05 Sep,2012 - A day in the forest

Today, Wednesday - Keskiviiko in finnish, we had a hard day at the forest collecting garbage.

The amount of garbage collected was amazing, we now have new ideas for garbage collecting at Serra de Sintra and other places...

Lunch was served at a Traditional Camp Fire, like in the good old days... by Tauno and his wife, Helena - wonderful lunch I must add.

We had beautiful sandwiches, grilled sausages (makkarat in Finnish) and coffee, blueberries, apples and sweets.

Sep.04th, 2012 - afternoon and Evening

We were guests at a lecture about hearing - we had translation into Portuguese, which was very interesting, as there aren't many people in Finland who can speak Portuguese. 

After all, the lady translating had lived in Angola, and was the god-mother of the only Finnish I have ever met in Lubango, who could speak besides Finnish and English, perfect Portuguese, and Nyanyeca a Bantu language from southern Angola - it is a small world after all.

After this event, we met other Finnish members of our host organization, had dinner with them, presented our country and sang some Traditional Portuguese songs and answered their questions.

04.Sep - New day

A new day, new presentations, more songs, meeting new people and organizations... and talking to new people about us and Portugal. 

03.Sep - Presenting Portugal and a lot more....

We were picked up at the hotel and taken by bus to Pytynlahti - a summer place of the Lutheran Parish. We presented Portugal, answered a few questions, served and ate lunch, played games, walked in a near-by forrest: picked a few blueberries and saw extremely poisonous mushrooms... Then we had the possibility of a Finnish sauna and a swim in the lake (at least some of us) and finally with coffee we had a wonderful singer perform a few songs for us.

By the end of the day, we had a tour of Kuusankoski and saw some  beautiful sights of the city as well as the Town Hall (KAUPUNGINTALO) and the Library (KIRJASTO)...

02.Sep evening - rehearsing by the lake

We were getting anxious and nervous about our lack of ability to sing and decided to rehearse by the lake - needless to say our companion listeners were ... mosquitoes.
We fought them hard and managed to sing a few songs to the astonishment of some passers-by.

In the end, the feeling of acomplishment and the enjoyment of some nice views, were both quite rewarding.

02 Setembro em Kouvola

When we arrived in Helsinki at 05 AM local time (03.00 AM our time), we were warmely greeted and taken quickly to the hotel in Kuusankoski, took  breakfast and we went to sleep for a couple for hours, we were then taken for lunch in Kouvola, as well as getting acquainted with bus stops, train station, etc.

The day finally came! ... Sep.01st 2012,  and we are leaving tonight for Finland - 6 portuguese participants, who will be doing volunteer work in the Kuusankoski area (Kouvola) and will then travel and do some more work in the Finnish Lapland (Lappi). I confess to be thrilled with the experience we will share and gain from each other.