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: 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)
Filed under: Camp
The poi workshop
Helen forced me into describing the poi workshop and I´m happy to do it. The workshop has a sad history – it was only held once (there was another workshop time in the schedule some days later, but the masters didn’t show up and not much people seemed to care about it). There were quite many of us too, fortunately about ten people were in the back-to-roots workshop having a nice back-to-roots sauna by the sea. The workshop was quite general so only the basics were taught.
However, the workshop totally changed my opinion about poi’s. When I first saw someone play with them I was absolutely NOT interested, I didn’t even bother to ask anyone what are those balls doing in the stockings. Then I saw Mimmi and Tommi (the masters) do something else than just twirl them around in one direction aaaand I was rather impressed. I still didn’t learn anything cool in the workshop itself, but thanks to Mihkel’s poi-skills I managed to spin them around more effectively after some useful tips.
During the one and only workshop we made a list of the people who are going to perform in Gloria and it’s looking good – I’ve even seen a couple of people practicing. Kristin sitting next to me is claiming that she has also touched the poi’s today (first time though).
We’ll see, hahaa…
Henno (Estonia)
Filed under: Camp
Theatre/drama workshop
Day one
The day started full of excitement and thrill before the beginning of the theatre workshop. In our group there is 7 persons Elena and Rudiana (Romania), Karoli and Kristin (Estonia), Kiko and Raju (Spain), Jenny (Germany). We all sat on the floor and looking at each other unsure what is going to be next and then our workshop leader started the lesson. Her name is Mikaela and in ordinary life she is a drama instructor.
We started out with simple energizers to wake up and get our blood pumping. Touring the workshop we did different exercises and games to get our mind opened and learn to express ourselves. We had a lot of fun and we could move a lot. Also started to learn a dance for the final presentation as it came out later. At the end of the day everyone was happy and waiting for the next day. Mikaela, our leader, was really pleased and happy to have our group… J
Day two
W e started out as usual. Games and dancing. Improvisation was a key word in our workshop. We had different games where we had to imagine and act without anything given to us. Everything we did had to come in 1 second without any thinking and planning the next step. This really started to open our minds and we weren’t so scared anymore.
Mikaela put us to 3 groups who had to think of some ideas, what should be our main theme in the play. After brainstorming we came together and finally decided that it would be „Life circle”. Our group wanted to show how life revolves around us and how everything leads to an end but through that back to a new start. We generated some ideas what should be and how would it look. Also who is doing what. We even manage to start with the play and had some main things done.
Day three
Today we really started to work. After games we took the paper and sat down. We took the main idea for the play and started to but down what we wanted to do. Practiced a lot and with every moment we had new ideas, changed and did things differently so the play changed from what it had been in the beginning. But that was not bad at all… With every step we made it got better and better… and we were pleased with the outcome 
Estonians game also to an idea (Romanians too ) that we could perform every countries (represented in our group) love poems. We tried that and Mikeaela was really pleased so we kept it and but it first in the play.
Day four
Today we don’t have Mikaela with us so I had to lead the group. The day started badly cause the whole camp slept in for 1 h . The stress and less and less sleep have started to wear people out. Finally we got to the class. Two of us needed to go to the city to buy stuff for national evening so we had less people. Plus other two went to sleep because they thought everything is starting later. Finally we got together and we practiced the whole play. Made some things better and then went for a rest.
Day five
Half of the day we spent visiting other workshops so we had time afternoon to have our own practice.
Today we had Mikaela again with us. We told her everything about the last day and we discussed the play in general. We finally had the ending too so now we could do it all in a row. We did it twice. Seemed that the rest we had yesterday helped us and we did things much better. Mikaela proposed minor changes and we had it finally ready Jeeyyyy Now we only have the anxiety before the big day in Gloria. Can’t wait: D
Little bit about the opinions from some of the theatre workshop members:
„Music, dance, feelings…
This is what the drama workshop is all about. I had a really good time, enjoying others expressing their emotions. Also a lot for our leader, Mikaela”
Elena (Romania)
„PURE ENERGY!”
Kristin (Estonia)
„Powerful energy, natural, good for dancing, interesting, new ideas, creative”.
Rudiana (Romania)
„Drama really works It breaks language and cultural barriers. This group has a lot of potential. Everybody was free and opened to new things. I am going to miss this group. Hopefully we can work together again someday.With high positive spirit you can go anywhere!”
Theatre workshop leader, Mikaela (Finland)
Karoli (Estonia)
Filed under: Camp
Four years ago, it was the first time for me to take part in such an International Youth Exchange and I have to admit, it was one of the greatest experiences of my life, ever!
In July 2004, about 40 people from 5 different nations were supposed to live together for two weeks. People coming from Germany, Finland, Romania, Estonia and Catalonia took part in this exchange. As you can see, Sloveniens weren’t participating in this exchange but the following years though 
First, I did not know what I had to expect or what would happen exactly in such a camp, even though I was in the German group, so I had some big responsibility in organisation and such stuff too! But Careen (Maiser) and Dirk (Wullenkord) organised our „organisation” very well, so we were really looking forward to these two weeks, everyone of us. I knew that for some guys of the German group it wasn’t the first time to spend two weeks together with people from different countries, working together on several projects and having fun doing things they never did before
The first thing which really suprised me was the so-called „Energizers”. These are very funny games played first of all to try to get the group closer and then to wake tired people up in the early morning. I can remember that we also had to stand up at 8 o’clock in the morning, but we really had to do it, because Dirk (as a typical German ) was very strict concerning the waking-up.
After waking up, 40 people finishing their morning-shower, having breakfast and embarassing themselves at the Energizers, we began to work on our workshop or whatever we had to do We had about six workshops I think, I can’t remember… sorry But we had a film workshop, a photo workshop, dancing, stick-fighting and sewing. I took part in the sewing workshop and I made some really fancy clothes (have a look at the pictures from archive)
The film workshop produced a very good short movie about a creature exploring the world and getting to know all this confusing stuff like technology or metros. The film is called KUKIMUKI and I already showed to several classes in my school and other institutions about 40 times I really love it. Especially the part were Dirk (and everyone who knows him please imagine this ) plays a bumb… He did a great job
I can say that every workshop did a great job, for example the photo workshop which had very good results. This is one thing I really don’t know how to describe, because in my opinion, you have to see these pictures, their effect on you is unbelieveable.
The „action” workshops, that means every other one which has nothing to do with media, were totally different to each other. The stickfighting was just about 5 days or something like that but it seemed to be very funny but exhausting like the dancing, too. At the end of the two weeks all the workshops presented their work and explained why they did what they chose to do.
I have to admit that it is unfortunately very hard for me to remember everything of the camp 4 years ago and to pick out the most important facts for You. In fact, it seems to become just a description of the workshops and all that stuff but the camp wasn’t like that. The most important thing You have to know about this camp is that I really met people who are very important to me, that those camps bring people who seem to be so different and find out that they have actually very very much things in common. It can be the small things like listening to the same music or having the same hobbies but it happens to be things like character, personality and just seeming to know each other for years. I regret with all my heart that I missed the last exchanges, because the moment of coming back which I had when I was in Helsinki because of the preparation meeting was beautiful. I loved to get a hug from someone from another country I haven’t seen for about 4 years and feeling one word coming to my mind: HOME, I am back. The love You get in such a camp, You can’t find it anywhere else. It’s different from everything You have experienced before.
I think that’s all I have to say right now… Just: Helen, I LUV YA!!! Thank You for remembering me and keeping me in Your heart. You are the most … I don’t know, there’s no word for it but You know what I want to say.
Jenny (Germany)
Filed under: Camp
Others write about us: http://www.maailmalle.net/Resource.phx/maailmalle/ajankohtaista.htx
Filed under: Camp
Some statistics of the blog:
By now we have 777 clicks (January 15, 2008 at 3.45 am) not counting blog authors visits.
Our blog has been visited by 4 National Agencies (Finnish, Estonian, Romanian, Slovenian. Where is German and Spanish ones?), also ENTK (Estonian Youth Work Departement) and by many unknown IP addresses: )
We have seen, that many clicks have also come through www.orkut.com and www.facebook.com where we have spread the project’s final presentation invitation and blog’s website to about 750 persons. Many clicks are also coming from different mail-servers as we’ve been spreading the word around through e-mails aswell – e.g. to all previous exchanges visitors whose contacts we have (about 108 not including this camp’s new contacts) and so on.
So far the most successful „click” day for us has been Sunday, January 13, 2008 when we had 164 clicks: )
Thanks to all and feel free to comment on the blog aswell! Feedback, ideas and proposals are always welcomed. And hope to see You soon in Gloria, in Helsinki!
