estwärts

Before things can really get going from 4 p.m., Saturday morning is all about the final preparations for our big party: we have to set up and decorate the self-made banquet tables and benches, hang up information boards and maps, designate parking spaces and generally get everything ready. It briefly seems as if everything could fall through after all when rain clouds suddenly appear in the morning and it rains more than it has for a long time. But towards the early afternoon, our optimism grows as the rain becomes less and we finally dare to lay out the tablecloths and decorate the banquet tables.

Preparations are also in full swing in the kitchen. We prepare a large pot of delicious potato soup and a variety of snacks for the buffet, which is later supplemented by all kinds of gifts from our guests. Marju, Jaan, Krista and family arrive early to help with the finishing touches and light the barbecue they brought with them.

At 4 p.m., the first guests arrive at Rihula and in the following hour, so many more arrive that the prepared parking spaces are not an inch too small. In addition to neighbors and friends from the area, curious guests also arrive from other parts of Estonia and even from Helsinki to see what’s going on in the farm, which has been awakened from its slumber. Most of them immediately set off to explore the farm on their own; some also take a guided tour to see the progress of the construction work and find out what this is all about.

After the tours, there is still time to chat over coffee and cake, and we quickly get the impression that people overcome language barriers and have a nice conversation.

Then we all come together under the lime tree in the middle of Rihula between the main house and the stables to celebrate what has been created with short speeches and music. Anna and Janne give an Estonian-German speech in which they express their joy about the work of the last two weeks and their thanks to our construction helpers as well as the support of Marju, Krista and her family. Afterwards, Krista talks about the unlikely encounter with Hagen in Oslo last fall, without which we would certainly not be here in Rihula today.

The speeches are followed by a self-composed song about the experiences and work of the last two weeks, which the construction crew performs in the style of an Estonian regilaul. In Estonian regis, a verse recited individually is followed by a response verse, and so in our regi we respond to Estonian verses by Anna and Janne with a German translation. Finally, as a symbol of the beginning of something beautiful and new, a young oak tree is to be replanted, whose original place was right before the sauna door. Krista immediately came up with the idea of relocating it to a temporary location until the party and then planting it there together.

Afterwards, we toast the happy coincidence mentioned in Krista’s speech with a glass of sparkling wine and mov on to a cozy evening. With potato soup, barbecued food and bread on a stick, young and old alike enjoy themselves, communicating with each other sometimes in Estonian, sometimes in German, English or Russian.

Our big party finally ends in a smaller group around the campfire, where we make music together, chat and round off the evening.

After the long week, the many preparations and the wonderful impressions and conversations on the evening of the party, we have really earned a day off. So Sunday passes with an extended breakfast, little exercise and a brief handover of the most important construction sites to Tobias and Lionel from the estwärts team, who will now hold the reins for the second half of our construction camp.

Around midday, a small group gets together for a walk in the forest and of course - how could it be any different - returns with a well-filled basket of chanterelle mushrooms. Luckily, Lukas has made pizza dough in the morning and Janne has prepared tomato sauce, so our evening activity is set. Only briefly does it seem as if the evening’s pizza baking might fall through after all, when our pizza dough, which had been cooled in the river, takes on a life of its own and starts traveling downstream. Coincidentally, however, Lionel and Lola return upstream from their river hike just at that moment and bring the runaway dough back to the pizza fire, where we finally bake it in the varieties tomato and bell pepper as well as sour cream and chanterelle.

This is how our party weekend ends and we are already looking forward to tell you about our upcoming construction projects. See you soon!