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“Lowa, koo koo! A-wake up, Lowa!!!” Sounded my “French-guy alarm clock” early one morning about two months into my stay on an organic farm in Estonia. My room on the island of Saaremaa in the Western part of the country was located in the upper part of a small, divided house and had its own entrance. Since I didn’t have an alarm clock, I had arranged for the guys from France I was working with to yell up at my window every morning around breakfast time. I came to Estonia to work on an organic farm through an organization called “WWOOF” which stands for “World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms”. In exchange for working on the farm, workers are provided with room and board… and a chance to be immersed in a foreign country in a way that one isn’t likely to get simply as a tourist; that day’s events would definitely prove that to be true. Manuel, a recent addition to our crew, had been the one to yell up at me that morning. The two others, J.B. and Denis, lumbered in from their tents in the backyard of the home and were groggily pouring themselves coffee. Our hosts, Karen and Alar, had made toast topped with melted cheese over tuna and we joined them for breakfast. Karen, manager of the farm and partial owner of the local organic restaurant, Saaremaa Maheköök, announced with her usual bubbling enthusiasm, “Today we’re going to be catering a wedding reception!” That was a surprise. Normally, our day would consist of going to the restaurant to make soups and peel potatoes, then head out to the farm to weed or harvest crops. But today, Denis and I would accompany Karen to the restaurant, while J.B. and Manuel were to drive the thirty miles out to the farm to harvest Swiss Chard, onions, and potatoes. Passing crumbling Soviet-era apartment complexes, we drove through the outskirts of the small town; their opaque concrete walls hardly reflected the early morning glow of a sun already dipping noticeably South in late August. At the restaurant, located on the sea-ward side of a roundabout, Denis and I chopped vegetables and were shown how to prepare everything from kotletid (ground lamb-meat patties) to lamb’s tongue, an Estonian delicacy. The reception was located about thirty minutes to the Southwest on Sõrve Peninsula and all of the cookware, food, plates, and eating utensils for 150 people had to be transported there. Porcelain plates and paper-thin wine glasses were tucked carefully into crates and strapped into the bed of a trailer that was hitched to the back of the car. We cringed as we bounced along the primitive road leading from the main highway through the moss-cloaked spruce forest. A saltwater-tinged mist blew in from the Baltic Sea as Alar pulled the car to a stop. Outside the relatively small wooden shelter nestled in the trees, we began unpacking the dinner-ware: miraculously, only one of the wine glasses had broken on that bumpy road. The interior of the shelter was lined with rows of tables draped in linen cloth. Votive candle-holders made from the hollowed-out stubs of tree branches sat on top. By the time guests arrived, the rain had stopped and the late-afternoon sun was even trying to shimmer through. A fiddle and an accordion player picked up notes as the wedding party arrived. The bride, we learned, was Estonian and had just been wed to a Spaniard. The mixture of Estonian and Spanish families mingled, then began dancing, arms linked while weaving around in a circle, trading partners and looping around one-another. After dinner, toasts were given in Estonian and Spanish and we set the tables for coffee and cake. The party migrated outside and circled around a fire pit in silence, holding hands-- a tradition passed down from Estonia’s Pagan ancestry. Music and dancing soon resumed and vodka and wine bottles were opened. The sea breeze swayed the boughs of the treetops, as the bride was tipped while doing the tango. Tiny grains of salt and sand kissed our lips and in our hearts was the rhythm of an experience never to be forgotten.