Bye, bye Estonia

Estonia

In 13 days I’m leaving Estonia for good.

After a lot of complaints I’m leaving. Before the official plan. But not just because I want to, we have to.

We just found out that since we are not Estonians we cannot really live as Estonians. Estonians are mostly fine because their lives are concentrated here. Family, friends, work etc, everything is here. There is no need for travels. If there is, because of work for instance, usually the expenses will be covered by other means than one’s personal economy. If for studies, the University has means – such as grants – to take the student wherever their research takes them. And if Estonians wants to travel for fun, they plan for 3 or 4 months in advance and save the money for that. Usually they go anywhere in Europe, I would guess. If to any other continent, first they would find a summer job in other European country where they would get enough pay to cover the expenses.

Our situation is different. Our lives are not really here, except for studies. My husband’s family is in Norway, where prices are the double of Estonian prices and the wages five times higher. My family is in Brazil, where prices are three times lower than Estonian prices and the wages are pretty much the same.

Unfortunately, Estonia has European prices but Brazilian wages. That’s one reason why Brazilians don’t travel much abroad. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. To do so, we save money and plan every detail of the trip for years before buying the tickets.

To travel is part of our lives, it is part of the essence of our journey since we met. Estonian pocket is not deep enough for that.

I cannot say that I’m sad about it. I am not. But I feel sorry for the plans that I had for these two years. To take another Master, meet new foreign friends, teach Portuguese, take part in the movement for tolerance… And I just found out that Russians can be great friends. Unfortunately I spent too much time trying to make friends with Estonians, if I just knew better… I could have had really strong bonds to Russians here. Now I’ll be leaving asking myself how would it had been if I had the time to know those girls better. I spent so much energy trying to understand some people that I missed my chance to naturally know other people.

That’s one, if not the only, thing that I regret: not given me the chance to bond with great people, and to have wasted my time with “puzzle-people”. But that’s life.

Now I’m going to Norway, a place where I feel comfortable enough and the wages are enough for this journey, a place where I have old friends and I know that it is easier to make new ones etc.

While in Estonia I complained a lot, and I cannot say that I won’t complain in Norway either. I complain about places that I care about, and to live in a place – even temporarely – is enough to make me complain about it, and be willing to help with improvements. So, it’s not really personal, or that I hate Estonia. I have some bad memories, that’s true, but not enough to hate the place.

I just think that Estonia, just like Brazil and Norway is not perfect and need changes in several aspects. Estonia with its numb and passive way, Brazil with its massy politics, Norway with its shallow media coverage and “anti-slamic” wave… I think that as “civilized” human beings we are responsible for improvements in the society around us no matter where we are. It doesn’t matter if it is our home country or the one that received us. It’s our responsibility, and I take my share wherever the wind takes me.

Since I’m moving, this blog has no longer reason to exist. I’m just following my own path… and it is taking me away from Estonia.

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They have “nothing else” to do

I live in a lovely neighborhood with blocks from the soviet time.

You don’t have to get tired trying to imagine that. They are ugly, old buildings that were never reformed. The old doors and windows were sealed once and never again, so you can imagine how cold it gets inside during winter.

They are made of concrete planks that were put together just like it’s done with the zinc planks in Brazilian slums.

According to the owners, this block is from 1982. So, 27 years without any substantial reform.

A couple of weeks ago, someone was reforming the stairs at the door of one of the entrances. Ok, fine. Except for all noise early in the morning. They did the same with the next one, and the next one, and the next, so I thought: “well, at least our entrance has “new” stairs, they seem to have been reformed a year ago. So they won’t really get to our door with all this noise and mass.”

Poor me!

Today, a little after 8am they started the machine to break the stairs.

Man, they have issues. They must have issues to do such thing! It’s bizzare!

Our stairs were really new, the cement was even light. The dark spots were from the rain that gathers dust over the floor.
They are so weird that they make stairs with pure cement! This means that to break it takes a lot more effort and time than if it were made with stones under, or cement mixed with stones and sand or even bricks under. I have never seen anything like that!

From 8am to 5pm they took out a small part of the stairs – of course! – even though they were using this loud industrial machine to breake it down.

It doesn’t please me all the noise early in the morning, but even less if it is “unnecessairy noise”. The stairs were great as they were. It seems like the people who run this thing has nothing else to do with the money in their pockets! Again: this is like having nose but not knowing how to use it! It’s like a kid that needs new shoes, but if they have any money, they will spend it on candy!

On the other hand, since these buildings were never reformed and they seem to have a lot of money to throw out, some SMART things to do would be to seal all the building again, to paint it – because nobody deserves this sovietic “red-yellow” colors -, to change some windows…

But they are just like the ones designing bus seats in Brazil: they never use buses, so they have no idea how uncomfortable they are!

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Long time no see…

I was bored. Nothing interesting to post here, even though many things happened during this time.

Yeah… I’ll be teaching Portuguese in two places now. At Rahva Ülikool and at the Language Centre.

My plan is to teach during these two years, so the students can have a continuous process for learning the language and the culture in a fun way. Unfortunately for now at RÜ the classes will be only once a week – damn crisis! – unless the students ask for more and are able to afford it. But this is causing me some problems. I’ll have to divide the first level in two, which means that in two years the students at the LC will have two times the knowledge of the students at RÜ. So, if you are planning to take any of these two and can take it at the Language Centre, do so!

At the LC the prospects are better. I’ll be teaching twice a week, and considering that all Romance languages have waiting lists, I hope that Portuguese will follow the same path. I can find a way to teach to everyone interested. We just need a classroom.

About my language courses, I cannot take any of the Estonian language courses. I was planning to take the first level again, but it collides with one of my mandatory courses. I should take the second, but it also collides with another mandatory course.

I considered Russian, but it is already full and my husband didn’t think that it would be a good idea: a foreigner, black, in Estonia and learning Russian?!That’s out of the line… I like Japanese, but it is also full…

Ja vel, nothing much to do then. I guess the Master’s course and the teaching are enough anyways.

Oh, I met another Brazilian here… very nice. It’s great to speak Portuguese “normally”. With slangs, my accent and hear a different accent, but that I’m so used to. It’s really good. Except when I mix some English or Norwegian words… yeah, that happens a lot! In Linguistics this is called “Code-switching*”, and it’s very interesting to experience what we read in books.

When I was preparing the teaching plan, in English, I could only remember the words in Norwegian. So, I was thinking in Portuguese, and trying to translate it to English, but getting stuck in the Norwegian that is in the middle of the way. In a way, I like that. Norwegian is taking my head by itself. That’s fun!

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Code-switching*: is a linguistics term denoting the concurrent use of more than one language, or language variety, in conversation. Multilinguals, people who speak more than one language, sometimes use elements of multiple languages in conversing with each other. Thus, code-switching is the syntactically and phonologically appropriate use of more than one linguistic variety.
Code-switching is distinct from other language contact phenomena, such as borrowing, pidgins and creoles, loan translation (calques), and language transfer (language interference). Speakers form and establish a pidgin language when two or more speakers who do not speak a common language form an intermediate, third language; but speakers practice code-switching when they are each fluent in both languages. (From Wikipedia)

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The duchess

Yesterday, Mother’s day, I went to the movies with my hubby. We watched the premiere of  “The duchess”, with Keira Knightley and Ralph Fiennes.

The duchess

I was disappointed! I thought it was the traditional story about a strong woman, but no! Quite the opposite.

She’s actually way smarter than her vegetable husband, but also extremely naive and submissive. Keira Knightley is always in old ages movies and she always have a different role from what you expect – which makes her caracters always predictable. That suits her well, even though she’s not a brilliant actress. She was quite ok for the duchess role, but the caracter in itself is flawfull and disappointing – based on the story of Georgiana Spencer, yes, related to Diana Spencer, aka Princess Di.

A beautiful woman who expects love from her husband and never gets it, is very interested in politics, is very popular among those that matters, falls in love with a politician and gets his love back, bla-bla-bla.

All her mind doesn’t follow her weakness. She expects her mother to “tell her what to do”. Her husband sleeps with every and anyone (maybe even with his dogs) and she brings a friend – with whom he earlier  flirts with – to live with them, hoping that he won’t sleep with her. She accepts his bastard daughter as hers, but tells the vegetable that she’s pregnant with her lover – being forced to give up on the child.

She never consider her options. She listens to her mother and swallows her husbands demmands. She give up on her life, her love and her dreams. She accepts the awful situation of having the mistress living at her house and having the honours of wife while she dies out.

She never thinks of using her influence to take over his powers, grant the lover a future and by consequence her own freedom.

It’s a caracter bad painted as smart and strong, because she’s neither of those, rather a fool. If this was the movie’s intention: well done! But I guess the real Georgiana was way more interesting than what we can see in this movie.

Anyway, not a good choice for mother’s day.

+++++++++++++++

It’s still raining here!

Not easy to find Mother’s day cards here. The tradition is for flowers, not much for cards.

I got flowers in church… but I’m not yet a mother.

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Tonight is Volbriöö

Volbriöö is the “night of the witches” in Estonia. It happens on the night from 30 of April to 01 of May. The kids wear pieces of fabric, resembling witches, walk over brushes and so on, but there’s no bon fire, it seems.

Tartu kevadpäevad 2009

This year, in Tartu, the Volbriöö happens during the Student Days (which goes from 27.04 to 03.05) and it seems like everything relating to this date will happen in nightclubs.

I thought I would see students marching on the streets with boxes of beer, singing songs today… It didn’t happen (I guess it was too early – not really to drink, but to march). I saw fun student games envolving physical exercise, balance, alcohol, lots of alcohol and vomit, lots of vomit.

Man, I’m getting old. That’s not really what I’m interested in. But it was good to see what happens around, to know what is part of the Estonian tradition, bla-bla-bla…

And oh, it was cold. Yesterday was a delicious day, but today… it was cold, windy, not so fun. I hope tomorrow it will be better.

Now, one interesting thing: 1st of May is the INTERNATIONAL WORKERS DAY in most parts of the world! But not in Estonia. Here, 1st of May is the HANGOVER DAY (Kaatripäev)! Well, after the wild night of the witches, Estonians need to rest, who cares about the workers? They will be working at least until 6pm, some serving coffe  and tee to the still-drunk ones.

By the way, I met a black man at Cinamon yesterday, but the effects of this encounter will dealt with in another post.

If you wanna know more about the Tartu Tudengipäevad, visit their website (be aware that they don’t seem to be interested in your visit – despite the adress, there’s NO English version of it): Student Days

Ha det bra!!!

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The sun shines

I never thought that the sun would make so big difference in my life.

In Brazil the sun is there all the time. I didn’t like it so much. Especially during summer when the temperature gets up to 42 degrees in the shade, the air is extremly humid and I’m sweat all the time.

We have aircondition everywhere, just like europeans have heating everywhere. The problem? You get sick all the time. From hot to cold and hot again, great to get a cold! And there’s nothing as terrible as having a cold during summer.

Saci Pererê: Brazilian folklore

You wear a sweater while everyone else is almost naked. You avoid buses with aircondition, not only not to spread the illness, but also not to get worse. And then, the bus is crowded with wet and sticky people, all running to get somewhere, annoyed with the driver – who drives as if he were going to save his father that is about to be hanged. It’s impossible not to touch anyone, it doesn’t matter how hard you try. Estonians wouldn’t take it. There’s no such thing as “the private 1 meter space around me”. The public and the private get mixed, what is yours is also theirs. You share the air, your skin and the sweat. And don’t even try to move your foot! You might not find a spot to rest it at after and then spend the rest of the 3 hours trip standing like a “saci”.

Dunas Beach, Fortaleza - Brazil

It’s really unpleasant, except if you have nothing to do but go to the beach! Then it’s paradise on earth. Hot shining sun, fresh white sand, cold sea water, cold coconut water or Matte… that’s delicious! By the end of the day you already have a beautiful suntan – which makes you go to the beach for the next two days also, otherwise you will start loosing the brown skin, like a fish, in the next day. Yes, there’s no such thing as artificial suntan in Brazil. You are naturally tanned, whether you like it or not. Actually, you don’t really need to go to the beach to get a suntan… you can spend some hours talking to a friend at your front door and it’s enough.

Yeah, there it is summer all year.

Here… I wake up asking myself how hot it is outside. Today it was 22 degrees. A record for me. That was my first time with 22 in Estonia. I still remember de 21 negative quite well…

The shy spring sun

If it’s hot I can go to my veranda in my pyjamas and sit there, enjoying the little heat. It’s delicious. But not always. If it’s windy, I prefer the heat inside of the apartment. If it’s sunny and no wind, then it’s perfect. And my skin gets brown quickly also, since it’s used to the sun. I don’t like myself yellow like the american “black”.

Here the sun makes a hell of a difference for my daily activities. I can find a few good excuses to go out, walk slowly in the sun,  take deep fresh breaths. The laundry dries fast, it makes me smile, reactivate my melanine… so many benefits…

Unfortunately it doesn’t last long. But, I’ll enjoy it as much as I can.

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Flamengo ’til I die!

I’m sorry but this post has only a little to do with Estonia… but more with Football.

As any good Brazilian, I love football and, as most decent Brazilians, I support Flamengo, from Rio de Janeiro. And my dear team won the Rio Cup yesterday, for the 7th time, over Botafogo.

Flamengo has the biggest number of supporters in the world, not considering supporters abroad.

I was at a bar last week, it was football night and it was interesting to see how the supporters behave here.

Yes, there were some scores, but the celebration was so small that I couldn’t identify when it was really a score or almost a score. Even my grandma can be more effective in supporting a team.

It was also surprising that at the same bar, two matches were on at the same time and two groups of supporters were there.

Well, this is a small country. I guess a bar can do that and be full.

We were with an Argentinian couple and they were as surprised as I was.

In Brazil the match on a pub depends on the team of the owner and only one match is enough to close the place, so crowded it gets.

Anyways, it’s interesting. It’s a different way of supporting, but it made me miss my country. I miss all the noise, celebration, jokes and closeness that this occasion brings.

I miss this passion!

Wondering the position of your team? Check it out.

POSITION	TEAM	Nº OF SUPPORTERS
1º	Flamengo (BRA)	32,6 milhões
2º	Chivas (MEX)	30,8 milhões
3º	América (MEX)	26,4 milhões
4º	Corinthians (BRA)	23 milhões
5º	Boca Juniors (ARG)	16,4 milhões
6º	Juventus (ITA)	16,3 milhões
7º	São Paulo(BRA)	15,3 milhões
8º	Milan (ITA)	13,4 milhões
9º	Cruz Azul (MEX)	13,2 milhões
9º	River Plate (ARG)	13,2 milhões
9º	Real Madrid (ESP)	13,2 milhões
12º	Kashima Antl. (JAP)	12,3 milhões
13º	Gamba Osaka (JAP)	11,9 milhões
14º	Jubilo Iwata (JAP)	11,7 milhões
15º	Bayern Munich (ALE)	10,5 milhões
16º	Barcelona (ESP)	10,4 milhões
17º	Olympique M. (FRA)	10,2 milhões
18º	Lyon (FRA)	9,6 milhões
18º	Internazionale (ITA)	9,3 milhões
20º	Werder Bremen (ALE)	5,7 milhões
21º	Shalke 04 (ALE)	4,3 milhões
21º	Ajax (HOL)	4,3 milhões
23º	Man. United (ING)	4,2 milhões
24º	Benfica (POR)	4,1 milhões
25º	Feyenoord (HOL)	3,8 milhões
26º	PSG (FRA)	3,2 milhões
27º	Liverpool (ING)	3,1 milhões
28º	Arsenal (ING)	2,6 milhões
28º	Porto (POR)	2,6 milhões
30º	Independiente (ARG)	2,2 milhões
31º	PSV (HOL)	2,1 milhões
31º	Sporting (POR)	2,1 milhões

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And it was Easter (for me)…

Yes, it was Easter for me yesterday, despite the almost unnoticed “celebrations” in Estonia.

I went to church. The only connection to “eggs” that I saw was a small girl giving a painted egg to the former Pastor while I was talking to him.

Well, the sermon was in Estonian, but I’m pretty sure that it was about the resurrection of Christ and the hope that comes with it.

I got another contribution, about this subject:

Estonians do celebrate Easter, they call it Munade Pühad (egg holiday). It is an important holiday with very old and strong traditions. People paint and draw on boiled eggs and change them with each other.
They don’t do it with chocolate eggs, they do it with real eggs.

So, like I said, I saw this little girl give an egg to the former pastor. It was interesting, but it was the only thing I saw.

I’m not so sure about how important the “Munade Pühad” is, and the name is a little distant from the christian origin, if its origin is in the christian Easter.

Which takes me to some other questions: If this holiday is so important, why are there no commercials about it, and why was all propaganda effort done before Easter about the “volbriöö”?

If this holiday has its origin in christianity and Estonians hardly believe in something, why would they give so much importance to it? On the other hand, it might be interesting for families with small kids, but how do they explain it to them, then?

If you consider that the name has no relation to christianity and this tradition has older origin, like Triin said, it’s not Easter, right?

If not Easter, I can only assume that this tradition is connected to the spring season, the rebirth of nature and the pagan traditions. Which makes sense.

So, let’s agree here: This is not Easter!

We know that christianity adopted lots of pagan traditions in order to convert them. It happened everywhere. And it was the same with the egg thing. For pagans it may be related to spring, for christians it is also related to Jesus.

Here in Estonia the pagan tradition is stronger than the christian. That’s ok. But, to what extent are Estonians aware of what is a christian symbol and what is a pagan symbol when it comes to Easter?

Easter is not a global celebration, such as Christmas, where the meaning is lost and we just want to party. Easter ends up as a quite private celebration that doesn’t exists without it’s meaning – having eggs or not.

So, there is Easter in Estonia for christian families, not to everyone.

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Is there Easter?

You know, I’m terrible with dates. I thought that yesterday, thursday, was tuesday.

So, I’m used to rely on TV commercials, street and shopping propaganda to know when each holiday will take place. The moving ones are the worst! I don’t know when the last carnaval in Brazil was or when the next will be – even though I’m going back there next February and I hope the carnaval will be sometime during February!

Well, here I don’t have a TV, so I get it all online.

Today is, according to the christian tradition, the “Sexta-feira da Paixão”, “Langfredag” or the Friday before Easter. I only found out yesterday, after solving the date confusion (I’m not getting much online, huh? Keep reading…).

Is there Easter in Estonia?

In Brazil, I would know it at least a month before. All supermarkets are full of chocolate eggs, the TV channels getting rich by all Easter commercials, every bus stop has a poster of the huge play about the Passion of Christ and my mom would be reminding us already that, today, the friday before Easter we should not eat meat and be balanced in our actions.

What’s different this year?

I’m in Estonia…

Estonia is a mainly pagan country (if I’m wrong and you are an Estonian, please correct me).

According to Wikipedia:

Estonia’s population is around 1.3 million and it is one of the countries with the highest number of non-religious people in the world – over 76% of the population has no religious affiliation.

The three major christian religions are the Lutheran, Eastern Orthodox and the Russian Old-Believers. In this sea of 1.3 million people, in 2000, 152.000 were Lutherans, 143.000 were Orthodox, 5.000 Catholics and 2.000 Taaras (people that believe in the Estonian mythological god of war Taara – which is part of a pagan inheritage).

Ok, this sums up to 302.000 people… what about the rest? Well, I guess they are either atheists or pagans. No wonder why I didn’t see much about Easter this year. If the people don’t believe in it, you can’t make money out of it. So, no propagandas, no posters (except a very shy one close to Kaubamaja’s bus stop that I saw yesterday), no chocolate eggs.

But, why am I talking about this here? Well, I’m a christian, and considering that a big part of the world is christian, I expect christian signs most places. Once more, my dream about Europe went down the drain.

What really got my attention to this cultural difference was some online Estonian adds that I’ve been stumbling into for quite some time.

By the way, Estonian adds make sounds! Man, they suck! You pass the mouse over them, by mistake, and they start making annoying sounds! Who told Estonian advertising companies that those adds get anyones attention? I don’t even read it (or try, it’s in Estonian!), I just close the window, or reload it and perform the “mission impossible” of going trough the page without getting anywhere near them. That’s another bad, bad idea!

Anyways, the last add showed up when any Easter add would show up, but this one is not really about Easter. It’s about the “Volbriöö”.

Can you imagine? This is Easter season. All that a christian expects are adds about Christ’s death and ressurection, or bunnies with chocolate eggs. But no! Not in Estonia!

Here the adds are dark, with a cartoonish figure of “death”, a cemetery, graves, a full moon, a gravestone and it laughs mockinly whenever you put your cursor over it!

I’m sure this isn’t about Jesus! Not at all!

And it’s certainly not. Like I said, this is about the “Volbriöö”, or the “night of the witches”.

But this I’ll explain in my next post.

PS: I have no problem with pagans… I would rather say that I would have more problems with people that doesn’t believe in anything. That’s too sad for my reason and faith alike.

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A contribution…

After the post below (“Bad, bad idea”), one of the visitors made an important contribution. So, enriching your knowledge about other people’s opinion about Twitter (not only my humble one), here it goes:

Thanks Daniel!

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