The co-operation with our Hungarian friends, which has already gone on for about five years, has come to a stage in which we'll leave the theme of UNESCO World Heritage Sites, at least for the time being, partly because the Finnish sites are not easily accessible to us here in Ii. If a site in northern Finland gets included in the program, we'll get back to the theme.

We have chosen local culture and local history as our new theme and some plans have been made to investigate minority cultures and peoples in both countries. In Finland we could work on Lappish and Gypsy cultures. In Hungary, they have a rich tradition in this field. There are numerous linguistic minorities in and around Dunaharaszt., and the rich gypsy tradition should not be forgotten either.

We got visitors in September. We had planned the program for the visit on the basis of the themes mentioned above. We got acquainted with the archaeological excavations in Kierikki in Yli-Ii as well as local methods of forest management in Ii. The main event was our trip to Lapland. We visited Levi fjeld and stayed over night at a wilderness centre in Kittilä. Our evening programme consisted of a real live performance by a shaman and an introduction to an ancient Lappet village, Nuolituinen. Otherwise the visit went in the traditional way. Both students and teachers stayed in families and spent two days getting to know our school.

 

The morning sun on the steps of Molkojärvi wilderness centre

The following is a report of the week in the form of a diary, written by the students who acted as hosts.

On Monday we received a group of visitors from our partner school Baktáy Ervin Gimnazium. We had been planning their programme for weeks in advance and were now waiting nervously for the Finnair flight from Helsinki to arrive at Oulunsalo airport. The flight was 30 minutes late.

After the hugging and the kisses on the cheeks we got acquainted with our guests and each host family took their guest home. It was evident from the amount of talk and happy faces that friendships were quickly created, the straightforward friendliness of our visitors caught on at once. There didn’t even seem to be any language problems since everyone used their hands a lot.

In the morning everybody got to school by car, bus, bike or on foot. We took our guests along to our lessons until lunch, and afterwards we got into the teachers’ cars. The trip was only meant for our visitors, true, but since there was some room in the cars, three hosts could also join in.

At Kierikki we got out of the cars and got a breath of fresh air. It turned out that Leena Lehtinen, the leader of the information centre, was going to act as our guide and we listened to her account of the place in English. She started by showing us a map of Kierikki.

Soon we set forth on the path, crossed a road and entered the fascinating world of Kierikki through a wooden gate close to the road. We walked along the pathway and stepped aside every now and then to pick some lingon berries into our mouths. Our guide told us about stone-age traps and showed us how they worked. She also showed us traces of habitation, low dents in the ground.

In a stone-age house

Led by our guide, we arrived at a stone-age village in the middle of the forest. We noticed interesting places of ancient residence, which we then got the chance to look more closely at. We also visited the excavation site and saw archaeologists at work. After looking at some of the artefacts found at the excavation site, we headed for home.

We woke up at around eight, had some breakfast and hurried to school at nine. We took the Hungarians to our lessons till noon and then headed for the forest.

The bus stood waiting in the schoolyard. We got in and made our way in the direction of Yliranta and from there we went … who knows where! We had Eero Alaraasakka as our guide. He told us about Finnish forestry and the forests on our way (which we didn’t see very much of, though, because of the misty windows on the bus).

We got there at about one o’clock after a long and bumpy ride. Teijo and our guide made a fire for us and we had some pizza and juice. We also had a voluntary competition which anyone could take part in. We were supposed to quess the height of a BIG tree. Some of the guesses entered were outrageous. The correct answer was 16,5 metres. The prize was a multitool, a kind of modern jack-knife. The winner was one of the Hungarian teachers.

 

Delicious sausage and warm fire in the forest

In the evening we gathered at Alue (local youth facility) at around five. In addition to us, the previous Hungary-group from last year were there, too. Everybody had brought along something to eat and drink so we didn’t have to stay hungry. We listened to music, played games and talked. It was nice to spend an evening together without the ever-present eye of the teachers looming above us.

After the night out on Wednesday, we woke up our guests on Thursday in time to catch a bus in the schoolyard at nine o’clock. This was the beginning of our trip to Lapland. The first destination was Rovaniemi, where we stopped and took an hour’s walk in the city centre

István, Conqueror of the Polar Circle!

And then it was time for Santa’s workshop. Our quests were very interested in Finnish Christmas and Lapland.

Everybody told Santa they had been nice

Despite the fact that we spent most of the day on the bus it never got boring… except when after we had travelled a long time in the middle of nowhere the bus just simply stopped. Nobody told us Finns - or Hungarians for that matter - where we were and what was going on. Our teacher told us that we were waiting for a bear to cross the road… After staring at the forest for some time, we saw a man with a stick, walking towards us - a shaman!

The shaman showed us around in an ancient Lappish village and invited us into his ’house’ for a cup of coffee. The atmosphere in the house, which was partly under ground, was excellent. The shaman served us coffee and performed traditional Lappish chants accompanied by a witch drum.

 

We were dumbfounded by the performance of the shaman

By sunset we were already on our way to Molkojärvi wildlife centre, where we intended to spend the night. We got mashed potatoes and sautéed reindeer for dinner. Afterwards we retired in rather an orderly fashion.

 

We woke up in our cabins, got dressed and some of us had a shower despite the icy water and the long queue. The breakfast was abundant and everyone ate a lot since we knew the next meal would only be served in the afternoon. The keeper of the place showed us his museum of machinery and tools, but nobody seemed to be interested. After the good-byes and some photographs we headed for Levi fjeld. Everybody on the bus seemed a bit tired and many people took a little nap on the way. At Levi we drove up almost to the top and walked the rest of the way. Some of us took a ride in the new gondola lift although a return trip on it set us back forty marks.

 

Having breakfast in the cosy main room at the wildlife centre

As we travelled south, we had lunch in Pello, crossed over to Sweden and stopped at Kukkolankoski. After we had admired the rapids, taken some photos and visited the shops we continued our trip towards Ii. On the bus we watched South Park, chatted, slept and had some general and unspecified fun. It was surprising how fast we reached Ii, and our guests were again subjected to an account of the river Ii, maybe for a hundredth time…

We arrived at Iin lukio at about 5 p.m. Our parents were waiting for us and took us home. The rest of the evening was spent in our separate locations.

 

A view from the top of Levi fjeld

 

On Saturday we left Ii for Kempele. We took a tour in the many shops at the Zeppelin shopping centre. Our guests were very interested in the mobile phone world championship games held at the central square there. We stayed and watched the event for a little while.

On our way to Tietomaa, we made a stop at the marketplace. We stopped by at the market hall and admired the beauty of the sea. Our quests bought souvenirs at the old salt storehouses and we also checked out the theatre and the city library.

At the science centre Tietomaa we watched an interesting film in English which was called The Mysteries of Egypt. There was a lot to see and do at Tietomaa. We tried on ancient Egyptian clothes and lay on a fakir’s spiked bed.

 

The Toripolliisi statue looked after the girls at the market

After the science centre we walked to a pizzeria. We had some trouble sorting out the different ingredients, but finally we all had some really tasty pizza. Our quests found the giant size of the pizzas amazing but they soon vanished from the plates. We made a final stop at Nallikari area by the sea and a birthday party took up the rest of the evening

Our Hungarian friends didn’t seem to want the night to end at all (although anyone gets a little tired after cycling on the Ii bridges all night long).

However, we could sleep in a bit longer than usual since there was no school. We woke up feeling a bit lifeless but after breakfast we headed for the Määttä residence to watch the Olympics. The idea was to show our friends around in the old Hamina area. Katja’s father managed to get one boy to join us for a six-minute tour…

We watched judo and weight lifting for about an hour and then it was time to have lunch and get ready for the night’s activities. The programme for the night consisted of a party for the whole group at a cottage near Sorosenperä shooting range. The party started at 6 o’clock but some of us got there a bit late, for some reason or another, and the place was nicely full up with people when we finally got there. Everyone brought something nice with them and soon the tables were full of cakes, soft drinks and snacks. Everyone was hugging and kissing each other. The Hungarians had had smiles on their faces for the whole week. Such a sympathetic lot.

At last all the arrangements were finished. Teijo made a speech and we proceeded to eat and drink. In the course of the evening we heard songs by Riikka and Milla. We also outsang the Hungarians in a sing-along event. Milla made a speech for the Hungarians and Miklós thanked us on behalf of the whole Hungarian group. We were kindly invited to pay a return visit to Hungary and some surprises were promised… The shaman had surprised us all in such a pleasant way. On behalf of Iin lukio, our teachers Margit Kemiläinen and Teijo Liedes gave a shaman’s drum as a present to our guests.

 

Diana framed by the rapids of Kukkolankoski

We went home at nine and carried on in our smaller groups. The evening went well. We didn’t stay up too late. We laughed a lot, though. In fact, our stomachs hurt a couple of days after our guests had left. Some stories do that to you.

The day of departure. Wake-up call at 5.45 a.m. Shower first to get at least some energy. After the shower it was time to have some breakfast and do some final packing and checking up. Wallet, tickets, passport. At 6.30 we headed for Oulunsalo airport. We covered the distance fairly quickly and arrived in good time. Almost everybody in our group was already there. It was time to check in.

After the check-in we were getting pretty close to the time to say good-bye. The moments before boarding the plane were sad. Some tears were shed. After having said goodbye the Hungarians went outside one by one. The harsh reality is that we'll have get back to our routines. Fortunately the return visit will be soon. We can look forward to a lot of pleasant moments in the future.