Back to the Roots

I've spent all my life in Helsinki, Finland. Although I've travelled in Europe and made a short visit across the Atlantic Ocean, I began to be more and more assured that the world that I had seen was not all there is. I needed a new perspective, and somehow I just knew that the destination would have to be Africa.

It took me a couple of years to get anything concrete done. But eventually, I took the final steps in a fairly short amount of time. In the fall 2006, after deciding that ETVO (http://www.etvo.fi/) would be the programme to turn to, I called there to learn that the deadline for applications for volunteering in that year would be on the same day. I was told that even I was planning on leaving not before fall 2007, it would be appropriate to apply now. I spent four intensive hours filling in the application form with multiple pages and then literally ran to the ETVO office to leave in the application only 15 minutes before the closing time. I was chosen, first for the interviews and finally, as one of the volunteers.

Now, setting my feet onto the ground of Africa is only three months away. I’m about to return to the cradle of the human species, the origin of my genes – perhaps even to the origin of all languages, as hypothesized by some (see Tieteen Kuvalehti, 05/07, 62-67). Not to mention the home of the beloved Lord Greystoke, my idol Pumba the Warthog, and Gorillas in the Mist – the book that shook my world at the age of ten.

I’m craving for a culture shock. I’m eager to get infected by the African lifestyle, the African conception of time, the African order of priorities, by Africa! Just wait and see – I’m already half-way there.