EVS-vapaaehtoisen viimeiset viikot Konnevedellä

Since “last year” we met each other, finally I visited village schools to have a reunion with those lovely pupils. They are so open-minded and positive, so that any weariness or bad mood could vanish into thin air straight away. They gave me hugs, and invited me to play games with them, which seem little things, but make me feel very warm, and don’t need to worry the atmosphere will be embarrassing.  

During my visit in Hytölä, two musicians (sorry, I didn’t write down their name, but they did wonderful jobs) visited the school. They brought many traditional musical instruments from Finland, but also the rest of the world. Pupils were so excited to try different musical instruments, They picked the most favorite one they would like to play later on. The musicians invited all the pupils to create a song together from melody to lyrics. That’s a really creative way to let pupils to be involved. During the process, the musician asked pupils speak out the characters they would like put in the song, and made up a story with them. I can’t imagine there is another more inspiring way to make a song than this one. Of course, it was just a draft, finally, two musicians had to use their talents to make it into a musical composition. At the end, when musicians sang that song together with pupils, I was so surprised that it just took around one hour, and which is one of the most beautiful songs I’ve ever heard.

On February 5, 2019, the Year of the Earth Pig begins in Chinese astrology. As few youngsters in Konnevesi are ethnic Chinese, we decided to celebrate it together in Finland J.

To help achieve youngsters’ potentials, Lapunmäki School invited the local entrepreneurs to the school hiring students. It was my first time to see a job fair aiming at youngsters. It is apparently helpful for youngsters to gain the vision on what kinds of job they would like to be involved in the future career life. And the youngster could also spend their spare time productively.

To be honest, before I thought pony is just small horse, and they will grow up as big as “normal” size, until I visited Pony club. Mervi’s family organize this club for the kids with pony ride and knowledge popularization of horses. I had the honor to be on the pony-drawn vehicle. They are much stronger than I expected.

Every Tuesday, lower secondary students can play floorball in the sports hall, I didn’t try it before coming to Finland,which is really interesting,just wish there will be more students to join J.

On the Valentine’s Day, the third-year senior high school students were leaving school to prepare for the final exam at home. Before leaving school, they prepared a big cake and coffee for the teachers, which seems a tradition in Finland to be thankful in the heart (of course, also put into actions). There is another interesting tradition for the graduation, pre-graduated students will prepare lots of candies for the people in the town. They board on the truck,then distribute sweets to the crowd. The truck drove around the town, and some pupils followed the truck around to get more candies J.

As third-year senior high school students left school, the next day, second-year high school students had a wanhat-dance to celebrate the fact that they will be the “highest” ones in this school soon. They are very talented to danced quite different types of dances. Their parents were also invited to celebrate this memorable day.

Mingchen J

Mingchenin vapaaehtoisjakso päättyi helmikuun loppuun 2019. Vapaaehtoisjakson aikana Mingchen, tutummin Minski, tuli tutuksi monelle konnevetiselle iästä riippumatta. Konneveden 4H-yhdistys kiittää projektin yhteistyökumppaneita, ja ennen kaikkea Minskiä vapaaehtoisjaksosta! Toivotamme Minskille mitä parhainta jatkoa. 😊

Pakkastalven huumaa, digitaitoja ja pulkkamäkiä

Konneveden 4H-yhdistys ry on saanut Erasmus+ -rahoituksen vapaaehtoistyöntekijän työllistämiseksi. EVS-vapaaehtoistyöntekijä saapui Konnevedelle marraskuussa 2018. EVS tulee sanoista European Voluntary Service.

Vapaaehtoisen työjakso Konnevedellä kestää helmikuun 2019 loppuun. Vapaaehtoisemme on kiinalainen Mingchen He ja hän saapui meille Unkarista. Vapaaehtoinen voi työskennellä 4H-yhdistyksen lisäksi myös Konneveden kunnan ja sidosryhmiemme palveluksessa.

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Lumikenkäilyä Marjan perheen luona.

During the Christmas time, I visited Seinäjoki and Tampere. Seinäjoki is not a big city. Unlike most other Finnish cities, there are not many lakes around city. But still I found a lake nearby the local central hospital. Walking around lakes and having some peaceful time by just sitting by the lakeside are my favorite things to do. Of course, because the weather was chiily, I couldn’t sit there still. I chose to have a walk. Soon I realized that lake is an artificial one after talking with the local. I didn’t check out what is the real reason behind digging this lake, let me just assume lake has an crucial position in Finnish people’s heart. Until backing to Konnevesi, I got to know Seinäjoki is called “Strawberry Town”. I guess the lake also plays an important role in the water supply for the growth of strawberry J. And Tampere is bigger than I imaged. I am not doing to write in detail, as I was more like a tourist.  

Maijan perheen luona perinteisiä suomalaisia ruokia.

Last few weekends, I visited my mentors - Marja’s family and Maija’s family, I had gotten the chance for first time to try snowshoeing, what’s more, first time to walking on a lake equipped with them. Even though that day was an extremely cold, it was a fabulous experience. I also visited a cinema (which seems the only one within Konnevesi?). At the beginning, I was worried if there are enough audiences to watch out there, as it is located in the small village, but soon I cleared up the doubt by talking to the one of owner there, who had started that business since he was 12 years old. What an unbelievable story. I tried to recall my memory backing to my age of 12, I am the boy who used to be excited for whole day for watching an open-air movie. In addition, I learnt how to cook some Finnish dishes and dessert from Maija. Margit also visited me to visit her family, and shared their stories with me, the most amazing thing to be here for me is getting to know how people live their life here and how this big community works.  

Laskiaispullia, nam!

There was one day in the Lapunmäki school, which is called “Digi Open” (not sure if it is right), which is part of a national program including several Universities. Pedagogical students in University of Jyväskylä joined with the teachers in Lapunmäki school to apply some digital methods to help students for learning, like Typing practice, Swedish language study and so on. It was nice to visit there quickly!

Kyllä hätä keinot keksii!

Finland should be one of the best places for the winter sports. People start skiing at a very early age, even though there are not many mountains. But the heavy snow can make skiing a sport easy to operate. As you can see, there are so many things for me to have a first try, skiing is also a new sport for me to join, although I have watched it on TV many times, it always looks far away from my life, as a person living the places with a little snow. Frankly, it looks very easy to get speed to move forward, but I ended up like a snail. Obviously, there must be something wrong with my skiing skills L. Furthermore, I have to mention sled ride, with mates of international club, we had a sled ride on the hill. I had seen the kids in daycare playing with sled, but never tried it by myself before. The experience proved that sled ride is an very interesting, not just for the kids. Although I didn’t prepare well for clothing ,and have to use the plastic bags wrapping my shoes, this sled ride did bring me to the childhood with a great joy.

Stay tuned,

Mingchen J

Mingchen He työskentelee Konneveden 4H-yhdistyksessä vapaaehtoistyöntekijänä marraskuusta 2018 helmikuulle 2019. Mingchen, tutummin Minski, kertoo työviikoistaan ja kokemuksistaan Konneveden 4H-yhdistyksen blogissa.

Kyläkouluihin tutustumista ja kirpputoreja - Mingchenin kokemuksia Konnevedellä

Konneveden 4H-yhdistys ry on saanut Erasmus+ -rahoituksen vapaaehtoistyöntekijän työllistämiseksi. EVS-vapaaehtoistyöntekijä saapui Konnevedelle marraskuussa 2018. EVS tulee sanoista European Voluntary Service.

Vapaaehtoisen työjakso Konnevedellä kestää helmikuun 2019 loppuun. Vapaaehtoisemme on kiinalainen Mingchen He ja hän saapui meille Unkarista. Vapaaehtoinen voi työskennellä 4H-yhdistyksen lisäksi myös Konneveden kunnan ja sidosryhmiemme palveluksessa.

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 I spent few days in the Hytölä school and Istunmäki school this month. As they are located in the village,the school size are relatively small, compared to Lapunmäki school. But it let me feel closer with the students there. The pupils are adorable, friendly and full of curiosity. Although there was a language barrier, it didn’t influence us to understand each other. They are not just curious about the stories from me, also would like to share their talented skills with me, like gymnastic skills J. As there is no separate dining room for people to have meal, classrooms are turned into dining room which give students and teachers more time to stay together, and helps to reduce the sense of distance between teacher and student. Anyway, I like the harmonious teacher-student relationship in the village schools.

For the break time, we played games together in the field,f rom playing football to sliding down from icy slope, which recalled my memory from  childhood. As the Christmas is approaching, the pupils were preparing for the Christmas party held by school. They invited me to watch their rehearsal in their classroom, where were chock-full of happiness and vitality, it was a pity that I couldn’t join them in that evening. Before leaving, in Istunmäki school, I joined the pupils to assist them to make a mini house out of their prepared gingerbread. And in Hytölä school, I joined their voluntary cooking activity in the kitchen after school to cook some traditional Finnish foods. It is not difficult to imagine that Finnish are good at cooking J.

In addition,thanks Janiela and Hilma giving me these portraitsJ

In a nutshell, it was amazing experience with pupils in the village schools. Actually, it help me spark an idea to work as a teacher. Working with this lovely group of people, it worth all the efforts.

Apart from school, I also visited nursing home, which gave me some impressions from the other side. I still remember the first time, I got the virtually conception with nursing home was about two years ago. My Danish friend shared her family story with me that when her parents need others taking care of them, they will go to stay in nursing home, because they are more professional, she just need visit them now and then. I was confused about this thought at the time. As in my country, there is a strong family bond between children and parents (sometimes it goes too muchL), and it is the children’s responsibility to taking care of their parents who get old.People need more emotional connection.

Now I have better understanding, despite in the nursing home people may miss their home/family, but they can work together to make the place with the atmosphere feel like home. This May, my Finnish friend told me the loneliness is a big problem for the elderly in Finland. In the nursing home, people seems living in a small community, during the meal time or coffer time, people will gather together in the dinning room, having the meal together and talking to each other, even joining some activities together to make the life colorful, for example sing together or some visitors come here to give a performances for the elderly to enrich their life, which is fantastic for the mental health. Here I want to introduce my “Finnish teacher”— Helmi, she is 100 years old, will turns 101 next month, but she could stay young at heart. Although we can’t communicate in Finnish or English, her positive energy can always beyond the language barrier. Sometimes she taught me with Finnish pronounce, and end up with my clumsy way J. Happy to see they have good life there. Certainly, the workers in nursing home contribute a lot for the daily caring.

What’s more, I also visited a second hand shop here last weekend, and I was suddenly in awe of them when I learnt about the story behind of this shop. The owner of the shop is a doctor who volunteered in Africa years ago, after that she didn’t stop providing assistance, which has lasted 20.5 years. When I visited there, the owner’s parents were working there, and friendly provided free tea/coffee and cakes for the consumers. It is easy to perform a good action, but not easy to acquire a settled habit of performing such actions. I love this land, because there are so many golden heart people.

Mingchen J

Mingchen He työskentelee Konneveden 4H-yhdistyksessä vapaaehtoistyöntekijänä marraskuusta 2018 helmikuulle 2019. Mingchen, tutummin Minski, kertoo työviikoistaan ja kokemuksistaan Konneveden 4H-yhdistyksen blogissa.