Nature Program Trip

Last week, I already got the impression that the school is just like any other. My week at school was pretty normal. On Wednesday, Selma, who is also here on an exchange, came by to go swimming in the lake next to our house. We also took part together in the weekly language lessons that YFU organizes. After that, we went for a swim in the lake. My host parents said it probably wasn’t a good idea because of the temperature, but we went anyway and it was fine. On Thursday I went to Järva-Jaani to attend volleyball training and then stayed at Selma’s home for the night because it takes an hour for my parents to go there and back to pick me up.

Over the weekend, the nature program had a trip, and this time it was with my parents, so I was able to join in too. All the students were staying with us from Friday until Sunday. On Friday, we visited a nearby swamp area and learned from a guide about the unique soil and minerals that have been around for 7,000 years. She then asked us if we wanted to do the fast route or a longer one. As nobody had really formed an opinion, I and another guy decided to take the longer one. The only issue was my little brother, who started screaming as soon as we set off. I promised him I’d carry him the last few kilometres, which we did on the longer route. Unfortunately, he didn’t forget about this. So I ended up running 3 kilometres with a seven-year-old boy on my shoulders over little paths in the woods. And on our way, it wasn’t uncommon for us to have to climb over fallen trees or something similar. After this exhausting experience we heated the Sauna but on this day just or family and one other boy joined.

On Saturday, we explored another area of the swamp, which technically counts as the same location as the previous day’s excursion. It’s the largest swamp in Estonia, so it’s also worth two visits. We also stopped at a few water sources that extrude more than 1000 litres of water per minute. Sometimes they’ve been more than 10 metres deep. After hiking to a few of these, we went on a canoeing tour, which was great fun. I was in one boat with my host sister. She thought we’d fall in at first because she felt I was a bit unsafe and unlucky. Fortunately, no one fell in the water. In Germany, such a river would never be allowed as an official canoeing river. Sometimes we had to completely lie down in our boats when the bridges we passed under were just barely higher than our boat alone. There were also lots of trees in the river from the storm the day before. Some of the groups decided to get out and carry their boats around these obstacles, but we stayed in our boat all the time.
In the evening, my father accompanied the visitors to our garage and shooting range. In the end, all the boys but me went, so my sister and I decided to go to the lake with the girls. At first, they just wanted to watch us swim, but after a while, everyone got into the water and, as you might expect, they all wanted to go to the sauna after this cold experience. So we sat in the sauna with six people, which was a bit crowded, but it was fine. From time to time some of the girls left, so we could take off our swimming clothes because the other girls didn’t have a problem with it. The boys didn’t want to go there at all, so in the end my father was alone with me again.

On Sunday, we just went by our neighbour’s, who happens to be a beekeeper. He gave us the lowdown on what he’s up to, how the bees are faring and showed us some of the kit he’s working with. Alide’s family picked me up around the same time the other students were heading out, as they’d invited me for lunch. So we went to Järva-Jaani to a restaurant and then just got back to their place and chatted. They’ve also got a German exchange student this week, but she can speak fluent Estonian and German (and English).