This weather is good for the potatoes!

It has been really warm and sunny for the last 7-8 days, right after MidSommar, the summer weather spoil us every day and night. Temperature goes up to almost 30 degrees in the afternoon and close to 20 in the nights. This is perfect weather for taking the canoes, cross the lake on the other side and have nice bathings and lay on the little beach there.
As Swedes say it here, especially Leif, this weather is good for the potatoes!

BuBu is crazy about the water, she will stay in all day long. Last year at the seaside, she would scream only because some ball went in the sea...now she is screaming if we have to leave. such a huge progress).She wakes up in the morning and her first question is: "When do we go to the lake?". I think the potatoes are happy about it.

Huge event for us: Bzzz is here for a week, so BuBu is happy, Monica is very happy and i am even more because all three of them are happy. That's really good for the potatoes. We will be spending a nice time together, Bzzz can speak some romanian after 4 months (i mean more than talking with her family on the phone), visit some places and have fun with our swedish friends here.

Also, the volunteer team grew bigger here, we have new people that joined us at Kopparbo. So we met so far Markus, Henric, and recently Pia, Elin and Malin. More people here, more fun, more work that can be done, which is really good for the potatoes!

By the way, before the weather became so nice, we had 5 days only with rain and it was really cold, we barely saw some sun. But people here were smiling in the mornings and kept saying that the weather is good for the potatoes.

First few times we have been asking arround and try to understand why is it good for the potatoes. What is that special about them? And we understood that is just a nice way of accepting the weather like it is, there's nothing you can do about it so we'd rather do what we can do and do not complain.
Later on we realized that there are not even to many potatoes growing fields, they mostly import it from other countries because the land is not really good for them.

So, i think that even in the winter time, when the snow is half of a meter, Swedes would say that the weather is good for the potatoes.

Well, i think we have learned something new and useful which is very good for our potatoes!

Why Swedish Midsummer is more important than Christmas

Midsummer

Ask a Swede what the most important holiday of the year is and Midsummer will come up as often as Christmas. Get older Swedes talking and their eyes will well up as they reminisce about community spirit, songs, barn dancing and the mystical atmosphere surrounding the Midsummer gatherings of their youth. Sure, there was a lot of drinking, fistfights and frolicking, but everyone shook hands in the end.
For younger generations, Midsummer is mainly about heading out to the summer cottage and celebrating with a group of friends or family. Midsummer Eve always falls on the third Friday in June so people can enjoy a long weekend or kick off their summer vacation. Celebrations often continue long into Midsummer Day, when people are mainly recovering from the “festivities” of the previous night.
In modern Sweden, Midsummer's Eve and Midsummer's Day (Midsommarafton and Midsommardagen) were formerly celebrated on June 23th and 24th, but since the 1950's on the Friday between June 19th and June 25th and the following Saturday. It is arguably the most important holiday of the year, and one of the most uniquely Swedish in the way it is celebrated, even if it has been influenced by other countries long ago. The main celebrations take place on the Friday, and the traditional events include raising and dancing around a huge maypole. One typical dance is the frog dance. Before the maypole is raised, greens and flowers are collected and used to cover the entire pole.

The start of summer holidays
Summer in Sweden is short. It starts showing its face in May and explodes into life in June. The summer has to hurry to get things done before the nights turn cold in September and everything stops growing. At Midsummer, the Swedish summer is a lush green and bursting with chlorophyll, and the nights are scarcely dark at all. In the north, the sun never sets.


Swedes are fairly well attuned to the rhythms of nature. At Midsummer, many begin their five-week annual holidays and they, too, are in a hurry to get things done. Midsummer Eve is celebrated in the countryside — as always — and on the day before, everyone leaves town, everything closes and the streets are suddenly spookily deserted.


Maypoles and dancing
Midsummer is an occasion of large gatherings — and to be honest, many Swedes take advantage of it to fulfill their social obligations so that they can enjoy the rest of their holiday in peace. In many cases, whole families gather to celebrate this traditional high-point of the summer.

Swedes like the world to be well-ordered, so Midsummer Eve is always a Friday. People often begin the day by picking flowers and making wreaths to place on the maypole, which is a key component in the celebrations.

The maypole is raised in an open spot and traditional ring-dances ensue, to the delight of the children and some of the adults. Teenagers tend to stay out of it and wait for the evening’s more riotous entertainment.

Herring and boiled new potatoes
A typical Midsummer menu features different kinds of pickled herring, boiled new potatoes with fresh dill, soured cream and raw red onion. This is often followed by a grilled dish of some kind, such as spare rib or salmon, and for dessert the first strawberries of summer, with cream.

The traditional accompaniment is a cold beer and schnapps, preferably spiced. Every time the glasses are refilled, singing breaks out anew. Swedes like drinking songs and the racier the better.


Mysterious Midsummer
On their way home, girls and young women are supposed to pick seven different species of flowers and lay them under their pillows. At night, their future husbands appear to them in a dream.

Legend has it that the night before Midsummer’s Day is a magical time for love. It still is, in a way. During this night a relationship is put to the test. Under the influence of alcohol, the truth will come out; this can lead both to marriage and to divorce.

Also, Midsummer is associated with magic and fertility rites. The Midsummer maypole, a fertility symbol used to “impregnate” Mother Nature, was meant to bring a good autumn harvest.

How we celebrate
Well, as good “adopted” Swedes, we will start our day going shopping ( we buy things for the grill and drinks of course), then we go in Smedjebacken to see how people celebrate and be part of it. We are going to meet Linda and her children, close to BuBu´s age, and we have the party itself at Ann-Sofie’s house (where I lived for two weeks when I was here in January).
It will be fun to be out, with so many friends, good mood and happy spirit. And the good thing is it does not end in the same day, we have a little vacation till Monday, so 3 days to celebrate and enjoy summer in Sweden.

Back to summer weather

Hey, it's been a while since the last post here. We are coming back with joy to let you know that it feels like summer again after 5 days of rain and cold weather. We were told that's the swedish summer, close to our autumn. But now, it is perfect.

Everybody feels much better now, especially because Midsommaren is coming soon (in three days) and this parctically the highlight in Sweden during summer. You can compare it to Christmas in the winter time. ( but i'll tell you more in another post soon).

What have we been doing lately? Well, more work in the camp with different groups of students and scouts, going out in the town so Bubu can play and have fun, visited an very old iron mine (started in 15th century), learnt more svenska, cut a lot of grass, seen like 20 movies, got a new volunteer colleague (Markus, such a nice friendly boy that likes football), making plans for close future.

Monica and BuBu are happy because there are a lot of nice beautiful flowers arround and they can pick some and put them on the food table, in our room, everywhere... .

National Day of Sweden-Sveriges nationaldag

National Day of Sweden, or the Swedish Flag's Day (Sveriges nationaldag or svenska flaggans dag) is a national holiday observed in Sweden on June 6 every year.

The day was made into a national day by Riksdagen, the Swedish parliament, in 1983, before which it was just honored as "the Swedish flag day".

The tradition of celebrating this date began in the 1910s at the Stockholm Olympic Stadium, in honour of the election of King Gustav Vasa in 1523, as this was considered the foundation of modern Sweden.
Some question the validity of this as a national holiday, as it was not observed as a holiday until decades later. However this event does signify the end of the Danish-ruled Kalmar Union, so in a sense it is a marking of Swedish independence, though the event occurred so long ago that it does not have as strong of a presence in the social consciousness as does, for example, Norway's Syttende Mai (17th of may).

In 2005 it became an official Swedish public holiday, taking that honour from Whit Monday. This change led to fewer days off from work (more working-days) as the 6th of June will periodically fall on the weekend, unlike Whit Monday, which was always celebrated on a Monday. This has in turn led to complaints from some Swedish unions.

Flag of Sweden

The flag of Sweden dates back to the 16th century. It is believed to be inspired by the Coats of Arms of Sweden, which feature three yellow crowns on a blue background, and modelled on the Danish flag, the Dannebrog. King John III took the form of the current Swedish flag into use in 1569. Prior to this, a similar flag appeared in the Coat of Arms of John's duchy, which is today southwest Finland.

The Sweden Flag is one of the national symbols of Sweden . The flag of Sweden was officially adopted on June 22, 1906.

How are we going to celebrate the National Day of Sweden? Well, we will be busy in the camp because we have guests, but probably on Sunday afternoon we will go for a little sightseeing and take BuBu into a playground, of course.

Camp activities-teambuilding for students, parents and teachers

We have learnt in these two weeks at Kopparbo camp that is pretty common for students to be part of some extra school activities in places like our camp here by the end of their school year.

Nothing new so far, except that this camp program (that in most cases last for one or two days) is outside of the school program and is totally organized by parents and teachers. In Sweden, the educational process is absolutely free (of course, parents pay taxes-big ones), but as long as it cannot include this kind of activities in the regular school programmes, parents pay for them from their pocket.
Parents plan the trip long time ahead, book the activities, plan their own activities and join their children in this program. They do it almost every year, and parents take turns to accompany their children. It is kind of an important classroom but also family event, so everything is so well thought through: budget, program, and timing.

The camp provides the facilities, accommodation and food, activities required and the trainers/instructors to facilitate the activities, but it is the adults (vuxna) who are responsible for the children’ security, their program, what they do over the night and so on.
It is also really cool ‘cause groups cook their own food, establish want they want to do and clean the rooms when they leave. To be noted, they leave the rooms exactly how they found them, ready for the next groups, and I mean here washing dishes, mopping floors, everything. This is part of their program.

Parents (föräldrar) and teachers (lärare) consider it a “must” for the students and also for them, like a little teambuilding retreat. No wonder that relationships are so close, parents know very well their children needs according to their age, teachers are considered second parents. You will not hear a child calling his/her teacher Mr or Miss, only by their first names.
Children spent precious time together, tighten the classmate relationship, and become better friends, like a small community. It was really cool to watch this evening adults in one team and children in the other team, playing Bränball, a family game similar to baseball, but played only for fun.
I know our system, as a student I was part of it. Parents and teachers encourage it all the time: you should have the best grades in the classroom, be better than your desk mate, and mind your own paper work. Students here are taught to study in a teambuilding medium, learn from each other, discover and develop their own abilities and skills through the other colleagues. It looks so simple!
I still have in mind a lärarina (lady young teacher), named Camila, one of the first teachers we met at Kopparbo. She was so close to her students, so kind and encouraging. You can only be a great student having such a teacher.

Most of them, both teachers and parents remind me of the relationship that creates all the time at our IMPACT youth clubs between leaders and participants. Sometimes I can imagine that the way they study at school should look like an IMPACT meeting. And coming to Kopparbo camp seems to be the celebration after a service project.

Oh, I already miss IMPACT so much! …and everything around it.