After eight months of adjusting to a new culture on and off the court, Amiya Jones is back in the United States.
Jones, a former Iowa volleyball player, just finished her first professional season with Polkky Kuusamo, a club team in Finland.
Leading the Finnish Volleyball League in hitting percentage, the Indianapolis native helped her new team capture its third straight championship. Jones never experienced an accomplishment of such magnitude during her time with the Hawkeyes, as the program hasnโt had a winning season since 2016.
Jonesโ squad had to win 12 playoff games over one month to claim the title. The quarterfinals and semis are โbest of fiveโ, while the championship is โbest of seven.โ
โThereโs just moments where Iโve been able to just dominate on the court,โ Jones said. โIn the last three games, I served the game-winning ace. So, itโs just stuff like that where Iโm like, โDamn, this is so fun.โ Itโs nice to be a part of a winning team and see everything that it took to be a winning team.โ
Jonesโ transition to Finland wasnโt easy, though. The seven-hour time difference was the first challenge she had to overcome.
โI had so much jet lag because, I mean, if you think about it when weโre practicing at 10 a.m. over here, itโs 3 a.m. at home,โ Jones said. โSo. itโs like every day Iโm waking up, and Iโm basically doing workouts at 3 a.m. Itโs hard to get used to.โ
Jones said it was even harder to catch up on sleep because of the constant sunlight in Finland in the summer. About a third of Finland lies below the Arctic Circle, so in the summer, the sun doesnโt go away for between two and four months, depending on how north you venture, according to Laplandโs visitor website.
Because of this time difference, Jones only spoke to her family every couple of weeks. She said her family had a hard time keeping up with the teamโs results throughout the season because โit was super hard to accessโ the app needed for score updates.
The language barrier between Jones, her teammates, and her coaches posed an interesting dynamic but also a unique opportunity for the former Hawkeye to expand her dialect. Her coaches are Greek, and most of her teammates are from Finland besides the three American players Jones lived with.
Jones said she hopes to be โpretty conversationalโ in Finnish by the time she returns to the team in mid-August.
โSpeaking English is hard โฆ so weโre kind of like teaching everyone English in a way. And then theyโre teaching us Finnish,โ Jones said.
The hitter also had to learn how to meet her needs within the minimalist lifestyle that Finland promotes. You canโt buy products in bulk there, so Jones said she spent about 600 euros a month on groceries. And if the store didnโt have what she needed, ordering off Amazon Prime came with a hefty shipping cost and a two-week delivery time.
She added, however, that the quality of life is better in Finland than in the U.S.
โWe have like five restaurants here, and four of them are pizza places. Thereโs like no other people of any other ethnic groups, so you donโt get Mexican food, you canโt get Asian food,โ Jones said. โBut the water here is so good. Oh my gosh. Like you can drink from any tap anywhere.โ
Jones will rest for about a week in the U.S. and then get right back in the gym to prepare for her return to Finland. But in the meantime, Jones plans to spend lots of quality time with her mother and friends, travel to Las Vegas, and take a long-awaited bite of American fast food.
โQdoba, Culverโs, Taco Bell, a dryer, my hair products โ literally everything,โ Jones said of what sheโs excited about back home. โI canโt wait to be somewhere warm. I just cannot wait to go home.โ