Feeding the Baby Seals

In this time of year, baby seals are born all around the Savonlinna area. There is an organization that named Savonlinna the city of the seals and have started a celebration each year for the baby seals. You know how when your neighbor has a baby, you bring them food or something to eat? In Finland, many people get pulla, for example. Today's event is basically symbolic for doing that for the mother seals. Two men in scuba gear bring pulla and fish under the water to a monument of seals in the middle of the lake.

The starting point

And the destination

They start on the side of the lake and swim the few meters underwater to find the seal, using a compass. When they find it they put the pulla on their own heads and then transfer it to the seals. It was funny because they completely went around the seal and it took them longer.

They had a hard time finding it...

The act of providing this pulla means that the people of the area are interested in the welfare of the seals and want to protect and provide for them. This year it's more dangerous for the baby seals because there's no snow. Usually they burrow under the snow on the ice to stay warm in these months, but without the ice or the snow, it makes it harder for these seals to survive. Check out the ceremony in two parts in the videos below :)

Success!

I thought it was a nice ceremony. Only a few people were there, but there was a small band and a guy selling hot dogs. It was snowing pretty hard right before it started and I didn't want to get out of the car, but right as the men found the seal, the sun came out and everything cleared up. It was a beautiful day.

 On another note, today we had some company over.  The husband is Finnish and moved to South America where he met his wife. They have twin girls, and they just moved here a few months ago. The wife is learning Finnish, and doesn't speak English. So I really really enjoyed speaking with her in Spanish. It made me realize how excited I am to use Spanish with my patients or others that I meet. I've realized that I do know it better than I think. It's strange that it took crossing the ocean and coming to a country that has few Spanish speakers for me to realize that! I felt a little bad because we were just chatting away in Spanish for a long time!