Filed under: Camp
The „Plan B”
I sit here and look out of the window . It is a little rainy and everything is grey. The time seems to run out always when I need it. Memories. Jenny is singing. Music in my head and heart. Sometimes a sudden sorrow can hit you in the biggest moment of happiness. Just like now.
Imagine that you are in a car with a group of people that you don’t know, you are about 16 years old and this is your first youth exchange. How exciting everything is, how cool it is the whole concept, the people, travelling alone, the cute boys… You are in Germany, at the edge of Berlin in a place that will be your home with many many other people for two weeks and this place is called „Fuchsbau”. Within two weeks, the life that we all live together, comes to a point when none of us will forget the memories of the time together and makes all of us cry in the end. Well… at least I did.
It is two o`clock at night. You are soaking wet and running towards the door of a big house and just when you are about to enter, someone pours a hole bucket of warm water all over you. Just soaking cool… NOT. But for some reason, everyone is ok with this fact. And it’s probably because we are in Estonia, Haapsalu, the craziest place on the planet, when there are about 80 mad youngsters in one place and in the middle of it even crazier Helen Vinogradov and we are having a midnight water war. So now comes the thinking part: what if I hadn’t attended the camp in Berlin? I would have never met Helen, never gone to see what Romania is about; never had the time of my life, I would never have seen all this that has changed me to be the person that I am now. Even more – there wouldn’t be all that love, all these places, unigiri squares and many other things. We never know what life brings. Even if I was lucky it doesn’t mean that you can’t be the same. Just think about it, wish and wait a little. As I said, you never know what life brings. For example besides the best road trip of my life, it also brought the camp in Slovenia.
You are standing in the middle of a cabbage field and facing Elli. Florian and Albert are somewhere in the background, shooting us. None of us dies. We both say: „We will always have Paris” and we leave the field. The camera stops. And we go to have a nice swim in the spa.
This is not another surrealism workshop, although I have to admit that it is another workshop – the film workshop of the camp in Lendava. In the final presentation it is funny and you are proud to see yourself on the screen, so many eyes of others on you. The feeling is great. People are hugging each other. And people hugging me so that the short pink mini skirt that I borrowed from Elli becomes a wide pink belt… Pause. This time it is about working. The camp is about working and meeting old friends and trying to save the emotions and memories in the fear of not seeing each other again, as no one knows when and how. So you learn to share, to wait, to be patient, to help, to ask, to care, to create, to talk, to make friends and most of all – to be.
Heikki is yelling from the balcony: „Juhhuuuuu!” and you are in the middle of all these people with whom you have lived in Meriharju for the past two weeks and they all are laughing. You are in the middle of them, lying on the floor and laughing with them. You feel happy and something squeezes your heart. It’s this „I-hate-to-leave-feeling” again. But the more it presses on your heart, the bigger the feeling seems. You, yourself, feel big. You never know what life brings. And let us not forget to be thankful for it. Thank you all.
The „plan B” has always been there. Wherever is there, whenever is where ever. Its how you are, how you feel, how you think and want to be out of „plan A” . You let yourself go, wish and wait a little and you do what you really want and you go where you are meant to go. You share yourself or your memories. This is my „plan B”. I am where I am meant to be, I did what I wanted to do and I shared some of my memories just to say, that this is why „plan B” has always been there. Because I have always wanted it.
You sit here and look out of the window. It is a little rainy and everything is grey. The time seems to run out always when you need it. Memories. Music in your head and heart. Sometimes a sudden sorrow can hit you in the biggest moment of happiness. Just like now.
Mia (Spain/Estonia)
Filed under: Diary of the camp 2008
Coming up soon!
Filed under: Diary of the camp 2008
Coming up soon!
Filed under: Diary of the camp 2008
And it was morning, early morning. Ad tertiam horam! The dark black sky mingles with the first speckles of daytime grey. After energizing massages the day commences and Gloria looms. Frantic finalizations, last minute changes, even inspiring new creations. Filled with Wheeler’s wholesome midday treat we embark on a journey through the triste forest towards civilization, towards the focus of our day, of our last week, towards Gloria, towards the culmination of all our workshop efforts into one final presentation. Gloria. This name has been mentioned oh so often in the bygone days. How will it be? We find a place with flare, a place with style. Is it a theatre, is it a concert hall? Are we in an American diner? Or is this a raw martial feeling emitted from every corner? Whatever this place is, whatever thoughts it provokes, for this evening we will stamp our own special mark on it. As we swarm into the building there is the din of the sound check, art works scaling the sides and a whole new, surrealist country emerging to cover the back wall. Eyes twinkle and smiles rush over the lips of these young people as the feeling covers them that the work of the past week has taken shape and is starting to pay off.
Bit by bit everything comes together and the time is rife for a little sustinance. First impressions are, as so much of our life, wrong and this cafeteria-cum-restaurant surprises. The garlicky salmon convinces even the most adamant of fish haters and the beef in pepper sauce could hardly have been better. To top this all off, a young man finds that piece of himself he knew was missing, he manages to discover it on this dark Helsinki evening: he tries the HP Sauce and all else falls to utter insignificance. These delicious dishes way heavy in the stomach accompanied by the crispy fried potatoes but duty is calling and so to Gloria we shall return.
Quickly, quickly passes the time. Soon we are all seated firm in our seats prepared for this most special soirée, accepting that hardly any outsiders have braved the darkness to join us. 118 minutes later the spotlights fade for the last time. From a crawling start of country presentations, it can only get better. And it does. How diverse these different acts were; the world of cinematography shows its facettes in two very different but equally well produced short films, an amazing animation and an interesting and so special documentary on this beautiful country’s nature accompanied by a strangely contrasting musical selection. The oral participation of singers, rappers and beat boxers is super, but nothing can top the synthesis of visual and aural experience performed by the theatre-workshop.
Before the show continues with two very talented bands and a lot of dancing (unfortunately the Finnish youth, who have come to see their bands, decide not to let us enjoy their dancing capabilities and seem not to be amused by ours), a spontaneous backstage party emerges, and right in the middle of this, a Mahypphrian midget teaching the authors of this text a game of Salmoniak and standing in line. Back at the ranch it is “hancake” time, and then all the joys of this European youth exchange enfold.
Tim and Paul (Germany)
Filed under: Diary of the camp 2008
Sounds of something like a crow woke me up. Helen. She was running around the house flapping her hands and screaming like some sick bird. A truly annoying way to wake up one might say, but it made me laugh. As usual it took some time for all of us to make it to the dining room to have breakfast. We had sausages –I bet the Germans were happy.
This day was about participating all the workshops, workshop market day. I am a member of the art workshop group and my group started with visiting the surrealism workshop. We made questions and answers without knowing what was asked or answered. With this method we found out that we have to move on because we are invisible and that the spirit of nature ate all the crackers.
In the theatre workshop we jumped around. Wow, my writing is seriously boring. Well anyway, after theatre I fell asleep and slept maybe for two hours. I remember how I was somewhere in between of being awake and asleep and wondering is it morning or evening. Someone said that dinner’s ready, so I woke up.
Some very good Spanish food we had. Tapas and cheese and sangria. Nam nam. Spanish evening continued with a bull race around the house. It meant walking on poor Tudor who was the first one falling down in our struggle. At least I remember stepping on him. I also threw a coffee cup on Jussi’s neck. It was full of coffee.
A nice day I had. Now I’m feeling tired and actually it is Thursday already. I’m done.
Elli (Finland)
Filed under: Diary of the camp 2008
The morning of course was the hard part of the day for me. But l was there for energizers even half asleep 
However, Monday was the day most typical for ”Youth in Action” projects – workshops in the morning and in the afternoon. In media workshop we had so much fun l almost died laughing, although we were shooting dark freaky scenes. But when we were shooting outside l stopped laughing immediately, because of the cold wind and light clothing. Anyways, we did quite a lot for the workshop, so the day was pretty much successful.
In the evening there was German national evening (details in Andrea’s article).
It was very special day indeed – we had SUN for 28 seconds (never before and never after).
Mateja (Slovenia)
Filed under: Diary of the camp 2008
Morning like every other here in Meriharju. Night is never long enough even it lasts for more than 17 hours. It is difficult in the mornings but when you hear all the guys from our little community and feel the atmosphere, you are awake immediately; if not, energizers wake you up for sure.
I was in charge for kitchen help that day. Collecting trash, cleaning, preparing food. Lots of small talks with Wheeler, our new chef who switched Sara in the kitchen. We tried to make some order, cause it was really like in Hiroshima there.
There were some sun rays in the afternoon too and for »grand finale« Romanians prepared great meaty dinner which I (and also the other Slovenians) liked a lot.
Like all the time there were lots of small things that makes us happy and gives us a feeling why it is so worthy to take a part in this project. They compose a greater and deeper meaning which is not describable by words but everybody of us knows what it is about 
Matic S (Slovenia)
Filed under: Camp
MEDIA Workshop
From Nothing to Everything
Camera, light, cutting, editing – there is a lot to be perfect when creating a movie. The Media Workshop on the Camp was very small but that did not mean it was less fun. Starting out with an empty sheet of paper, in the end we had produced two great films.
On the first Workshop day we just threw the weirdest, funniest and most scary ideas around us to get an impression what we could do. Splitting up in two groups, we decided to produce an idillic nature documentary and a horrifying thriller movie. The next step was create a fictional story what turned out to be difficult because as longer we thought, talk and discussed as more ideas came to our heads. Finally, we came up with a story about a man killing himself because he is cannot differ between reality and illusions anymore. While designing costumes, creating sets and placing the light in the right spot, I put on winter coat to go outside and started filming. Even though it was cold as ice, it rained and snowed, the hours passed by and the tapes got full of great scenes for the documentary.
Back the house a crowd, all wearing black clothes, was whispering around a white painted ghost standing in the middle. Behind the camera Manu yelled: “ACTION!” Then the next scene was captured.
After all scenes were done, we had to cut and edit them. Hour after hour and even during the night the movies got their final shapes (not even final yet). While some worked on the computer, others searched for the right background music and recorded piano playing.
In the end everyone was really glad we did it!
Theresa (Germany)
Filed under: Camp
BACK TO ROOTS WORKSHOP – elu on till!
There are basic assumptions about extremes and in Finland it is camping during the coldest time of the year. Although for our bad luck all snow started to melt away, as soon as we had arrived to place where we were camping. Our guide for extremes was Tuomo Lindholm, 14 years scout career behind him. 15 people started their trip to back to roots on Wednesday night pulling sledges and carrying equipment trough dark forest. When we reached our destination, everybody participated putting up the army tent.
Everybody had something to do from carrying water from the well to chopping wood for fireplace. Hard working campers were rewarded with buns that they had to bake themselves in the fireplace. That it wouldn’t had been too easy for campers, somebody had ordered a spanking rain from God, so people went to warm up in the sauna building.
Sauna was great and there was very intimate atmosphere, only candle light, and the wind wining. Bourgeois style, we had a sauna with sea view from the window, and many found it a moment to remember watching lighthouses and the storming sea. Brave and innocent German was convinced into swimming in snow. For Tim and Paul, even sauna was extreme, because they had visited sauna only 1-3 times before..That is even less than average Finnish visits sauna monthly. Tim and Paul actually learned some useful tricks that are worth mentioning for first timers, and in their own words ladies and gents;
1)Don’t go to opposite corner from „kiuas” (the fireplace), because it is the hottest spot.
2) If it is too hot – problem is solved by putting your head between your legs.
3)Don’t be surprised if your skin is still steaming after snow swimming – it`s normal.
After heavy and hardcore sauna, beaten campers wanted to go to sleep, but there was a but. We had a fireplace to keep the tent warm also from inside, so there was „fire watch” list, so everybody would have to stay up for an hour to keep the fire up. How convenient, my shift was from 4am to 5am.
Everything went pretty well and we didn’t burn the tent, tough there was a bit too hot time to time.
Salla (Finland)
Filed under: Camp
Animation Workshop
First of all I have to say, that I thought that this workshop would be a lot more easier, then it actually was. The whole shooting of every single picture, to draw all of the backgrounds, to design the characters and to record all of the voices was of course a lot of fun, but also took a whole bunch of time.
How an animation video is being made:
First of all you have to have an idea. The good thing about animation is that you can basically do whatever you want. You are the creator of your own world, there are no limits. You just have to use your imagination and be creative.
For doing so, the animation group did some kind of brainstorming. Everyone was allowed to write whatever he/she wanted on a big piece of paper and afterwards the group was picking the best words for inventing three different outlines for stories. From those three stories, we chose the most adorable one and started to think about what we need for the movie. There was a lot of preparation needed, but due to our awesome group everybody was helping creating what we needed for the film.
Then the hard part began: the actual movie shooting. We shot it with a webcam, picture after picture. That means that whenever something is moving, you have to push it by yourself, but every single time only a few millimeters. So maybe for a distance of only 5 cm you have to take 50-70 frames. And this took seriously a lot of time.
When we finished shooting, it was time to record the voices of the characters. We wrote a script and just recorded it.
In the end, everything has to be put together in the computer, cut and afterwards burned on a DVD.
Bent (Germany)
