SUOMI

Here you go, you’re into it! At last you are having the experience you have been dreaming so long about! You’re alone, no friends, no girlfriend, you’re not in your town, neither the air your breath nor the sun that shines are the ones you’ve grown used to: you’re in Finland! Now there is no excuse:it’s you and the unknown; and two paths diverge in front of you… either you fight, or you go back home.
You get a good “vibe” from this place,nobody knows you, you can start over again, from scratch. You are no webbed intoa net of prejudices, you’re like a new-born baby. For a year, this won’t have anything to do with your life back in Italy, it’s like living in a parallel universe, living another person’s life, you can build up whatever you want.
This is exactly what I was after. To put my forces to the test, to see if I can face something completely new, without any support from the people you know. That’s a good thing.
I’m looking for an European self-perception, able to cross national boundaries, expecially the Italian ones, since I feel my country present situation doesn’t represent me very much. I want to get to know different people, who live by a kind of values I can belive into, with a lifestyle I can share. Far from the false gods we have made up in our society, I want to get engaged in someting that could be shared, put in common, belonging to everyone and which everyone can easely identify with.
n the nine months to come, i want to learn, learn, and learn. I want to learn how to be a person free from prejudices; to understand that my way of life is just one among many others; to realize that everyone has something to teach. I want to “steal” any fragment I feel worthy, any piece of thought I can love.
I won’t complain about anything. I will love the watered-down coffee as much as the unending woods; the half pillows as much as the sauna that makes me brand-new; the cork-tasting wine as much as the wonderful lakes; the incomprehensible language as much as the pale sun that warms me up; the windows you can’t open as much as the people calm tact, the intense cool as much as the magic views that only a country as Finland can give you.
For these nine months, and I’m sore for many to come, I’ll be totally in love with this contro, so different and so similar to mine, to me. My feet will find their path on a land that is also mine, because I love it; my eyes will look at view that belong to me, because I belong to them.
The task I’ve been given here are the best I could hope for. I work in an organisation that is big because the people who work in it are “big”. Boys and girls who believe in what they do and do it at best, whith a pleasure in giving. Those are the true teachers.
The EVS project is not only a year abroad, a break from routine, a way like another to learn English. On the contrary, it means to live intensely your life, to start off and head to unknown seas, and be back one day with your sheap filled up with gold. A treasure you bild up everyday with your own hands.
Nice to meet you, I’m an European volunteer, and proud of it!