Chas­ing the Auro­ras: Anibal’s jour­ney of self-dis­cov­ery and com­mu­ni­ty

Meet Ani­bal, an IT stu­dent at OAMK, who moved from Santiago’s live­ly and busy streets to Oulu to search for a new life. 3 years lat­er, sit­ting on top of a hill, Ani­bal looked out to the sky with their friends, and dis­cov­ered what life is all about.

Ani­bal is from a busy, high­ly pop­u­lat­ed city San­ti­a­go, Chile. San­ti­a­go has over 5 mil­lion peo­ple, one city hav­ing more peo­ple than all of Fin­land. Anibal’s days would con­sist of busy streets, packed pub­lic trans­port and live­ly dai­ly life, right until they made their deci­sion to move to Fin­land for stud­ies.

– It start­ed in 2019 or 2018. I saw a doc­u­men­tary about Europe’s sys­tems, Ani­bal recounts.

– The doc­u­men­tary focused espe­cial­ly on Finland’s edu­ca­tion sys­tem. And ever since then, I was like oh, must be cool to study there, sounds real­ly cool. What a shame I will nev­er be able to expe­ri­ence it. And then I was like… But why, though? I can apply to it, I can at least try. So, I tried that, and well… it worked.

And so, Ani­bal made the deci­sion to apply to study in Fin­land, inspired both by the doc­u­men­tary and the var­i­ous pos­i­tive recounts they had heard of Fin­land. They got accept­ed in mul­ti­ple uni­ver­si­ties, but Ani­bal chose OAMK due to its high­er stu­dent count. In 2020, Ani­bal begun their stud­ies at OAMK in Infor­ma­tion Tech­nol­o­gy, spe­cial­iz­ing in web and app devel­op­ment.

Set­tling in Oulu

Arriv­ing at Oulu, Ani­bal found Oulu to be very qui­et. The bus­es weren’t packed like in San­ti­a­go, on the con­trary; there was only one oth­er per­son on the bus with Ani­bal that depart­ed from the air­port that day. There were no pick­pock­ets, and the streets of Oulu were calmer and safer to tra­verse.

– It felt a bit sur­re­al because a lot of the things that peo­ple said about Fin­land were actu­al­ly true.

As Ani­bal resided in Oulu, they found Oulu was mak­ing an effort to make things bet­ter for every­one. Dur­ing COVID, the reg­u­la­tions ensured every­one afford­able access to masks and tests. Ani­bal found Oulu’s bike sys­tem to be well devel­oped, ensur­ing an easy way to move around with a bike. With lit­tle effort, they could tra­verse around Oulu using the well-main­tained bike lanes. There is nature all around, and Ani­bal enjoys nature dai­ly through parks, Kuiv­asjärvi and the var­i­ous for­est paths.

“It felt a bit sur­re­al because a lot of the things that peo­ple said about Fin­land were actu­al­ly true.”

– There are very few green spots in San­ti­a­go, most­ly because it’s like a very big urban city. Like there’s no spot for trees. Here, I look out my win­dow and I have a for­est.

Dur­ing their stay in Oulu, Ani­bal has picked up cycling and pad­dle­board­ing. Today, one of Anibal’s favorite activ­i­ties is to go to Kuiv­asjärvi to pad­dle along the lake.

Find­ing a Com­mu­ni­ty

In 2020, the world was expe­ri­enc­ing the COVID-lock­down. Ani­bal found them­selves feel­ing lone­ly in their apart­ment in the begin­ning of their stud­ies due to the lock­down. How­ev­er, Ani­bal dis­cov­ered how to find friends in Oulu.

Ani­bal began to attend var­i­ous hob­by groups, events, and orga­ni­za­tions to find var­i­ous new friends.

– I think in Chile, if you just go some­where, you will end up in a com­mu­ni­ty some­how. But in Oulu you kind of have to look for it. But it’s not real­ly like you have to make an effort to be part of the com­mu­ni­ty. It’s like… I want to go here. I want to be part of this. So you go, and bam. You are part of it. You have to take the first step, I think. That’s the main thing that I’ve noticed here, that oth­er peo­ple won’t make you take the first step for you. You have to do it your­self, and once you’re in, you’re in.

Ani­bal found that while Finnish peo­ple may seem cold at first, one should not be afraid to approach them. Once approached, Finnish peo­ple often are very gen­tle, kind, and help­ful peo­ple.

– I think the best exam­ple is this one friend that is 2 meters tall. He always has a pok­er face, but if he sees some­body in trou­ble, he will run to them and help them. If you’re hav­ing trou­ble, he will try to help you. He is always will­ing to talk with you. Peo­ple look at him and might assume that he’s scary, but he’s like the most peace­ful per­son I know.

Dis­cov­er­ing Work-Life Bal­ance

This year, Ani­bal need­ed to com­plete an intern­ship for their stud­ies. For­tu­nate­ly, Ani­bal received a rec­om­men­da­tion from a friend to a com­pa­ny called Vuo AI. After send­ing their CV and doing var­i­ous skill test­ing, Ani­bal was told they received the posi­tion. Even after the intern­ship, Ani­bal received a job through the com­pa­ny.

Upon expe­ri­enc­ing Finnish work cul­ture through their cur­rent work­place, Ani­bal finds Finnish work cul­ture to be one of a kind. Pri­or to Fin­land, Ani­bal had an impres­sion that work trainee­ships would be bor­ing, but Ani­bal had the oppo­site expe­ri­ence. Ani­bal was pos­i­tive­ly sur­prised by how well free time and vaca­tion time is respect­ed.

– When you get out of work, you get out of work. You don’t think about it until 9:00. AM tomor­row. And in the mean­time, you can just do what­ev­er you want with the mon­ey that you got from work. Which is like the point of work­ing. And I love that in Fin­land it just works like that. It just works as intend­ed. I can get out of work and just go to a lake and swim or go to Nal­likari and just… Fool around, or I can just walk around the city cen­tre and grab a burg­er.

Chas­ing the Auro­ras

It was an evening in the spring­time. Ani­bal and their friends found out that there was going to be a huge aur­al activ­i­ty all over the world. So, the friends went togeth­er to hunt for auro­ras. After some walk­ing, they end­ed up on top of a hill, look­ing out to the sky. At that moment, Ani­bal real­ized just how much their life had changed. Only 3 years ago, Ani­bal had felt lone­ly due to COVID, and now here they were, look­ing at the sky sur­round­ed by friends, in the mid­dle of nature.

– At that moment I real­ized how many great things I have gained from being here. It was late at night, but I did­n’t feel unsafe. I was in the mid­dle of nature. I was with peo­ple that accept me for who I am. And we were wait­ing for a nat­ur­al phe­nom­e­non to hap­pen, that does­n’t hap­pen any­where else. Even though we did­n’t get to see it, it still was amaz­ing.

Today, Ani­bal finds Oulu a peace­ful place to live. They have matured and begun to enjoy life more, mak­ing sure to take things slow­er. Ani­bal has found not only new friends and experiences, but also unique job oppor­tu­ni­ties. In the future, Ani­bal would like to stay in Oulu.

Text: Anni-Maria Teirikko