My experience in Finland

Winter in Finland
To begin with the nature, thus winter and its snow are the things which caught attention. I couldn’t believe my sight and feelings when I stepped down from plane at the Joensuu airport, really I was shocked by the sudden cold temperature I experienced and the layers of snow which were covering the earth which were bit slippery and irritate as l walking on it. At that moment wished if it was possible to reverse my journey to our country. To be honest, Finland is very cold place for me and it was not too easy for me to adjust to the situation. The other thing which caught my attention the sunrise and sunsets, thus I have experienced that the daylights are very short while the nights are long comparable to our country (Botswana) in the southern Africa. The sun rises late around eight o’clock in the morning and the sunset is early at around four o’clock in the late afternoon and while in spring the situation was vice versa with adjustment of an hour ahead of GMT. Of course there are thick, tall trees forest and the heaps and layers snow which gave the forest white colour sites amazed me when I arrived to Finland because I haven’t seen snow before and in Botswana, there are also no big forest lands, instead there are mainly shrub savannas in most areas and mountains at some places, with exception to the northern part of the country which have average tall trees.

The spring time
The arrival of spring enabled me to have chance to witness the beauty of the country thus the surface is green covered by the sprouting grass and the trees too are so green as the snows disappears with moderate sun shine.

The spring in also gave me the opportunity to see the ocean and enjoyed the sunshine and the moderate wind which was coming from ocean.

Finnish and their culture

Finland people are different from us in many respects include their behaviour, foods, entertainment, sport activities, sauna just to mention the few and the list is endless. In relation to behavioural wise, I learnt that the Finns are the quietest people, and it is difficult to figure out a person’s mood. Beside that Finnish people are living in a sparsely populated areas and preferably nuclear family with an average size of one to three children in a very big house which is hardy and rare into African family in general. In Botswana we mostly stay in extended family with closely neighbouring just harness the spirit of socialization and due to this, I find it difficult to practice my in born habits because I sometimes afraid of bothering people to talk rather I put my faith by dance to tune of silent tolerant. However, although the Finns are silent tolerant, they are also sound tolerant especially when they are drunk. Of course I also discovered that they are intrepid people to socialise with, respect others and friendly especially after you get to know each other and if you demand assistance.

Professional Excursion
The excursion lessons were important to my learning during my studying the NKUAS. The learning experience I achieved are of imperative to me as an agriculture teacher, since it gave me hands on experience which I could confidently impart knowledge to students on general agriculture practices with high technology for instance the milking robots, molecular breeding of cattle, organic farming style to mention a few. My experiences in different practices of agriculture is added advantage for job opportunity in the different fields of agriculture. In addition my experience could help in advocate for agriculture curriculum review on both vocational and higher secondary schools of Botswana to put in place the some of the practices I have learnt in Finland.

Finland a Place I stayed freely

It will be unfair to myself to report some serious kind of negative feelings during my stay in Finland, although I did sometimes felt missing my parents and friends and bad tastes of some foodstuffs, but its common habit when you are in foreign country. Truly speaking I would like to assure you that I stayed freely in Finland without any sign of racism. For instance on regular occasions on weekends, my student tutor , lecturer tutor and some classmates invited me to their family places and where normally felt and treated as their member of the family. Once more again I should appreciate to this exchange programme as it has increased my interpersonal skills, solidarity, abroad academic experience and of course networking friendship with European exchange students. Moreover I express a particular attention to Finnish people and once more I like would to acknowledge to those families I was invited to their families which gave me an opportunity to learn their culture close in the family orientation, for instance leaving your shoes and jackets by door when getting in the house. And to all Finns, thanks for unique culture and I like your phrase which says “movement in Finland is every man’s right” with reference to natures.

A Visit to Organic production Farm

This is a trip which I took with AMNS05 accompanied by lecturer Eeva-Liisa Juvonen to a one of the dairy organic farm in Liperi. As the name symbolise indeed the dairy in involves the practices of using 100 per cent organic products. Thus the farm is in production for 10 years producing organic milk. One may need to know the meaning of organic production, it deals the production of farm products from organic matter without using conventional fertilizer. This practice is a complete system, that is the animals wastes production (Farm yard manure and Slurry) are applied to field for production of grass and some grain crops, planted for animal feeds, the animals then produce the milk which termed as organic milk.

Technologies used at the farm
Of course, the farm structure is of highly sophisticated technology which range from milking parlour, yards outlets, waste collection and feed strategies. The technologies involved on just mentioned items really simplifies the work in the farm house and enhance less manual labouredly work. The collection of farm yard manure and slurry caught my intension which induced me to compare to compare with the cow house in school (North Karelia University of applied science) thus at organic farm it does not involved the labour rather the cows themselves are involve in pushing the underneath composed farm yard manure toward the tunnel as they sleep and trample over them. As the farm yard collect in tunnel, it collected later by the collector machine. The slurry is get collected in the trench which below the surface of the house. The only work for the farm is to put fresh straws on top of the old to keep the cow dry.

Academic Life in the North Karelia University of Applied Sciences

It is quite imperatively to acknowledge the preparations by the teacher before administration of the course contents. Thus the teacher outlined the subject matter in logical and coherent manner, which of course was discussed during the first day of the lesson and established the overall expectation the course matter. The course outline was then issued to every individual as hard cope and it is availed in the soft cope in the moodle.pkamk.fi. Throughout the content matter, there are some attachments of reference for further reading and it is availed on both Finnish and English language.

The teaching methods and materials in the classroom is more less the same to which we have in Botswana institutions. We receive lectures through power point presentation, and overhead project. We are also at par in terms of individual work given to student as assignments. However group discussions are much applied in the Finnish learning and moreover student centred learning is of a priority and computerised assignment is also of principal important to the daily teaching and learning. They also lot of practical application in the learning. These aforementioned teaching strategies are crucial in the learning environment. On our side (Botswana) teaching and learning have oriented with a lot of theories and teacher centred learning. The reasons to these are lack of enough resources and the class ratio are big that it on average 1:25.

This is the wild boar farm i have visited in kitee and the name of the farm is Karelian Riista which owner by a Finnish family. They are rearing quite a huge number of wild boars so called Sus scrofa scrofa. The animals are just housed in the wire fenced structure with some small room solid structure like within the vicinity of the place as you see on the photo. Those solid structures are used by boars as the place to sleep. The animals seem have developed some resistance to cold as I observed, they have developed some long thick hair all-overs their body. Farm practices a sound intensive hygienic management practices.

According to the owner, says in Finland they have pure bred of wild boars and with a controlled breeding system which helps to maintain the purity. The farm is also a member of farms of the National Game Breeders Association and the cooperative Ossukunta Karelia Riista and they are strong adhere to the animal registration system which has been approved by the Finnish Food Safety Authority in the order to guarantee the marketing brand of the wild boar meat. In relation to production, products and export, the breeders of pure-bred wild boar in North Karelia have found the association in order to increase production quantity. At the moment they only supply local markets but in near future they would also export the meat.

WHO AM I

My name is Sello E. Moyo. I was born 26 years ago, from Botswana in North West district in small rural country side Kauxwi village, about seven kilometers from mohembo west ferry post. In the history of my family, I am the last born and first to reach high education level and of unfortunately both of my parents and three elder sisters have never been into formal education. So I am the valuable asset to the family. Throughout my academic life I am dedicated to harding work habits and determinant enough to achieve good results. I have completed my diploma in seconday education in 2005 at Tonota College of Education majoring in Agriculture and science minor, and went further to First degree in Agricultural Education at Botswana College of Agriculture of which am completing this year 2009.

This is my first time to be abroad in Finland as an international exchange student and to me is great achievement , because it enable me to gain experience with different culture, learning environment and of course to enrich my CV. Finland is nice and of quality place to study because the learning environment is quite with maximum silent, despite of the extreme winter cold. I wish to take my education to master if i get a sponsorship. Determination is key to sucess...........

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