Saturday 17 November 2012

Viva la Venta!




Berta, Tomaš and me
I have wrote about my experience to Augštaitja national park and Žagares regional park, but there is one more park I have been seeing many times and I would like to tell about.

And it is the one who is left behind, no one went there for exchange and also this years volunteers mostly had some troubles there. So I want to talk about Ventos regioninis parkas. :)

I got to know closer this park in Easter time when I went for my first visit to meet my good EVS friends and volunteers Berta from Spain and Tomaš from Slovakia. 

This park is protecting river Venta and its banks. This river starts in Lithuania and go trough Latvia, and in the Ventspils city it reaches the Baltic sea. In Latvia, Kurzeme region, this river is the bigest and also name Venta influenced the name of the city Ventspils (meaning is Castle of Venta). 
Ventas Rumba in Kuldīga, Latvija
The local manner of speaking is named ventiņu valoda (so called ventini language). And above all - in Kuldīga city in Latvia - Venta have very natural waterfall called Ventas rumba - widest in all Europe. I remember that one friend didn't believe me that we can have our own natural and so wide waterfall, but we do have :) On average it is 100 — 110 m, on spring when is running a lot of water 270 m, and height 1,6 — 2,2 m.
So I am not sure how important this river is for Lithuanians in general but for Kurzeme region in Latvia it is very important historically, culturally and naturally and so we are glad that in Lithuania they have even regional park dedicated to this river.

But if we talk about my experience in the Venta park then I can say that all fun is because of Berta and Tomaš. They are smart young people with lot of ideas but somehow they were not so lucky with support from the park but despite of all bad sides, I still can say that it was interesting time what I spent in Viekšniai or Mažeikiai, where they lived.Mostly because they are now my very good friends.

At Easter time I was shown around the Viekšniai and nature sites near the Venta. It was still cold and very grey time of spring. We saw summer camp place for children, forest and river banks, many traces of beavers, who live near the river.
I can show some pictures of this walk: 

Virvite summer camp near Venta.
Tomaš
Venta

River banks of Venta



Open air concert place in the forest.
Job of beavers.
Investigating.













































































Later on we went to the village Viekšniai which is also located along the river banks and is very old, many houses is from wood and shows to us last century architecture, also there is traces from soviet time style but I think it is almost everywhere like that in ex Soviet country's. 
In Viekšniai there is worth visit some places: water mill (Viekšnių malūnas), Museum of the Pharmacy in Viekšniai and Museum of the Aviation Pioneer Aleksandras Griškevičius. In summertime there is also chances to swim, do water tourism and visit another nature objects and tourist paths. 
For myself I enjoyed a lot excursion to eco farm of Jadvyga Balvočiūtė, she is pharmacist and specialist in ecological tea farming and she owns quite big tea farm. I was shown around by Tomaš and I could see how the process is done by workers - tea drying, weighting, packing. Also Jadvyga herself was there but busy with clients - she makes special receipts for patients with illnesses if general mixtures of tea for different problems cant help. There was also specialist from office who talk with us and offer some tea from nice clay pots and told story of this place and Jadvyga. When we left I had a chance to see this lovely lady and she left very bright feeling to me. When I write this I still can remember the nice smell of the teas...

Viekšniai
We also visited neighbor village Pievenai (Pievėnai) where in local church  was going on some very special night event for Easter time - it is very unique tradition in Lithuania and in Europe which is happening only in Easters. It seems to me that this procession in church is mix of pagan traditions with catholic believes. There is full church of people of all age, singing and praying, but this all looks like a carnival to me, because there is also Jesus Christs guard. There is group of people dressed in to the uniforms and they are standing and protecting the cross all night, who is placed in the middle of the church by their swords against devils (also group of people wearing wooden masks of devil). In the end all this procession is very funny and loud, kids are running around, screaming and trying to hide from devils with big scissors. Some people singing, some going after the saint water, some tourists like us just standing and trying to get the point :)


From left: Berta, Tomaš, me, Lorenzo and Espen



Summer time came and we could spend time a bit more outside. I went to visit them when they were working in the children camp and they were busy all day. Berta was working with children and participating in art classes but Tomaš was helping to reconstruct some wooden building. I just spend some time with kids who were eager to try speak in English with foreigners. Also we went to monitoring orchids one day with the people from some nature protecting institution (not sure which one). Then I had access to strictly forbidden places and saw a lot orchids and also very rare ones. Sadly that I have no pictures from this time. One more project I participate was when Tomaš arrange with art school children to paint the old garbage bins. We did a great and artistic work with the teachers and pupils, and it was fun. 
 

Life in Mažeikiai is very different from village life - it is city with not so much old houses or green areas, mostly grey building and very soviet architecture, built for workers from nearby factories. There is not really much to do for young people even the city was once built for them. But even there we could find some activities to do - bowling and skating was the most funniest. Tomaš and Berta are also great at cooking and so we have some fiesta time when we are together :)

 
We also made travel together with another volunteers Pierre (Žagare regional park) and Olga (Kursiu Nerija national park) to Norway and they also have been visiting my place when we had some free time in our EVS project. Visiting each other on our spare time made our time in Lithuania more fun and we could deal with our problems better than alone. Also sharing knowledge and ideas can help in daily life to understand more the culture differences which are around and you have to live trough.

Espen, me, Berta, Olga, Pierre in Norway
Me, Olga, Berta and Tomaš in Stavanger, Norway
Berta likes animals
Me, Marlen (Germany) and Berta visiting Ona, lady in Vievis
Barstyčiai village festival




Me and Tomaš in Rīga, Latvija
Tomaš being a volunteer in my Poetry Day project in Riga

 Me, Berta and Tomaš in Plateliai
 
All I want to wish for next volunteers is - the value of EVS and your life in EVS you can find trough process of learning, understanding, receiving and sharing. If you can find some new perspective of yourself trough good times and bad times then you can be very happy, you are doing some life changing process. If you find some friends for life - then I think this is best gift you can have being here :)

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