Day 19 - Conversations and WELCOME TO CRAFT CAMP

Today was a bit of a low key day. This morning I met with Nora, the President of the Global Estonian Youth Network. She sadly was an hour late, BUT I am glad I waited and had the conversation we had. It was more around the Youth Network and the logistics of how to get people onboard. It started in 2019, during Esto 2019 and has been building from there. I really believe everything happens for a reason and I feel there is a reason why I met Nora. She has so much drive and ambition at 22, I think. I see a lot of myself in her and I really want to help her and her team with the experience I have from my work through Sõrve. She has so many great ideas but limited experience. We had a great conversation on things she wants to achieve with her team and how to build the Global Estonian Youth Network, and we came up with some strategies on how to implement some of those ideas and this is just the beginning. I can’t wait to see what happens. There are some people in Australia I have in mind that would be a great asset to this project (and I have already started those conversations) and feel this could grow into something wonderful and connecting with the Estonian youth, all over the globe. What I feel is so wonderful about this network is people develop the connections when they are young and as they grow older, they will have these connections and it really has the potential to grow a really big global Estonian community, as people move through life. The other beautiful thing is that it is backed by the Estonian Government through a few different Ministries and they are in full support of seeing this network develop and build, but it just takes time. Once there is a sign up form, I will put it here and open up access to Australian Estonian youth, so they can start connecting, in the coming weeks. I can’t wait to be part of it and see what happens.

​After we finished that conversation, it was time to head to Viljandi! Mum and I drove about an hour, with some more wonderfully deep conversations and really connecting on a bit of a different level. At one point though it just started to heavily rain and there were some aqua planes on the road, bigger than I had experienced before and thankfully I remember dad telling me many years ago “do not break, just take your foot off the acceleration and drive”, so I did. Thankfully I was going slow enough that it was ok. When it wasn’t raining the scenery was beautiful. So much greenery and forests! I really like driving through the Estonian country side, especially down south. It is really beautiful.

​When we arrived we checked into the Grand Hotel Viljandi. Basically the hub of our craft camp! We got our bags and went to go to our room on the 4th floor and holy moly I was so grateful there was an ELEVATOR! It was just so easy not having to pull the bags up 4 flights of stairs, I loved it! Once we settled, mum and I went for a small walk up the street and of course she found the Käsitöö shop but thankfully because it was a Sunday, it was closed. We then walked past this little café and saw it was serving cheese and chantarelle mushroom (I love these and only have them here) soup AND pirukad! Well we were sold. We were on the look out for a light lunch, and there it was! When we had it, oh my god, it was delicious! Mum and I were both expecting like melted cheese but I feel like they put in maybe cream cheese or something, and there were little mushroom chunks. It was so good, I really enjoyed it. The pirukas I had was just like mums, in flavour. It was defiantly made with love and tasted so good. The lady had a lot there but we only got one each, it was enough. What I am noticing here though is they are different in shape than what we make back in Australia. I had never considered changing the shape of them back home, mind blown.

​After a short little break and rest we headed down stairs to the start of Käsitöö Laager (Craft Camp). We signed in, were given our lanyards and personal information packs with what we had signed up for and chilled out. It was here we ran into Ingrid and Richard. Richard went for a walk for the hour and a half we were just hanging around but Ingrid mum and I had a lot to catch up on. It was a great conversation sharing ideas we had seen of different käsitöö and how to possibly make it. I have to admit it was nice to be able to speak in English without being mindful of how you speak because that changes when you are around people that do not speak English, or speaking at a normal speed. We also were talking with a lady from America, I think her name was Michelle. She has no connection to Estonia, but maybe she does as she isn’t sure and just loves Estonian handicraft. There are people from so many places around the world, but mostly Europe, attending this week long event. Richard did make a comment to me that he feels I am a potential information leak, that made me giggle but I reassured him I do not write every conversation or everything I do, in fine detail. He seemed to accept that then proceeded to tell me all the secrets. Just kidding, we continued to walk into dinner and grabbed some wine, but he did tell me what happens at craft camp stays at craft camp, note taken. When we sat down to dinner, I was sitting opposite a lady named Charlotte. She was Swedish but lives in Norway. I was curious why she lived so far north and what it was like. She lives in the Arctic Circle and she explained there is 6 weeks of the year with no sun light. I couldn’t comprehend that. She said it was kind of like twilight and if there are no clouds and there is of course snow, the moon and the stars reflect off the snow giving a beautiful illumination of the area and they often ski without lights because it is enough. I thought that was pretty cool and maybe something I would like to experience one day. We then had dinner and more conversations then the lovely people running the camp talked to us about how it was going to go and a bit about their intentions for the week. We all then got up and introduced ourselves, where we were from and what our craft was. I really don’t have a craft but I am really interested in Rahvariide (folk costumes) so that’s what I said. This is where I learned where everyone was from, plus it is on our name tags. It was really cool seeing this. There is one lady from America who does weaving on the loom… I need to connect with her… and two people from Japan! Amazing right!

​Anyway, after dinner it was time to go to bed. I had looked at the week long schedule and it is JAM PACKED from morning till night so there are going to be many long days a head but hopefully I learn some wonderful things.
Happy Käsitööing!
Marissa xx