink is made from fermented horse milk and has a very mild alcoholic value to it.
jake and i traveled back to naryn alone and enjoyed quite and easy trip [though the first half was in a crowded marshukah making random stops to pick up people in the early 4am morning and reminded me of a trip to mexico i took with the famly when i was 10 but without the chickens]. when i returned i got some strange chest cold that lingered for 2 weeks along with some revelation of this whole experience which is still lingering and i'll share those thoughts later. thanks for reading and show some love people!

Breaking the silence

i really need to apologize for the past weeks of silence. my time in the village was amazing! but since then it has been very busy while returning to my job as team cook and embracing other responsibilities such as service work for the elderly [but more on that later]. the power shortage also played a part, as every time i had a chance to check the internet it the computer lounges were non operative [there are two lounges which only have 4 computers each and the temp is maybe 5 degrees warmer than the outside].
currently i'm in the KR capitol bishkek and happy to much warmer and healthy. our team is wrapping up with a debrief before we fly back to the states in 3 days. beautiful and amazing things have happened over the past few weeks that i can barely comprehend let alone regurgitate for you to read but i'll do my best tomorrow. check back then, i just wanted to say hello.

This week has been a struggle for myself and the team and there is no doubt about it. I have seen how improper preparation for outreach leads to extreme frustration and slow take off, but we are off, we are here and although movement has been slow things are moving. What has been difficult to adjust to is the movement of life down here which reflects the temperature. The highs during the day barely reach above 0 Fahrenheit and drop to -20 at night and with that come new experiences like having my larynx freeze and feeling frozen nose hairs, something I never thought could happen. The Kyrgyz culture is not a task oriented culture and there has been a learning curve to realize this. For example: I planned having a 30 minute meeting with a man today that turned into 2 hours (I should have known better). But at least the meeting was productive: the man is an English teacher at a remote village and asked if I could visit for the week and critique him as well as assist his students; I eagerly agreed. This will be a new adventure as the village is a little more than 200km away and because of the roads a fine 5-6hr drive, which of course I don’t mind. The man constantly made sure that I was okay with poor 3rd world conditions during our conversation (obviously he doesn’t know me well and has been watching too much MTV) and was not convince by me telling him that it wasn’t going to be a problem for me. Hand shakes here are seals for contracts and broken contracts are seen as dishonor (sounds like “the good ol” days doesn’t it?), so at the end of our conversation I agreed to join him and his companion teacher for a 6 day stay. Afterward they invited me and some friends over for dinner.
Hospitality here is amazing since they treat all guests with the highest honor (you never know when you might be entertaining angels ). They have a saying here that goes,” two mountains will never meet, but two people can” which is reflective of their willingness to make friends. The hospitality has an interesting tradition where they only fill you tea cup up half way so you can finish soon and they gladly fill your cup again. Chai (tea), naan (bread) and meat (and vodka, though technically not food) make up the basics of the Kyrgyz diet so there are plentiful and can be expected at every meal. Naan is traditional cut and set on the table and to refuse it when offered is disrespectful. We were blessed on this night to have a traditional dish called ‘kurdoc’ which usually includes potatoes and seasoned meat. Although this time kurdoc had no potatoes I did have the privilege of watching him carve the sheep right in front of me and about 15 minutes later a plate of hot salted sheep meat was placed in front of my friends and I; no plates, just forks and a community plate. Before we left our new friends promised us more traditional food in the upcoming days and confirmed once again (by handshake) that we will meet them in the morning to depart on the week’s new adventure.
What else is going on? Well the week has been very fruitful after all. Some of the team members have been able to connect with the locals over conversations on the street, in the bazaar and over meals. Most of the members of the team have been pulled in off the street for a feast and one was even invited to spend the night. We have been able to give support to a missionary family that is here on a long term basis as well as visit one of the local pastors twice a week to spend time with him and his mini orphanage. We were able to connect with a couple from the Peace Corps that has been here for almost two years and were given some insight and prospects for us to engage while we’re here. The snowboard ministry is still booming (and so satisfying as you can imagine). I was able to speak with the man who operates the tow ropes just outside of town and he willing accepted my offer to have our team give free lessons to the locals. Today was our first opportunity to that just after a local ski competition finished. Everyone wants to get at least one try on a board and is so grateful after; in fact, we have regulars: a group of guys 15-17 that turn and stop with control!
Sadly, as of the last couple days I’ve suddenly realized I’m out of my comfort zone and am seeing the stark contrast between my way of life and life here (it’s like delayed culture shock), but small things keep me grounded and in perspective like listening to my ipod and drinking some of the coffee that I brought. Last night I was able to watch a UFC dvd that a friend purchased at the bazaar for 40com (a little more than a buck) and some how watching guys beat the snot out of each other made me feel like I was at home for a bit (that’s for you Trav). [and ya, I know, that’s kind of demented] and somehow simply writing this blog keeps me grounded and I remember once again to embrace The Process.
Thanks for reading the blab!