Miro kirjoitti:Our forum is still down.
Can anyone expound on the weekly task of the Finnish housemates? Im sorry, I must have missed it in the earlier posts.
Thank you for the nice conversations, both to my fellow Filipinos and our Finnish friends.
The weekly task is to be good hosts to Cathy (I think that includes speaking English when Cathy is in the same room) and introducing Finland and Finnish culture to Cathy. The Finn HMs have been provided with some props in the extra room, where 4 HMs at a time can go and plan what they are going to do. Skits, demonstrations, whatever they can think of. If they're successful, they will be given a traditional Finnish feast/celebration.
Last night they had a welcome party, with sauna. Cathy took to sauna like duck to water, the HMs were very impressed and made her a honorary Finn!
Unfortunately many of the Finn HMs got quite drunk and also demonstrated some of the less nice aspects of Finnish culture. Fortunately Esa the gentleman (who doesn't drink alcohol) was there to look after Cathy and they had some very nice conversations.
Today the HMs, including Cathy, were given the task to learn this sentimental Finnish song from the 1970s. "Sininen ja valkoinen", "Blue and White", about the colours in our flag and about Finnish people and nature. Cathy actually read the instructions outloud in Finnish!
They have until Thursday to learn it, then they'll perform it.
They started practising the song but then they went outside for a demonstration of popular Finnish sports, given by Sami, Aso, Toni and Antti, with Dana and Sampo translating and explaining, commenting. They demonstrated ski jumping, cross country skiing, ice hockey, floor ball (indoor bandy) and our national game, pesäpallo (Finnish baseball). Cathy was invited to join in in the floor ball and pesäpallo and she did really well!
(I posted about that above, go back a page or two.)
Since then they have practised the song some more, Cathy is getting very good at it, though she still has some difficulty pronouncing some words like "köyhyyden"
The Finn HMs have been thinking of cooking traditional Finnish foods. Toni is a chef so he'd be able to cook them all but they don't have the ingredients.
Right now Cathy, Esa, Dana chatting in living room, explaining a game Esa invented. It's like a card game but as they don't have palying cards, they use different coloured straws. Steffi and Sampo also came and joined the game.
I think Esa, Dana, Steffi and Sampo have been the best hosts to Cathy. For example, if they can't see where Cathy is, Dana goes, "Where's our girl?". They are the best in including her and talking English, explaining and interpreting. Everybody else is also friendly and welcoming, Toni maybe has the biggest problem with the language barrier.
Oooops, sorry, long post.
OMG! OMG! 
Kätlin & Johanna 
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