While Arnie and Newlin are in France, West Germany and Spain, Joel has gone to Finland to live with the Veikko Kettunen family in the countryside of North Karelia. After flying to Helsinki, he took a seven-hour train ride to Joensuu in eastern Finland, where he was met by the family and driven an hour to their house in Kaarnalampi, south of Viinijärvi.
The house used to be a working farm but no longer; they rented a few fields to neighboring farmers and occasionally sold trees for lumber. The father, Veikko, worked on the railroad and the mother, Aino, worked as a waitress in a café (which they mistakenly called a bar). Their two oldest daughters were married and lived in Liperi, a half hour away. At home were three sons close in age to Joel (Seppo, Heikki and Ari) as well as a younger daughter, Auli. The point of hosting me was to expose the children to English.
For Joel the trip was an inexpensive way to spend time in the Nordic region — Sweden, his first choice, has no such home stay programs, and Norway had a farm worker program but participants had to be 18 years old and Joel was a few months shy of that age. So he ended up in Finland, hundreds of miles east of the Swedish-speaking areas of Finland, to his dismay.
Kaarnalampi, by the way, means 'bark pond' in Finnish.
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| Joel packing for the trip to Europe |
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| Joel on the train tracks in Kaarnalampi |
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| Joel with Jarno Juntunen |
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| Joel with Seppo Kettunen making cookies |
Their son in law, who worked for a bus company, rented a small bus and drive the family up to Mount Koli, a winter ski resort. we camped overnight nearby.
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| Joel on Mount Koli |
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| Joel departing by train |
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