Hiiumaa October 18, 1992 - August 1, 1996

To satisfy the powers that be at Peace Corps, I had to write down everything that I did in Hiiumaa. Guess they have to justify the wopping 200 bucks a month I got paid! They'd be better off explaining to Estonians what Peace Corps is exactly. Some frikkin' poet named "Stone Bridge" actually wrote an article that claimed Peace Corps volunteers were just meddling thrill-seekers and had been breaking up Estonian families! What a dork!

 The big bosses in Hiiumaa said to the big bosses at PC: "Douglas has set a great example for the people of Hiiumaa by developing and implementing projects as well as lobbying for Hiiumaa's interests. He learned Estonian remarkably fast and knows more about Estonia and Hiiumaa than the average Hiiumaa resident!" We have gotten a lot of mileage out of this volunteer, send us more!" This is significant beacause Hiiumaa folks can be rather sparse with their compliments. For example "comletely normal!" means that something is really cool.
You get the idea.
 

	About my work on Hiiumaa Island:     I was actually sent Estonia as an Ag volunteer, notwithstanding that I had never lived on a farm. Guess being from Nebraska was good enough. I DO know the diference between hay and straw! To bring myself up to speed, I did farm work in Kassari, chopping wood and shoveling s---. Just when I became a pretty good s--- shoveler, I got a call from PC saying that I was no longer an Ag volunteer. I was told that I was now a small business advisor (SED). O.K. I was sorry to say goodbye to the farmer's family and my animal friends, I had actually gotten pretty close to some of the sheep. No, not like that!!               Finally! I figured out a way to really help out.  Tourism development!! Lots of work to be done here. Hiiumaa has the third oldest working lighthouse in the world but nobody knows that! I helped start the Hiiumaa Turismiinfopunkt, which was a very important event in Hiiumaa tourism history! I helped tourists, worked as a guide, went to tourist fairs, organized Hiiumaa Tourism Days and just generally was a Hiiumaa booster. It was easy work because Hiiumaa is sooooo cool and has lots of undiscovered secrets!
"Lighthouse Tour - Tuletorni Ring".  You can find your way to 16 points of interest on Hiiumaa by following these signs. Those that are still standing, that is. You can't believe what kind of a scandal broke out when we put up some wooden, English-language signs for tourists with U.S. money! In Estonia, there is a language law and language police and some local folks even tore down some signs. Live and learn! I promised not to put up any more signs, and since nobody takes care of the old ones, I suppose nature will reclaim them eventually. Smarter Hiiumaa folks and tourists sure like them and they go nicely with the guide book. Thanks to some really nice people, the book I wrote is now in five languages! You can see the English and Estonian versions on the Internet     In addition to my primary projects I  was constantly helping small businesses and trying to figure out ways to promote Hiiumaa on the cheap. I did a maketing seminiar, a computer seminar for Estonian tourist information managers, and was a guest lecturer at the Hiiumaa  Adult Education Center.
I am very proud that Hiiumaa has one of the most complete Internet sites for tourism in Estonia. WWW.HIUMAA.EE  was only the second such site in Estonia! Together with the folks at "HiNet"  we put it up and they continued to develop it into a first-rate site!                 With the Hiiumaa Biosphere Reserve Staff, I put together a beach clean-up project (to pick up after all the tourists). We picked up trash and placed trash cans with "don't litter signs" (this time in English AND Estonian) And FINALLY, the local goverments agreed to live up to their end of the bargain and empty the damn things, but only after a lot of kicking and screaming on my part!
I also taught English to the miltary personell and Suuremõisa Basic School,Palade Basic School,  as well as my first teaching job in Käina School.
	Two more booklets promoting Hiiumaa - "Hiiumaa for Business and Pleasure" ja "Getting to Know Hiiumaa".  Everybody got so accustomed to Douglas running around writing and putting up signs for tourists that I worry if they will ever start doing it themselves!  :-(
Together with an Estonian living in Sweden, I found the long-lost Emmaste village church bell. Right around Christmas time! What a story, you should read it! The bell had been lost during the Nazi occupation of the island in WWII. Got a personal thank you from the President for that! Wow!                 Big Exclusive! - 4 original Hiiumaa Songs (with a local Hiiumaa band called HEPT)! we recorded ourselves in an old, abandoned collective farm. The song "Kas sa räägid inglise keelt" stayed on the domestic charts (Raadio KUKU) for 12 WEEKS! In August of 1994 it reached number 1 and was declared a gold record for the year! Funny though, I never got the award or any money from the deal.....
Suumer 1995 was the most important event in my life. I married this beeeeeautiful Estonian girl named Kairit. Now we are living happily together in Washington. Everybody keeps saying we should make some Estonian babies, too few of them in the world ya know! I'll keep you posted on that......