The first kiddo friend :)

Finally I found out what I’m gonna do J

At about 3p.m. Heili (one of the girls from the project) came and took me to the TURVAKODU – children shelter.

That was also my first knowing the city walk. Tartu has a big river which is called Ema jõgi (Mother river). Now it’s all frozen. We went through a bridge and Heili told me that there is a tradition that when you finish school (or start studies – I don’t remember well :P) you have to go across the bridge but on its upper structure!!! (like in Wrocław Grunwaldzki’s bridge but a shorter one).

That is crazy tradition. I would die first.

Then we passed something like our rynek where in the middle is settled a rabbit from ice (every year they have another animal). Everyone can stuck a coin to it and this should bring him luck. The first thing I thought was ‘If I was homeless I would take all of this coins’… but I’m not ;)

We also entered a shopping mall looking for a place where they can remove simlock from my phone…  Yeah… brilliant Basia.. you took 2 phones.. both with simlocks.

You wouldn’t believe but in Estonia it’s not so common to have simlocks! People here hardly understood when I said what kind of problem I have. So… finally we found a place where they do that.. and.. they wanted 20 euros for removing the simlock from my old nokia!!! Common… in Poland I would pay no more than 4 euro.  They said that this is illegal (oh really?) I asked Heili to borrow me some of her old phones (so now I will have 3 mobiles = business woman).

Okey.. coming to the point. Finally we reached children shelter. The building looks like a big house (in a good condition). I was introduced to Mrs Lea who is the head of order there I think J (głową porządku hehehe). She wanted to speak Russian.. but I know only ‘haraszo’ :P English is not her strong side but we understood each other. Lea showed me all the rooms where kids can sleep, play, do homework, eat and watch tv. In one of the rooms were a teacher with kids (they were doing their homework and drawing valentine’s cards) Lea said who  am I and the teacher started to speak German with me … Actually I said only “Ich verstahe” =” I understand”… Because I did! Her German was perfect, I understood everything but couldn’t even try to say something beside ‘danke’…

After that I made an agreement with Lea that I will come tomorrow at 1p.m. and she will take me to the psychologist and pedagogues from all the Tartu meeting.

She also asked me if I’m interested of going with them to Parnau (Parnawa) on Sunday. They are going to build there a snow city and after that spend some time in SPA. Ha… sounds good for me but I need to buy a swimming suit. ;D

When Lea and Heilie were talking in Estonian about something I saw a boy looking at me with interest and I decided to bind a contact with him. I approached and:

ME:  ‘tere’ = ‘hi’ in Estonian

HE: ‘tere’ (with a lovely smile and shyness)

ME: ‘do you speak English?’

HE: nodded

ME: ‘ yes?’

HE:  ‘yes’

ME: ‘what’s your name?’

HE: ‘Argo’

ME: ’ ma olen Basia’ = ‘I am Basia’ in Estonian. And I took my hand to shake with him

HE: Smiled and shaked hands with me. ‘Nice to meet you’

ME: ‘Nice to meet you too. How old are you’

HE: ‘Eleven’

Then I asked him why is he not at school (stupid me it was after 4 p.m.) but he just said ‘I don’t know’. I had to go so I just say ‘bye’ to my new friend :) I feel potential in this kid.

Kids there aren’t orphanages but have a really hard life situations. They don’t stay in shelter all the time. Some of them come only after school, some stay for few weeks or months.

I will know my exact schedule tomorrow evening after my meeting with Kersti- my buddy and OCP of the project.

I have to figure out something for tonight.. I still don’t have a companion for crazy stuffs :P

And here are the pictures: my room again and something in the city, from a good perspective you can see a shape of a human: (damn I dont know why is this turned..... I will figure it out later :P)