Everything wrong with Estonia

As I write this I'm thinking I should pick my words very carefully. I already pissed the significant other in a conversation regarding this topic and it is highly likely that shes not the only one who will take offense.
So, let's get down to business and annoy every Estonian I know.

First, obviously, some context
I recently (four days before writing this post) chose to go back to Kenya once I finish my studies on Estonia. Of course, among the first people I told of this idea was my girlfriend (she might have to make the choice of leaving her home, friends and family far behind to join me). As expected, among the questions she has asked multiple times since then the predictable question: ""WHY?!" Obviously not always with the caps and exclamation mark. Obviously, the first answer is always pretty much the same: It will be fun and I like it in Kenya. Tonight, however, we went a little over the edge with the conversation. A proper long talk and explanation was demanded of me (or so I thought) and so began a rather interesting chemical reaction in my brain that led to Her storming out of the room in protest at the very raw, unprocessed idea of a thought. Now I sit here, on an inflatable armchair by Her bed, writing the more processed thoughts in silence as she lies on the bed, probably writing her own thoughts, also in silence.

When an Estonian asks me, "So, how do you like Estonia?" I don't think they expect me to answer truthfully and tell them everything I like and/or dislike about this country. The answer they expect is something along the lines of, "Oh, it's a nice country, very beautiful. The people are pretty friendly and I like it here." This is no lie. These are all thoughts I have about Estonia and, truthfully, I do like it here. Fortunately and unfortunately, however, that is not all of it. If life were that easy, it would be far too boring. So, let's have a proper look at Estonia, from the eyes and inner thoughts of the slightly disturbed gentleman currently in charge of the posts on this blog and damn the critics. Let's take off the gloves for a while.
Of course, we shall begin by generalizing EVERYTHING!

"Estonia is small, in many ways." - These are words my mother once said on camera for a documentary film, which was later aired in Estonia and has since become quite a big deal and the go-to doc film when talking about Estonians leaving the country and Non-Estonians entering the country. Once I just thought my blessed parent was just far too ambitious, or not ambitious enough, to live in Estonia. Now, almost a full decade after I first heard those words coming out of a TV, I think I understand the problem. Estonia is, indeed, small. With a geographical size of 45,228 sq km, according to the CIA World Factbook, there aren't many countries smaller. Also, with a population of 1,257,921 people, a country with less people than the capital city of the country I grew up in can't be considered anything other than small. But, obviously, the size of the country and population doesn't matter much, as Estonians almost go out of their way to prove that the country size doesn't matter. But therein lie what I see to be a few problems.
I'm sure we all know of "That Kid". The one who's really interested in Big Brother and his friends. The Kid tries as hard as possible to get accepted into the big kids group. But everyone knows that the big kids merely tolerate the Kid. Such is the case with dear little Estonia. In my very biased eyes, every single step Estonia makes in the direction of joining the big, awesome and cool countries in the North is met with sideways looks and mumbled, half-hearted "OK" replies.
But I lost my train of thought here, after a partially public argument with my girlfriend. Skype group chats are pretty cool.
Similarly, some European celebrities have been known to ignore Estonian press, who almost always ask, "So, what do YOU think of the Estonians?" Also like The Kid, Estonia seems to ignore its peers, Latvia and Lithuania. Public opinion of those countries isn't the best, in general, despite the fact that the other two countries have a lot in common wih Estonia.

But I'm no professional in international relations and I'm sure I'll probably get a lot of messages about how wrong my thoughts are, so let's move on before I lose another train.
The people.
Another common question is, "So, what do you think about Estonians? Do you think they are similar to the stereotype?" The stereotype here is that Estonians are quiet, almost completely antisocial and barely talk to anyone. Under that also goes that they are racist and non-tolerant of change and foreigners. The common answer to that, obviously is, "Oh, not at all! I believe quite a few Estonians are very friendly and I'm yet to find a stereotypical Estonian." Nobody expects the more critical, "Yes, if you were to walk up to an Estonian on the street, they will probably be cold, very reserved and only speak to you with as few words as possible to make sense," or that older Estonians are quite surprised to see foreigners. I, for one, attract more attention than I'd like, being a "Black Guy" who speaks Estonian. And if there's one thing I know, it's that Estonians don't judge awkward situations and awkwardness the same way as everyone else does. So I've almost gotten used to the whole, "Aah, but it's really good that you know Estonian. That means you can blend in easier and can make friends and stuff," or the "Can you believe this guy? He's not even from Estonia and speaks much more than your average Estonian Russian!" - Side note: There are some Estonian citizens of Russian origin who refrain from learning and speaking Estonian, prefering the language of the Eastern giant.
Over time thes get really annoying, especially taking into account that in order to get an Estonian talking this much, you need to have them chug down at least two beers. Maybe even a shot of vodka or two as well. Obviously, one can imagine the quality of conversation one can get from such a situation.
So, who or what is an Estonian? I've found an Estonian to be practically a workhorse of some description. Almost wordlessly doing whatever job they've given themselves, taking most of the flack life throws at them without so much as a grunt and when asked how it's going they'll answer, "Like normal." Even when times might be tough, the answer remains the same and few will talk about the hard time.
Estonians judge and pre-judge everyone all the time. Which is why they are so closed. Having to worry about what others think about them and also drawing their own conclusions makes these people very silent, in an attempt to not give enough fodder for others to judge negatively, because heaven forbid, if that person I barely know thinks I'm silly.
And yet I must marvel in the fact that people manage to live like that. Living completely in one's comfort zone is comfortable, but leaves one almost powerless when confronted with something new.
And I lost my train of thought. What was I rambling about again?

Oh well, I think I've either made my point or absolutely butchered my chances of making it. Either way, it's time for a conclusion.
So why am I going back to Kenya? Because I can imagine a future for myself there. It's hip, its interesting, but most important, I can see how I'm going to achieve it. It's a step out of my comfort zone in some ways and a step back into my comfort zone in other ways. Because I'm tired of the very closed thinking living in Estonia has given me and want something more unpredictable. Mostly because every day in Estonia makes me feel older while every day in Kenya keeps me feeling young. But who am I kidding, I'll probably change my mind before I even get to Kenya again.
If you managed to read this far, congradulations. I'd have given up twice by now. And no, I didn't read through this before publishing it. I might later on.

Woa! Wouldya look at that!

So I was having a chat with my new girlfriend. She chose to "stalk" me and find my blog. She then told me about it and I was reminded of this space. I had actually forgotten about it completely.

So.... I suppose now I have one more thing to add to my "To Do" list: to deal with the backlog of stuff to rant about.

Soooo...... Let's see how much my thoughts and rants have changed in the past year. :)

Standby for... stuff.
And things.
And.... er.... stuff.

Love - An attempt

So, it's been a long while. Been busy trying to survive in the university, something I seem to have a talent for making difficult for myself. Aside from that, nothing much has happened... I've built a partially functioning quad-copter Flight Controller (more on that in a while, maybe), munching on bricks, plowing through a few sticks, without knowing it, and being as unreasonable as ever.

I succeeded in getting some people to really dislike me (I'm not sure how or why) and one of them has been on my mind ever since. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. And let's not forget that what people want is, more often than not, what they can't have.

And so it is that, with a wounded heart, I rant about love. I never thought this day would come. :P

So... I went to watch the Vanemuine Theatre's tribute to Michael Jackson - Thriller (not alone) and I was reminded of a few facts about love. Billy Jean is first to come to mind. It turns out that I've been quite a badass, and not even in a good way.

Love, it seems, is not only just a chemical reaction, as I've been taking it to be. Life, as it is, is a chemical reaction, and as such, any chemical reaction within that actually has a very large impact on everything else. That's why heartbreaks actually do hurt, and sudden breakups stun, because the intensity of the chemical reactions brought about by such things is so high, that they change the outcome of every other chemical reaction in the vicinity (and let's not even GO into the Law of Thought).

It turns out, that I don't know half of what I think I do, and of the things I know, not as well, as I'd think. Especially not when it comes to emotion. My ego will not let me write much more (I'll have to get that sorted soon) and my sudden lack of knowledge has my brain screaming at me for fallacy, so I'll just end it with, the statement:
I'll be careful next time.

Incredibly Phudged-up Organization (IPhO)

WAAAAAY Overdue: My take on the International Physics Olympiad (from here on, just IPhO).

Right, so on my very first day of university (OK, the first day I actually started learning here and slightly before I stopped learning...), there was a Science Bus meeting (the Science Bus is an Estonian thing, where university students go round to schools and abuse science, in an attempt to get kids to want to study it... It's worth a handful of posts, so I'll add it to the list of stuff to post on). In the meeting, some guy walked in and said, as he passed round a sheet of paper, "There's a big physics olympiad in the summer and we need volunteers to help organise it. Everyone interested, write your name and contacts down on this paper."

I forgot about that for the rest of the year. Suddenly, in February, I got an e-mail on the matter and a load of "courses" started happening, about how NOT to insult people from all over the world and stuff.
Turned out I was part of a sellect group called the "Calibrators", who were under oath NOT to speak of their work and only answered to the guy who had asked for our contacts half a year ago. No pressure.

Thus began the long (and I do mean long) series of courses and meetings that would prepare all the volunteers to take on the hundreds of Physicist wannabes (and geeks) from round the world. The courses generally took the whole day and took place once a month. I can't say I learned anything useful in that time... I DID, however, meet quite a few awesome people with whom I'd like to spend more time.

The courses were mostly boring, frankly speaking, and didn't have much to do with my role at the Olympiad. But I kept going, because of the people.In the first "course", we were told about the different roles:

• Guides
• Base staff (Organisers)
• IT
• Exam room staff
• Press
• Calibrators

The guides had the worst job, in my opinion. They had to show the foreigners around and babysit them for 10 days. That meant less sleep than the lightest sleeper in the team. each guide took on one country's competitors. The teachers, hopefully, being more mature, didn't need so many guides, so they were divided into a small handful of groups.

Calibrators were a select group of people who were in charge of the exam room. They called the shots and answered only to one person: the person who recruited them (yes, a bunch of badasses).

IT people dealt with the internet uplink between the Tallinn base and the exam room control center.

The Exam room staff helped the Calibrators in the exam room. They did the simple jobs that the calibrators gave them.

The Base staff dealt with the bases, which had the bigger picture in mind. They knew exactly who was where and for how long. They called every shot, except for exam room shots, for which they only had authority to request.

Press were the paparazzi and annoying interviewers of the entire show.


The idea was to have the teachers from each country in the capital of the small country, Tallinn, and send the students to Tartu, the university town (city?), where they would sit the exam. The teachers had to translate the exam papers, which were in English, to whichever language the students felt most comfortable with (there were some people from America and Canada, who got Chinese papers :P ). Translated papers were sent, via the internet the Estonians feel so proud of, to Tartu, where they were printed (the night before the exam). Answered papers were scanned in immediately after the exam to the Tallinn base for the teachers to mark and correct.

Preparation was supposed to take place in a relaxed continuous manner, having had a lot of time in advance to deal with it. I'm not sure how much work was NOT procrastinated, but it certainly felt like a heck of a rush to me. For at least three months after the start of the courses, no apparent work had been done. What made matters even more worrying was that the main organizers (the shot callers) were delegating some very important tasks to kids, and some rather important assignments were botched up (like the welcome video). Preparation suddenly hit high gear a month before the Olympiad. Stationary needed to be compiled, papers printed, stuff bought, et cetera. The IT group had to be trained in the use of the "special" machinery, calibrators needed to get the floor plan of the exam room set,set up archive plans for the answered test papers, protocol, procedure, timetables, resting times, 101s on how to calibrate stuff... It was quite crazy.

I had made the silly choice of giving myself two roles: calibrator AND IT. That meant that I had an annoying amount of stuff to do before the Olympiad:

• Check that there was a sufficient internet connection in EACH hotel our contestants would be staying in
• Master the HUGE printer/scanner combo machines we'd be using
• Print signs, which would be used in the exam room
• Help the archiving team with their printing work
• Set up both the Tallinn base as well as the exam command center.
• Set up special laptops, which would be used by the calibrating team
• Learn how to calibrate stuff

I had some really close deadlines on those, especially because I had other things to do and other places to be at a week before the start.

When the big thing finally started, the madness REALLY began. We had to move out of our homes for the duration of the Olympiad. The guides and organizers were in the same hotels as the students and teachers while the exam room teams (both of them) were in a hostel far away from the exam center (we got the worse deal :P ). The Tallinn base was set up on the first day, the Tartu and exam bases the following day, as the students made the journey to the university town. As the students checked in, the calibrators were on the spot, making sure the students had the correct calculators (the kind that DIDN'T plot graphs and do all the work for them). This exercise took most of the afternoon and half of the evening. The students who didn't have the correct calcs had to either buy new ones, or hope the organizers would let them borrow the limited number of spare calcs. That same evening the teachers began translating the tests. We were put into two shifts, so that we would all have half a goon nights sleep, at least. I got the second shift. That meant I had more work to do, because most teachers get done in the wee hours of the morning. Coffee was my best buddy (and I'm not a coffee drinker). The exam was the most annoying time. My feet were killing me, for having been on them for over 5 hours straight during printing AND during the exam, as I patrolled the floor. By the end, I was dead tired. But we still had to collect all the exam papers quickly, scan them and send them to Tallinn.

We had a good nights' sleep that night. The following day was free for the students. That meant we could prepare for the practical (yes, we punished them in theory AND practicals). Because of the incredible number of students, it had to be done in two groups (double the work for us). We calibrated, printed the answer sheets and the morning shift (including myself) went to bed early, leaving the second shift to finish off the calibrating and wait for the question papers. Exactly one hour after going to bed, we were all mobilized. The calibrating had gone sour and the guy in charge had ordered all hands on deck. I hadn't gotten any sleep that night, because I had been dealing with the two hotels that didn't have as good an internet connection as we had wanted (the students needed the internet for Skype conversations with their teachers in Tallinn, as their phones and all other forms of communication had been confiscated for the duration of the Olympiad). Ordering more coffee and cream from the Tartu base, we sleepily got everyone awake and off to the exam center. Twenty minutes into the re-calibrating the question papers started filing in. I was forced to dash up and begin the annoying printing process. When the re-calibrating had been done, the first shift got to sleep. Printing continued right through till a few minutes before the exam. The first part of the practicalls went relatively better than the theory. The real headache came when the first batch of students had to be kicked out, papers collected, scanned, stuff re-calibrated, room cleaned and new papers issued. All this had to be done in less than an hour, because by then the next batch of students came in. I have absolutely NO idea how we were able to do all that in one hour and 15 minutes, because that was a lot of work. The exam room was the Estonian University of Life Sciences sports center, with an open room the size of three basketball courts WITH room for bleachers. Into which had been placed 400 1.5m x 1m walled boxes (expo room kind). By the time the second batch was underway, we were all bushed. The morning shift had not slept at all and the evening shift was not in a better state either. It was the command center's new job to set up an ex prompt sleep regime, to let some people catch a few Zs during the exam. I was in charge of the command center. Just my luck. I had to help others get sleep while battling my own eyelids AND deal with the rush of other requests the center got during the exam. I remember at some point in time I couldn't take it much longer. surrounded by sleepers, I delegated the command center to someone else and fell asleep too. Too soon, I was woken up for the lase 45 minutes of the session.

That night we had to take apart the entire box system, pack up ALL the experiment apparatus into cute little boxes, so we could sell the stuff and clear out. I can't tell you how tired I was after that. I remember sleeping for two days straight and after joining the IPhO world again, found out that out of sheer joy of finishing all the papers, a handful of guides had broken the golden rule: "Thou shalt not drink alcoholic beverages during the duration of the Olympiad" and had subsequently gotten the sack. A handful of students were hospitalized with broken bones, lacerations, alcohol poisoning, and other inconveniences.

All in all, a very successful enterprise and some ANNOYING organization.


Note: This is how I saw it, and chose to interpret it. Under NO circumstances are all these statements true (most are) and my conclusions are NOT objective.

Social Networking

So, less than an hour before posting this (I started writing this 10 minutes after, but well, with typing and stuff, time flies), I saw a status update on Facebook that really was an eyesore. Here it is:

"believe in God but don't pray enough coz He don't believe in me. Still pray for redemption so when I die bury me with a neck full of rosaries and Jesus pieces"

I couldn't let that slide, so I commented:

"WAAAAAA! ZI! I can't let that slide!
belief in God, by definition (to some point), means that God believes in you (If we are talking about the same God worshipped in the Christian faith).
If you're of the opinion that God doesn't believe in you, what makes you think He's going to redeem you. And how does being burried with a bunch of rosiaries going to help you? It's like the Pharaos of Ancient Egypt. Did their gold and servants follow them into the afterlife? Did they help?
And who's to say if you pray enough. Enough for what?" *Forgive the misspelled words, I was in a hurry to get my thought across.

I had posted my comment 5 minutes after he updated his status. I patiently waited for him to notice the comment and explain himself. 10 minutes after his update, he updated something else completely. On looking through my news feed, I was he had been steadily updating stuff for over an hour.

I, of course, began thinking. So... Here we have a social network. Elements of a social network are generally simple: we have a page dedicated to a person, or interesting subject. There's a place for other people or interesting subjects to post stuff and there's a place where the person or interesting subject in question can update a status (generally an interesting thought to be shared with the world). With most of these, there's a chance to comment on the idea.

So, what does this mean for me? It's simple: status updates are interesting things you want your friends/subscribers/stalkers to think about. A comment shows that the audience is interested in the topic at hand, and it's, at the very least, a question of honor and politeness, to reply to the comment and, if possible, post your own, to get a discussion going.

Now, there are, evidently, some people, who appear to miss this point (or I simply have had it all wrong all these years), who simply update stuff for the sake of doing it. But this raises the question: WHY? If it's not important to you what your subscribers/friends/stalkers think of the topic at hand, then WHAT'S THE POINT OF PUTTING THE TOPIC UP AT ALL??? You might as well write it on a piece of paper and then burn it! In fact, writing something on a paper and burning it is a symbol with various meanings, so there may be a point to that, at least! :P

I should be grateful to said friend, though. His pointless gesture gave me a topic to write about (I've been thinking of what to write about, and he gave me the topic).

"You're on Facebook, right?"

This is a question that used to actually have a point, some years ago. It is fast losing importance (if it still has any these days). Social networks, like Facebook are on quite a boom. There are all sorts of statistics on the number of users on Facebook, the number of pages, the number of likes... I'm fast getting tired of these statistics, because after some time even they lose their importance and significance. So now we have a place where we can meet people. We are now in age where most of people's communication and interaction goes on in cyberspace. We have all sorts of ways to communicate with our friends and acquaintances: Facebook, Twitter, Skype, MSN, Yahoo! Messenger... the list is endless! Each has its own pros and cons. Each has a MASSIVE user base. And each one is there to make communicating with people easier. And, indeed, they succeed! Most big companies now know that the internet is the best place to advertise and Social Networks provide the perfect base to have an advertisement go viral.

But where are we going with this? We have all sorts of people in this picture: con artists, activists, politicians, humanitarians, animal rights people, big companies consolidating their customer base, small companies trying to make a big break, individual people, groups... I could go on. Each of these people have their own agenda, be it to steal money, information, accounts, virginities, find friends, make friends, get customers, feed propaganda... Social Networks are powerful tools. And they can be used in any way.

Now, I'm not here to say it's wrong, or point out all the flaws. It is important to mention, however, that people should be careful. Most awesome things these days begin in social networks. But, just as easily can begin terrible things. And, as users, we need to keep in mind, what we're doing and what is our goal. As soon as you start drifting in something this big, you get lost and that's when things get thick.

Now, I've lost my train of thought and probably don't have anything more to rant about, so I'll end there.

Quickie to Kenya - Part I (Preparation and journey to)

So, at the end of a long and eventful summer, I chose to to take a trip back to Kenya. I mean, why not? A simple wish, if there ever was any, right? WRONG! This trip takes the first place in the list of hectic and annoying trips and I'm writing this post even before I've gotten to Kenya. OK, maybe it's not as bad as the trip I took earlier this year... So, Second place then! I should start at the beginning...

Some may remember from my last post that I had a LOT of paperwork to deal with after the trip. Archimedes Foundation has a policy NOT to give any funding if there's paperwork related to the subject yet to be handed in. A very good, solid policy that I understand. What I don't understand is their paperwork policy on proving that I took the journey! We all know how annoying it is to book a flight and stuff, right? Now, imagine having to get the airline to send passenger itinerary to you personally. It took several months (I lost count at 1) to get Turkish Airlines (the same guys who cancelled my flight for reasons I chose not to recognize) to send itinerary of my flight to and from Nairobi (as they were the people who funded my return flight, they had to be informed of my presence on each flight till Helsinki). Once that was done, I went to Tallink to get their little piece of paper saying I was on the early morning Ferry to Tallinn from Helsinki. Lastly I went to the Estonian Air offices to get the Itinerary for my flight to Stockholm (I had to pay them 12 EUR for one sheet of colourful A4 paper!!! Can you believe that???). Of course, by the time all that was done, there was about one week left before I embarked on my second trip. That meant that I didn't get the money for the journey before. I'll get it after. And since I didn't plan my money well this semester, I ended up taking a loan from both my mother as well as my granddad, to whom I already owe two or three months' rent (Yes, I must pay rent to live with my grandparents).

So, bearing in mind my financial problems, I still had a journey to plan and with the clock ticking, I didn't  have many options. The cheapest way was for me to get from Tallinn to Stockholm via ferry and then take Qatar Airways to Nairobi and back the same way (here's hoping that the holders of the World's Best Airline award for two years running don't cancel flights due to bad weather often during the summer...).

A little hindrance was the fact that this time I didn't have a travel partner with whom to share the heavy load of stuff. Very annoying was the fact that Arlanda Airport is about 40 km from Stockholm and the ferry drops everyone off smack in the middle of Stockholm. So, here I am, with a heavy box (yes, boxes again) on my back and half an idea of how to get to Arlanda. In the end I chose the easy and lazy way out. I wait for a taxi with some semblance of a decent price and ride in relative style to the airport. Along the way I realize that the taxi has no speedometer. None. It also doesn't have the little needle that shows the engine's rpm, so I  (and by my logic the driver) have very little ways to figure out the speed of the V-hicle. I resort to looking at the signs that show how far places are and timing the time taken between them. My first check informed me that the driver was doing 180kph. The second 120 kph and I didn't have time for a third. Now, last I checked, such speeds are not allowed in the EU unless on some major high speed highway (like the Autobahn, or something)... I shall not dwell on the matter. I shall simply be thankful that I arrived at Arlanda in one piece and stuff.

Once on the plane to Doha, I had the honor and pleasure of sitting next to some old guy who looked like he could barely take care of himself... I had to help him fasten hi seatbelt, adjust his seat and pick his food... However, as I don't know him, I shall leave it at that and move on to rant about something else... Like the PA system. I noticed as I boarded, that Qatar had annoying earphones so I dug mine out of my bag and used those during the flight. It was ok, except for when the Qatarese chose to use the PA system. I'd be deafened, because EVERYBODY knows when you use PA, there's only one volume level: LOUD!!!

We arrived in Doha at night. Something close to 10 pm, or something. The sun had set and I was prepared, somewhat, for a long and uneventful cold night at the airport (my plane to Nairobi was the following morning at 7.50). This wasn't as expected. As soon as I stepped off the plane, I was stunned be the air. IT WAS FREAKING 35 DEGREES!!! WHO THE FUDGE HAS AN AIR TEMPERATURE OF 35 DEGREES SO LATE IN THE DAY?! It felt as though I was in the exhaust cloud of some big engine! Thankfully the airport, though still under construction, had air conditioning (So I DID get my cold night at the airport, partially as expected...). The next annoying thing was the fact that I suddenly realized that I had left Europe. And that entails, not only changes in weather conditions, but also changes in other standards, including socket shapes! It took me about an hour before I could find a socket, which was worn out enough to shove my big European plug in (they have British sockets; yeah, those ugly 3-pin rectangles). It was only after I had spent the most boring all-nighter of my life that I realized that they had universal sockets deeper in the airport, meant for silly tech nerds (like myself) who forget to carry their adapters.

On the ride to Nairobi, I, once again, had the pleasure and honor of sitting next to someone who could barely take care of themselves. Only this time, I'm sure of the nationality: Chinese! It was weird, sitting on a plane filled 60% with Chinese. It comes as no surprise that Air China (or whatever they call it) wants to organize a route to Nairobi. That should make it easier for the Yellow Communists to colonize Kenya financially (contrary to what may be understood as hatred, dislike or any other negative emotion towards the Chinese, I have nothing at all and actually like the way they do some things).

All in all, not a bad journey! Could have been more interesting, of course, and it could have been a hell of a lot worse!

You Child!

I was walking home from school today and when passing through a park, I noticed a group of kids (probably 1-4 grade) arguing. There was a big black school bag lying on the path and one kid was walking round without a bag. The argument was about his responsibility in carrying his own bag (which I presumed to be the one on the ground). The kid was complaining that it was too heavy. When asked why he had packed so much junk, he replied, "It was my mom who packed it! Tell my mom to pack less stuff then!" By then I was out of hearing range, but I could still hear them arguing.
My mind chose not to ignore that short exchange. First off, the bag was lying on the ground about 300-400 meters away from the nearest school. It obviously didn't have millions of little feet and wasn't made of Sapient Pearwood, so it didn't make it there by its-self. I began thinking of the probability that the kid (obviously spoiled) had asked one of his friends to carry it for him. That would explain the conversation (if you can call that shouting match a conversation...) and it may help in explaining how the bag succeeded in reaching that far.
I began thinking of how that child was being raised. The very fact that he was irresponsibly leaving his bag on the ground (or in the care of someone else) and the probability that he had dared to ask someone else to carry it for him (because he obviously had no interest in carrying it...) gives a few hints. Let's not forget his words: "... my mom packed it ... tell her not to pack so much, then...!"
So here's a child, who's incredibly spoiled. So his mother packs his bag for him at age 8 or 9. I remember when I was that age I was in 5 grade, where I packed my own bag, covered my own books and walked to school alone. The chances of me leaving my over-sized bag on the road or having one of my friends carry my bag for me were equal to 0. I'm of the opinion that he didn't complain about the weight of the bag in the morning when his mother packed his things for him... I doubt he cursed his mother in school for lack of reading/writing material. And now in the early evening (about 14.00), here he is, complaining about its weight in front of 4 other kids with similar bags similarly filled with books and stuff (bags, which I'm inclined to believe they packed themselves).
This called to mind a situation, where a cousin (aged 3) was walking in the gutter. I told her to walk on the road. She said no. She fell shortly after and cried for five minutes. I told her, again, to walk on the road (after picking her up and dusting her off). She said no again, and continued walking in the gutter.



People frequently ask me what I think of Estonia and the life here compared to Kenya. I doubt my answer has changed much in the two years I've been here... I always say that the quality of living here is pretty good, that the four season set-up is interesting, that the people are friendly, helpful and resourceful and that most of the women are good looking and a load of other stuff for another post. Despite all that, I seem to have something against havind to raise a family here!
I have quite a few reasons for that last statement. To begin with, I dislike the fact that some family members feel the need to spoil children and criticize (negatively) the idea of strictness. How on earth can you raise a child who'll understand that elders are to be RESPECTED and who'll deal with their own stuff, like they should (for example: CARRY THEIR OWN FREAKIN' BAGS, PACKED  BY THEIR OWN GRUBBY HANDS) when there's someone who's constantly butting in and countering your instructions?!
My next point is slightly contrary to my previous one, but so what? I, obviously, can't watch over my child 24/7... And so, I'd hope that the people who are with my child at any given time can be trusted with the correcting and teaching of my child. That means that in school the teacher should be looking out, to make sure that my child isn't bullying or being bullied and if one of the previous mentioned is happening, put a stop to it in a fashion that could be permanent! And yet I hear that teachers these days are only paid to try to pour knowledge into their students. All raising and correcting is to be done by parents. Go figure.
My last reason is that I really dislike how people raise their kids round here. And that meant that other people's kids will be a bad influence on mine. I mean, seriously! A parent who packs her son's bag (a son who's old enough to pack his own bag) and doesn't notice that he might feel the bag to be a little too heavy for him...
I'll just leave it there.