Oi oi oi, now my latest project has ended as well! We at Real Life are really disappointed with the performance of the new Swedish Prime Minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt, as he has STOPPED GIVING US MONEY! So now, we had to stop helping youth without a job, and now we have to let them rot in their houses, living of government money (hmmm, mister Reinfeldt, please explain again why you stopped our subsidy? What were you thinking??).
Well, anyway, it was the best EVS project I could wish for, even if it only was for 2,5 month. The people were great, I could work with all the ideas I got and I felt I did something good for the people and the Kalmar society. The difference with my first project was huge. Take for instance the last day: in Zokker, I just screamed 'hejdå! (goodbye) to everybody, and some of them were not to busy in their computergame to greet me back before I walked out the door. In Real Life, I got a big hug from everybody, and the people were truely greatful for me being there. It was touching :). Also, my colleague and friend Fredrikchen, has made a nice art work of the work team, which you can see in MyMedia.

Now, I work in my hosting organisation, Kumulus, which is not bad either. In my last 1,5 month here, I will be editing the movie I made here, and I will work on the conference material for a conference in Estonia, which Vilis (Latvian volunteer and colleague) is organizing. And I want to make a travel through Sweden and Norway as well, so I'll be having fun.

The music tip is a kind of mixture between Dutch and Swedish culture: Cornelis Vreeswijk! He moved as a teenager to Sweden, where he became one of the main heroes in Swedish Music. And his 'incestlåten' is really funny :).

As you might have heard, I have quit the youth centre Zokker, my last project. I didn't feel I had much to do there and bladiebladiebla, nag nag nag, now I have a new project, where I have worked for a few weeks now!

It is called 'Real Life Kalmar' and it kicks ass! Real Life is a project for youth without a job (most of them are about 20-25 years old), who want to do something useful with their time, and get experience and self-confidence. So they will find a job easier (it's really difficult here in Kalmar). I am a projectleader here, which sounds really important, and will look great on my CV!

I have a few projects running now: a booklet kalled 'Kalmarguiden', which is a guide to Kalmar for young people, so they know where the cool places are, who the cool people are (Ingvar Hägg!) and where the best smelling toilets are. Then I am in charge of making folders for Kumulus and EVS, which, offcourse, is my speciality. I have learned the basics of Photoshop yesterday :). And I drink tea a lot and talk a lot, and eat bananas. A lot. And still I am busy, which is a good feeling. I feel I am important for the youth, for the project, for Kalmar, for the world! Jeeej! And everybody is nice! Joehoe!

As a soundtrack of my new succes and project and cool life, I have chosen 'Real Life' of Joan As Policewoman. Offcourse. listen to it!

PS. I will remain in Mörbylånga, which is great, because it's summer!

9:30- getting up, having breakfast (muesli!), making myself ready for the tough day to come. Sharing weird dream stories with Greta.
10:30- read or go to library to write on weblog.
11:30- in summer: swim! or just going to the pier en listen to good music. relax a little bit more.
12:30- maaaaaaaybe do the dishes, if I've got nothing better to do. Read all the letters we've got, listen to music.
13:30- eat some lunch with Greta. They have gigantic Knäckebröd here, hurray!
15:00-21:00- working at Zokker. This includes:
- playing Skip-bo with the youth
- speaking swedish a lot with the workers and the youth.
- playing drums and piano with Jonas, a musicloving youngster.
- playing pingis (table tennis) or pool-biljard.
- setting op my own projects, like a party group or building a website with Greta, and making the youth want to participate in it. It's the hardest job I have. Most of them just seem to only want to play games!
- learning X-box games. I suck. most of the time it takes me 5 minutes already to see which team is mine (Fifa 2006) or which motorcrosser (motorcross-game) I am. But Dennis (another youngster) is determined to learn me the X-box basics. Good luck, Dennis!
- clean up a bit after youth has gone.
21:00- being home, make something really good and healthy to eat, watch some tv and wait with serving dinner until greta is home, which is at...
21:50- Dinner!
22:30- play Halli Galli or cards or read or watch tv.
23:00-0:00- SCRUBS! Greta and me cuddle up and watch two full episodes of this show. it's our favourite :).
0:00- talk a bit and go to bed. What a nice day.

Today was my third and last day at the adventure camp. I worked every day from around 10.00 to 15.00 at an 'adventure camp' for different new classes of the high school in Mörbylånga, a camp where they get to know each other. Every day I had a new group of about 25 youth of the age of 13, 14. The children here are really polite and great, but they are a bit quiet. I was shocked today, because one of them actually asked me how old I was; that is a big step for a Swedish 13-year-old. I said ' jag är nitton är' or something, which means 'I am 19 years old', if you pronounce it correctly. I'm picking up all kinds of words already, but my conversation skills just go to saying my name, my age and where I live (jag buoouou y Mörbylånga!). I can count to ten already, but I still can't pronounce seven, which is a bit like blowing and then all of a sudden saying ' gjouuooeuou' .

Anyway, the adventure camp. I had very important functions: giving spaghetti to children for a spaghetti-cooking-on-self-made-fire-and-than-tying-a-knot-in-it-competition, participate in a dreadful name game (where you have to say the hard Swedish names in a long row before you and than your own name, and after each name a strange Swedish word which starts with the same letter, like ' An Anka, Jonas Juuuuglbuuuuuu, Daniel Dinosaur, ..., Albert Ananas), and taking pictures of the different activities. This work was a cooperation between the Mörbylånga high school (with 600 pupils) and Zokker, where I will be working tomorrow and the rest of my time here, so I had to work with a lot of teachers. They were really nice, and quite young. I also had to work with Rickard, from Zokker, and he's great too. Ah, the people here are so nice. My boss is Barbro, and she is... well, nice. The only not nice person I met was the bus driver, but I didn't expect a bus driver to be nice.

Yesterday I went to the city of Kalmar, on the mainland, by bus. Greta and I were visiting Emmi, a Finnish volunteer from Espoo, who lived there. And well, she's nice too.

Monday, Greta, Emmi, me and the other volunteers that are yet to come, will go to our on-arrival training in Stockholm, and meet other volunteers in Sweden. You'll hear news about that later.

Well, Time's up now. No Swedishmusic tip today, because I still haven't heard great Swedish music, but I heard some great Danish (or Islandic?) music: Efterklang. Great. hej då!