When I came to Finland, it was my first time, but I’ve had a lot of first times here: first time taking the plane, first time that far away from home, first time alone, first time speaking only English. I discovered Helsinki from the sky before exploring the streets there months later. I experienced dead looking nature, frozen lakes, the snow, seeing the differences with the trains and the buses. I see how Finnish people are, how they live, how they think, what they eat and how much they love the sauna. They taught us how to prepare and enjoy it as I had never done this before. And I see now the difficulties and challenges people have when they work in construction. Another new thing for me was the community lunch. Before that, I had cooked just a little, but now, when you are in the kitchen for a week, it’s something else then just cooking for yourself especially with the different allergies people from the village have. Sometimes you need to change the recipe you’re using a little and you learn how to cook with what you have, learn to make other version of the recipe and maybe even like it.

We know the phrase “Winter is coming”, but they say “Spring is coming”. And it came. All the nature that I saw dead was now growing. The grass began to grow, the flowers followed and the insects came out to work. But the spring had barely begun before the summer followed, along with the heat. But we managed with the weather and started planting seeds in the field. And after the heat came the rain and all the plants began to grow, sometimes too fast. And already two months past that we can began to harvest a lot of vegetables. When the summer came, a lot of activities became available and we discovered new places along with new people. We fixed the pizza grill with some clay, we started cutting the grass, cleaning different areas, moving other stuff, changing some places. People came to see the gardens, buy some food in the cafeteria and relax with a piece of cake and a cup of coffee.

In these 4 months, I have discovered a lot and I will probably discover more going foward. I’m not sure if I will use the skills and the knowledge I have gained here, but I want to learn more, maybe discover new passions and a new vocation. I’m glad of the step that brought me here and, even if I were to go back to the past, I would take that step again.

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