We cannot expect them to know as much as we do, neither can we expect them to know less

Today, we made the presentation we are going to have for the students in the school in Taita Hills with Maria. Our theme was the history of Finland. When we were about to start, we realised we had a problem - what can we expect them to know? How much do they know about the history of the world? Do they know about the Cold War and the effects on the world it had? Or the crusades to Israel? What about the French Revolution or the Han-dynasty in China? What do they study in school?

We cannot expect them to know as much as we do, neither can we expect them to know less. In the Western countries, people have much easier to gather information about everything and anything, and our communication network is global. Our opportunities are in other words totally different compared to them they have in Africa. So, where should we start?

We decided to make a quick presentation of where in the world Finland is located, just to make a smooth landing, and trough this mention to which countries Finland belonged before our independency.We also tried to keep it short because of the quite boring topic. Or at least we imagined it would be quite boring for them, to hear about a random small country's history, the wars and the presidents. One thing we actually thought would be interesting for them to hear: Martti Ahtisaari and his peace work, especially in Namibia. To this we hope they can relate, at least in some way!

It will be very interesting to get to know the real africans, what they know, do and think. We believe that we know so much of the world and its people, but these things are, in fact, something we truly cannot be sure of before experiencing and living them ourselves!

// Crista