Last week I was in Estonia. My brother and sister-in-law recently bought a house in Käru, a small place in central Estonia. In this house they propose to found a Museum of Good Deeds. It’s an unusual step for Estonian Russians, to move like that to a place where 100% of population is Estonian and then to suddenly start rejuvenating it with all kinds of creative initiatives. But very much in the character for Aljona and Sergei.
Anyway, suddenly in conjunction with my visit we had an idea that I give a talk to the kids in the Käru high school about my travels around the world. And it actually got done! Posters were printed, time was arranged, and all of a sudden I found myself standing in front of these 34 kids, the school’s entire student population, as well as several teachers, taking them for about two hours to Iceland, India or Cuba. And of course showing the photos. I loved the experience! To be fair, I think the teachers were actually more involved and interested by the stories. The kids, most of them rather small, loved the photos of animals above all – I could hear a collective gasp whenever a monkey or a lemur or a turtle made an appearance!
I feel quite proud about this experience as I spoke in Estonian, language that I don’t practice actively very often. Another clear lesson from this talk was that it was such a joy. I love speaking in public.