A Day with Our Friend Family
Although Ashok and I, Prakash, had never put a foot on ski before, we decided to ski with our family friend Tiiu. The weather was wonderful and we were very excited. We headed towards Pahalampi lake in Pilpasuo in Tiiu’s car at 12:30 pm or so. As most parts of the Finland are, the lake was very quiet and the lake was under the blanket of thick snow. Tiiu and Anna, who also joined us to make it even better, started to make fire for making sausages and Ashok and I started to ski on the lake. The snow on the lake was very thick and that made it easier for us to ski.
Our friend Matti, Tiiu’s husband, was making sauna hot and waiting for us. After taking some rest we went to sauna naked. Yup, very Finnish thing. It was also the same day that I realized I was missing a very important experience of sauna. I used to go to sauna but never had a chance to jump to snow right after sauna. Taking advantage of darkness and sauna with mild alcohol, we jumped to freezing cold snow. Wowwww, what a relief! It felt as if I was weightless, like a feather. If sauna is an ice cream, snow after sauna is the topping. After sauna, we all had fantastic dinner and talked about Tiiu’s visit to Nepal and our cultural differences. It was almost midnight by then and Tiiu drove us back home. If some days can be called perfect, it was one of them.
We are very thankful to OSAKO for the friend family program. It has made a huge difference. And also Tiiu will never know how much home we have felt here because of her.
Prakash Acharya, IT-student in Oulu UAS
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The Friend Family Programme of Student Union OSAKO and Oulu UAS offers local families and the international degree students a chance to spend time together and learn from each other. Please read more about the programme at oamk.fi/ystavaperheet (in Finnish) and oamk.fi/friendfamilies (in English).