The biggest sur­prise is when you don’t know what to expect

“Now that some time has passed since the trip, I under­stand even bet­ter how great an expe­ri­ence the month in Reunion was! It was such a unique expe­ri­ence that you did not even under­stand it there.”

For high school stu­dents in Oulu, there are numer­ous oppor­tu­ni­ties to go to Europe safe­ly. Most of our high schools have been coop­er­at­ing with Eras­mus+ for years, and through this coop­er­a­tion a sub­stan­tial num­ber of high school stu­dents and their teach­ers have moved around the EU.

The Artic Trop­ic coop­er­a­tion school of Sven­s­ka Pri­vatskolan i Uleåborg and Laani­la High School is in the far­thest cor­ner of the Euro­pean Union, on a small island in the Indi­an Ocean, Reunion. From there, it is 10,000 kilo­me­ters or an 11-hour flight to the country’s cap­i­tal, Paris. The tar­get high school on the tiny island, Lycée Les Avi­rons, a high school of 1200 stu­dents, is where Aino Määt­tä, Armi Koskela, and Jamie Härkö­nen from Laani­la High School, and Alvar Sandell and Saana Vähäsar­ja from Sven­s­ka Pri­vatskolan trav­eled in mid-Octo­ber for a month-long exchange peri­od. On the island, they were await­ed by a host fam­i­ly and an exchange sib­ling, who will come to Oulu for an exchange in Jan­u­ary.

The exchanges take place dur­ing the school year, and there­fore the young peo­ple study the stud­ies of their home high school inde­pen­dent­ly dur­ing the exchange. At Les Avi­rons High School, they par­tic­i­pat­ed in phys­i­cal edu­ca­tion, Eng­lish and French lessons, and time was set aside for inde­pen­dent study dur­ing the school day. In addi­tion, the exchange includ­ed activ­i­ties relat­ed to the envi­ron­ment and sus­tain­able devel­op­ment, such as tree plant­i­ng, gar­den­ing, and garbage col­lec­tion. Going to school meant ear­ly morn­ings and late after­noons, as the French school day starts at 7:30 a.m. and ends at 5 p.m.

Aino Määt­tä and Saana Vähäsar­ja enjoy­ing the won­der­ful +26C warmth of the turquoise indi­an Ocean. There are sharks in the sea, so you can only swim in lim­it­ed areas. Pho­to: Tiina Fredriks­son

Mobil­i­ty with­in Europe has a geo­graph­i­cal, cul­tur­al and above all social dimen­sions. Our young peo­ple talked about Oulu and Fin­land, and espe­cial­ly in con­nec­tion with the theme of the exchange project, about our eco­log­i­cal prac­tices to sev­er­al school class­es at their exchange school. The Reunionese stu­dents com­ing to Oulu in Jan­u­ary will also bring infor­ma­tion from their home island to Laani­la and Sven­s­ka Pri­vatskolan. Our young peo­ple were able to get to know the nature of the vol­canic island, hike vol­ca­noes, snorkel and enjoy the sea with their host fam­i­lies.

Reunion is the cra­dle of amaz­ing land­scapes, ser­pen­tine roads, beau­ti­ful sun­sets, love­ly beach­es, deli­cious Cre­ole food and cool Cre­ole music. It is a trop­i­cal island, but still a part of France: euros are used, the lan­guage is French, and peo­ple often go to Paris after high school to study.

Eras­mus+ Team Oulu; Armi Koskela, Saana Vähäsar­ja, Eva Åström, Alvar Sandell, Jamie Härkö­nen, Aino Määt­tä, Johan­na Peteri and Tan­ja Lapin­lampi on a day trip in Paris, France, before board­ing the plane to Reunion Island. Pho­to: Tiina Fredriks­son

Dur­ing exchange peri­ods, the most impor­tant thing is to meet peo­ple and make new friends. We, the par­tic­i­pat­ing teach­ers, met the teach­ers of Lycée Les Avi­rons as col­leagues, and thanks to the long-stand­ing coop­er­a­tion, the plans pro­gressed smooth­ly. Trust and under­stand­ing move things for­ward. In the same way, bridges are built for young peo­ple: through an exchange fam­i­ly, they get to see ordi­nary life and become part of the com­mu­ni­ty. “We became real close friends,” said one of the young exchange sib­lings.

Reunionese Eras­mus+ teach­ers Pas­cale Payet-Jugand and Simon Jugand pre­sent­ing their Finnish guests the unique cir­cus val­ley area of the vol­canic island in Cilaos, Reunion Island. Pho­to: Tiina Fredriks­son

I think the essence of Euro­pean­ness is in our encoun­ters with each oth­er, and it says some­thing about the time when I end­ed up talk­ing about peace and com­mu­ni­ty with adults. I also chat­ted with a Dutch­man on the plane, and we agreed on how impor­tant it is that we know each oth­er. The man told me he was from an indus­tri­al area near the Ger­man bor­der. “Oh, the Ruhr area,” I asked. “Exact­ly! How can you know?,” he won­dered.

The Finnish school sys­tem teach­es us a lot about Europe. But only when we know each oth­er, we also real­ly know our con­ti­nent and then we have a net­work: an exchange sib­ling may be wait­ing on the oth­er side of the globe.

“I’ve already start­ed think­ing about whether I could do an intern­ship there in the future.”

The ital­i­cized texts are quot­ed from a mes­sage from a Laani­la stu­dent who spent a month in Reunion last year.

Orig­i­nal Finnish text: Tan­ja Lapin­lampi
Trans­la­tion: Tiina Fredriks­son

Main pho­to: Eras­mus+ French/Finnish exchange stu­dent sib­lings Gai­tane Corre, Armi Koskela, Aino Määt­tä, Rose Sou­vi­gnet, Gae­tan Castell, Jamie Härkö­nen, Saana Vähäsar­ja, Alvar Sandell and Sacha Dubois hav­ing a farewell par­ty on L’Hermitage beach, Reunion Island. How­ev­er, there was no final good­bye then, but see you in Oulu.
Pho­to: Simon Jugand