Af-riikka

Return

2010-09-29T21:53:00.008+03:00

I had written a tentative list of things I might automatically continue doing, or at least think of doing even after leaving Senegal.

When I return to Finland, I might continue to...

… greet other passenger in public transport vehicles with a "salaam aleykum"

... hand over the money for the bus ticket to other passengers who will pass it on until the cashier

… smile and say hello to strangers on the street

… buy an alcoholic drink whenever I see one, being afraid that it might take a while before one will be available for the next time

… wonder why there is no gecko poop on the floor

… wave constantly my fan although it won't be anymore +32 degrees celsius, and minimum air humidity of 70 %

… ask several times in a row ”how are you” with 3-4 different manners from the same person

… plug in hastily all electronic equipment when there is electricity – forgetting that usually there is electricity all the time (excluding certain apartments in Brussels and summer storms in Finland)

… apply talc powder in the morning to battle against umidity and sweating

… add ”inshallah” at the end of the phrase (or say it quietly in my mind)

… expect nobody to be on time and nothing to start on time

… feel that something is missing if half of the windshield is not covered with stickers of old men (religious leaders) or muscular young men (wrestlers)

... carry a torch with me if I know that I will be returning in the evening (power cuts and the lack of street lights)

Now when I am here, some of the things have actually become true. I almost have the tendency to add "if there is electricity" at the end of phrases related to using electric equipment, such as taking photocopies or sending e-mails. I also do have the urge to plug in electric devices whenever possible...

A few days ago I had the most natural instinct to grab matches from a shop shelf - buying them felt like a reasonable thing to do. Except that in Finland I only need them for occasional lighting of candles during the winter for the creation of nice atmosphere. In Senegal the matches were often finished, which was somewhat a catastrophe if I had forgotten to buy more of them. Candles needed to be lit somehow during the frequent power cuts in the evenings, and I also needed them for cooking, to light up the gas. In September the rain season really began in Senegal, which made everything damp and consequently using matches almost impossible: I easily distroyed a dozen matches when just trying to light the gas cooker.

The return cultural shock has shown itself most strongly last Saturday night: I ventured out into the early night of Helsinki to meet a Beninese friend who was celebrating his birthday. I encountered dozens of drunken people already at 9pm, and saw many very short skirts during the evening - both things rarely seen in Senegal. The general feeling of not-belonging overcame me, and if I could have teleported myself to Senegal immediately, I would have done it that evening.

Calling to people in Senegal feels very weird: instead of another continent, I feel like being on another planet right now. Helsinki feels unreal at times, and I feel like avoiding meeting friends right now. My new job - that I like enormously - takes up a lot of time and energy as well. I have plenty of almost-finished blog texts on Senegal, Africa or development on my computer, but they are hibernating at the moment. As am I, in a way. Hopefully they will pop out in a finished form some day here in my blog, but for now I am back in Finland, and already just as busy as I was before leaving.

In the house of a marabout*

2010-08-31T15:33:00.023+03:00

* marabout: "Today marabouts can be traveling holy men who survive on alms, religious teachers who take in young talibes at koranic schools, or distinguished religious leaders and scholars, both in and out of the sufi brotherhoods which dominate spiritual life in Senegambia" (Wikipedia)

The great mosque of Touba in Senegal.

Last week-end I visited the city of Touba: the holy city of Mouridism, the second-biggest Muslim brotherhood in Senegal and the one with most economic and political power. Since its inception in 1888, and especially during the last decades Touba has grown to be the second most important city in Senegal after Dakar. It has also become independent from the Senegalese government and the city runs itself with the donations given by the Mouride community and with its revenues from vast peanut fields. Every year millions of Senegalese and other nationalities flock to Touba for the yearly pilgrimage, Grand Magal - besides the big one, there are several small pilgrimages during the year.

The founder of mouridism, Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba (1853-1927) began to gather a growing number of followers in the late 19th century. According to oral history, Ibrahima Fall (1855-1930) met with Bamba in 1882, immediately became his most devoted disciple and began to work for him, day and night, to spread the message of Islam and Mouridism all over Senegal. Fall founded the Sufi mystic sub-mouvement of Mouridism called Baye Fall whose members typically grow dreadlocks and wear multi-coloured or ragged clothes, being dedicated to God instead of materialism of this world.

The French colonials became more and more suspicious of Mouridism that gathered quickly thousands of followers, and decided to exile Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba to Gabon for 7 years between 1895 – 1902. Bamba was exiled another time to Mauritania between 1903 - 1907. Meanwhile Cheikh Ibrahima Fall continued to serve Mouridism, establishing new daaras (Islamic learning centres or schools) in Senegal and supervising the finances and concentrating on labour work. Both Bamba and Fall are said to have performed miracles, such as praying on the sea (Bamba).

This short background info is necessary to understand my visit in Touba. I went there with a Baye Fall whom I had got to know in Mboro. He wanted to see his marabout (here in the sense of a spiritual guide) and to see the month of Ramadan in Touba, and asked me to join him. As visiting Touba was something I had thought of, I took the opportunity and off we went, appropriately in a car mouride from Dakar to Touba. Most of the Senegalese public transport is owned by the Mourides, from taxis to big buses.

The green bus going to Touba.

After about four hours of traveling we hopped off in Mbacké, a town 7 kilometers from Touba where one can find things non-existing in Touba, such as Western banks or tobacco. Alcohol and cigarrettes are forbidden in the city of Touba, and when entering the city I noticed big boards saying : OUI A NDIGUEUL – NON A TABAC (yes to divine order – no to tobacco). I also had to wear something to cover my head while in Touba, either a veil or a Senegalese head piece.

The gate between the town of Mbacké and the city of Touba.

Some parts of the town of Mbacké had very strict rules as well, such as the block of ”ñaari baye fall”, (two baye falls). Most people there were baye falls, wearing clothes with varying patterns but only with the colours of light blue and dark blue; men wore traditional loose pants and a belt, whereas women wore dresses with wrap-around skirts. Later on I was told that the colours indicated the disciples of a certain marabout; other colour combinations were blue-white, black-yellow and black-white. The current general caliph of Baye Falls is the one with the colours black-yellow, and we went to listen the typical Baye Fall chanting in his house. Well, next to his house, as I was not able to enter - perhaps due to the fact that I was not wearing a wrap-around skirt, or me not being a Baye Fall.

See a video compilation on the Baye Falls, with music and clothing in YouTube.

When trying to find the way to a small Baye Fall centre with several huts and asking the way to get there in Mbacké, I could see how the behaviour of my Baye Fall friend changed. Whenever greeting people and asking the way, we had to kneel down, keep our eyes low and speak with a polite, soft voice. Or at least he did; I was observing all this while trying cope with my aching feet, unaccustomed to kneeling for several minutes in a row. I was told that the reverence is essential, as ”anyone you meet here might be a member of the Family”, thus meaning the family of Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba or Cheikh Ibrahima Fall.

At the little compound of Baye Fall we discussed on religion (there was a lot of it during the week-end, less surprisingly), drank coffee and ate tiepboudjen (rice with fish) before moving on to the actual city of Touba. Now, my last sentence reveals something quite remarkable on the Baye Falls: we are in the middle of the month of Ramadan, and daytime fasting, but they don’t fast. They don’t pray five times a day either (”because a Baye Fall prays constantly”), and even drinking alcohol is allowed. This non-respect of some of the pillars of Islam is frowned upon by many Muslims even in Senegal. However, the basis for not fasting and conducting the prayers is that they are serving the God and Mourides in other ways: working in the fields, cleaning the mosque, begging for money for their marabouts and serving cafe touba and food for the poor and needy especially during the Ramadan and during the pilgrimages to Touba.

Preparing café touba.

One of the Baye Falls also told me about the village of Ndem, perhaps 100 kilometres from Touba and handed me a book written by the founder of the Baye Fall community there, Serigne Babacar. Now I found a BBC article from 2006 telling about the village and its fair trade development projects: hospitals, schools, dozens and dozens of people employed by the Maam Samba company.

When we entered Touba, I dropped my luggage to the marabout’s house and we did our first tour around the big mosque. Then I saw them: dozens of Baye Falls, the light blue-dark blue sect, carrying bowls of food on their heads, chanting and walking to the place where they would serve the ndogou, the break-fasting meal consisting of coffee, bread and something to fill the bread.

Though there were beggars around the mosque, mostly little talibés (Coranic school pupils) and mothers, the atmosphere in general was calm and respectful. Before the sunset, we visited the library with images of Touba showing its evolution during the 20th century and with all the oeuvres of Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba, several mausoleums of the Mouride family, and the graveyard with the tomb of Cheikh Ibrahima Fall.

Inside the building rests Cheikh Ibrahima Fall, the founder of the Baye Fall movement.

The marabout’s house was just a stone-throw away from the mosque – very convenient for visiting, but less for sleeping, as the mosque’s loudspeakers were strong enough to be heard 5 kilometres of distance. The marabout’s son granted me a free room for visitors where I slept – I tried sleeping on the roof as well, but the coolness of the roof was beaten by the amount of mosquitoes, and I returned quickly to the hot room around 1am.

We were constantly being served food: first the ndogou, with just bread, butter and excellent cafe touba. Then two hours later while taking some air on the roof, we were brought a very greasy meal of vermicelli, chicken and meat. And the third time for eating took place when I had barely catched some sleep – rice with meat was really not something I was desperately longing for at 2 am in the morning (but I ate some of the rice the following day for lunch...).

On the first day the marabout was away but I was able to meet two of his sons and some daughters. One of the sons was newly-wed and had a room in the same wing as the guest room and two other rooms; but his room had an air conditioner set to 17 degrees celsius, a TV set, a wooden armoir and a huge bed. Nothing extravagant and with very little space besides the furniture, but the A/C could be considered as a luxury in the hot city of Touba...luckily now the temperature was only around 33 degrees and not nearly 40 as it tends to be during the spring months!

One of the marabout's four wives, Mariama told me that Jesus had said that his believers should follow the Prophet Muhammad who will come after him - I somehow politely replied that this does not exist in the Bible, but maybe it does in the Qur'an.

In the morning we had a proper tour in the mosque – I was not allowed to enter the prayer parts, but I could see most of the extravagant buildings, being renovated again by the Moroccans. A guide from the mosque gave me a tour explaining the history of the mosque and the mourides, always stopping in good places for photoes, clearly wanting me to admire the mosque. I diligently took photos in most places he showed me, even just to be polite.

One of the photo view points showed by the guide at the mosque.

After the mosque tour it was time to meet the marabout.

The marabout had a reception hall with mattresses and plastic carpets where three women were already waiting for him when we entered. We sat on the carpet to wait under the coolish breeze of a fan.

Finally the marabout emerged from his apartment, dressed all in white and wearing a kind of a veil. Two of his wives and one daughter followed – he sat on a wooden chair covered with leather patch-work, whereas the women sat on the ground.

The first woman presented her need: she showed a prescription of medicines to the marabout who had a quick look before asking the next woman what her business was. This one burst into minutes-long explanation on how she had bought some things to sell which, however, turned out to be stolen goods, and that she was even locked up for 20 days last year. This year she had bought again things to sell at the market and thought that everything was fine, until recently, after 10 months of selling without any problems she was again accused of selling stolen goods. After her we presented ourselves, my friend being his disciple and me as the guest.

For the first woman, the marabout digged into his pockets somewhere beneath his big white boubou (West African flowing suit for men, or a dress for women) and swiftly gave the woman 5 000 f CFA (around 8 euros) for her medicines. He also recited a benediction and blessed with prayers and his breath a tiny plastic bottle of water which the women gave him to be fortified this way.

The problem of the second woman, however, took a longer time to be solved. For me, being tired after two nights of bad sleep, it seemed like hours of talking, but probably the whole affair was finished after half an hour. The marabout promised to speak with the other party to see what the problem was about and how it could be solved peacefully.

When it came to us, he asked me the usual questions: where I was from, how long I had been in Senegal and so on. He exchanged a few words with his disciple before he went again inside to make a phone call. I excused myself at this point, willing to have a little nap after this interesting social experience to regain my strength while my friend stayed to wait the marabout's return.

In a way I was disappointed after seeing the marabout: to me he was just like any other religious authority who knows his status well. Then again, I was able to testify how the charity donated by Mourides to their marabouts works in practice, and the breadth of the areas in which people want to have advice from their marabouts, ranging from health to love or business affairs. A BBC article recounts quite well the impact and responsibility of marabouts, or cheikhs in Senegal. I was also surprised to see how actively the wives of marabout participated in these reception sessions. The one I had met the night before, Mariama, also has her own Islamic institute in Touba where she teaches.

New extensions to the mosque; more marble floor for praying - 15 000 people are said to gather to the mosque every Friday for prayer.

I did not really know what to expect from Touba: I had been told that mosque is impressive, but that otherwise there is little to see. As much as I appreciated the beauty of the mosque, the other experiences – seeing the Baye Fall communities in Mbacké, or staying at the marabout’s house and testifying the acts of charity first-hand were just as, or even more, interesting for me. Thus, my advice for anyone wanting to visit Touba is: do it with someone who knows the city and its people, and preferably stay overnight if you’re not afraid of heat and mosquitoes. The experience is something that is hard to find anywhere else, and it definitely shows another side of Senegal.

An interview of Carlou D, one of the many Baye Fall musicians whose concert I managed to catch in Dakar.

Musical homage to Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba, Cheikh Ibrahima Fall and the city of Touba can be found in YouTube:

Youssou N'Dour: Cheikh Ibra Fall (Youssou's whole album "Egypt" was dedicated to the Islamic brotherhoods in Senegal)
Madelayne Mbaye: Saliou Mbacké (an incredibly catchy song by Yaye Falls, the female versions of Baye Fall, praising the son of Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba)
Alpha Blondy: Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba (reggae warning :), but thought it would be interesting to have a non-Senegalese singer as well)

The Holy Month and taxes

2010-08-26T18:37:00.012+03:00

During the last two weeks my lunches have mostly consisted of apples, porridge or bread with spread cheese and/or sardines. Besides the end of delicious free meals with loads of rice, oil and fish at work, the month of Ramadan in Senegal means that everything slows down when people are more tired due to fasting during daytime.

August is one of the hottest months in the region of Thies where I am located, and this does not make fasting easy. Yesterday the rain cooled the temperature to a level where I actually felt cold – this has not happened often since May, so every time when I get shivers I am worried that it might be a fever coming : ) But today the humidity and heat are back, and the sky shows no signs of rain as yet. As it was already difficult to concentrate and keep up the energy levels throughout the hard afternoons before the fasting, I am wondering how do people manage here?

Thank God for the rain!

I was told before the beginning of Ramadan in Senegal that ”soon you will see everybody presenting themselves as the most devout Muslim, with prayer beads and a long tooth stick as basic accessories and doing the minimum requirement of five prayers a day.” And this really happened! I could not believe my eyes when on the first morning of Ramadan I saw a familiar shopkeeper with a prayer bead in front of his shop, refusing to shake hands with me while busy with praying. This is the man who usually tries to hit on every (at least white) woman, and jokingly asked me to be his third wife a few weeks back.

People seem to be having a competition with their tooth sticks: the longer and bigger, the better. These tooth sticks, sothie in Wolof were a familiar sight also in Benin: they are used as tooth brushes, and seemingly working when looking at the state of people’s teeth without dental care. Apparently chewing a tooth stick does not, then, break one’s fast, whereas a chewing gum (even sugarless!) would.

I am being asked constantly to join fasting for ”solidarity”, since that is what many of the local Christians do as well. I feel less hungry in general, perhaps due to the lack of food odours around me. But thirst is inescapable with this heat, and I begin to feel dizzy quite soon when not drinking water. Perhaps the most difficult part for me is waking up, as the breakfast should be taken before the sunrise, by 5.30 am. Strangely enough, the two times when I did take the early breakfast – when leaving for Kolda from Dakar early in the morning, and returning from Kolda even earlier in the morning – I felt less hungry, and lasted until 4pm on my way back from Kolda without any problems before indulging myself with a sweet, cold, refreshing bissap juice (sorrel is the word often used for bissap in English).

Bottles of freshly prepared bissap juice.

Ramadan is a collective struggle of all Muslims, a way to sympathize with those in the world who are hungry and thirsty every day. Being generous is even more important than normally during Ramadan, and evening meals are supposed to be shared with those who have less. It is also a blessed month, the time for praying and focusing on religion. Senegalese TV channels have several discussion programs focusing on the month of Ramadan, and the usual pop music videos have been largely replaced by religious chants, khassaides, or the recital of Qur’an.

Besides food and drink, also sex and smoking are forbidden during daylight hours. Alcohol is, of course, supposed to forbidden at all times for Muslims, but during Ramadan even those who do drink – such as the mystic Mouride brotherhood of Baye Falls, perhaps a topic of another post – try to cut down on these worldly pleasures. Yet, in the big cities the month is less visible: I was told that for the first few days in Dakar the night clubs and bars are quiet and often closed, but that the second week already brings in the thirsty customers.

Sunset at the beach of Mboro.

The current focus on religion has strongly influenced some of my recent discussions. I have been posed the question: “What do you believe in if you don’t believe in God – do you believe only in yourself?”. I have tried to explain in my less advanced French on spiritual-philosophical matters that even people who don’t believe in Bible or Qur’an can be moral and good people, and believe in different things.

What do I believe in, then? My answer is still not fully developed, and I wonder if it will ever be. But hearing the local people often say how ”God did not create the world equal”, and that “full equality is impossible”, I have become more and more aware how much my world view has been shaped by the education system in Finland and the social democratic ideals of equity and income distribution. And maybe, maybe by the state church. Yes, we have two of them in the so-called secular country of Finland, Evangelical Lutheranism and the Orthodox church, myself being initiated in the former.

No matter where you start from, you should have the same right and possibility to educate yourself and be protected by a basic safety net – and in Finland this happens, though not perfectly or even adequately, with the help of income distribution and taxes (and some debt). The fiscal system in Senegal, even combined with international aid (funded by tax-payers abroad) cannot still offer social services to everybody, meaning that people have to rely on informal solidarity networks and family support. The poorest, such as handicapped people and street children survive thanks to the duty of Muslims to give alms, zakat – another form of tax.

It seems that in the end everything works due to taxes: be it through a bureaucratic system as in Finland, the financing of international development cooperation, or the Muslim obligation to give alms. Maybe my answer to the question would be then: I believe in human rights and taxes : )

Henna Senegalese way

2010-08-12T12:59:00.004+03:00

As in most Muslim countries, henna (in Wolof fuddan) belongs to the women's beauty traditions in Senegal. The usage and patterns of henna varies from country to country, but in Senegal it has been very different than what I have seen in Morocco or Tanzania, for example. I tried it the first time two days ago, and here's the story:

A woman often visiting the project had a few weeks back very beautiful henna patterns on her feet and hands, so I asked where I could get similar ones. She suggested that she could do the henna for me, but of course, she was not the one who had made the ones on her...in any case, the patterns turned out quite nice, though not as artistic as hers. The patterns of henna are made with the help of thin pieces of plastic which have a sticky side and attach to the skin if it is not too sweaty...for me, feet were alright, but hands I had to leave for another time.

Then becomes the weird part that I also have not seen in other countries: feet are wrapped in plastic bags and covered with socks, same is done for hands if they are being treated. And then you can't move for 4 hours or so, sometimes the plastic bags and socks are left overnight. The aim is to keep the henna from not drying, and to have a darker colour.

My feet were finally freed from plastic after 3 hours or so, and the women working in the restaurant of the project helped me to scrape off the still moist henna and to wash it off. Et voilà, here is the end result!

Now the only inconvenience is that pretty much every person I have encountered during the last two days has commented on the henna on my feet. Not the best way to blend in, that is...

Learning Wolof

2010-07-31T15:12:00.008+03:00

”He drank seven bottles of alcohol.” Naan na juroom-naari buteeli sangara.

That's an unlikely phrase to use frequently in Senegal; yet it's an example found from Peace Corps Gambia Wolof grammar book which is available online. The example phrase might tell you something about the ways in which the Peace Corps volunteers behave when they have get-togethers...

Besides my daily work with the environmental development project in Senegal, I have also tried to learn a new language, Wolof. It's the main language in Senegal, spoken by the majority at least as a second language, and by 40 % of the population as their mother tongue. And, might I add, spoken fluently by many more people than the official language, French.

Working with only Senegalese colleagues means that they use Wolof among themselves most of the time, and from this follows that if I don't speak it at all, I will be left out similarly as a non-Finnish speaking foreigner would be in Finland.

If I had lived in Dakar during my stay in Senegal, I could have even inscribed myself for a Wolof course at the Institut Francais. However, being stationed in Mboro and travelling frequently around Senegal, attending a course in Dakar was outruled as an option.

Learning a new language follows a similar pattern for me. Basic greetings and the most important words are quite easy to learn during the first few days, but then you just get stuck: how to get past those simple things to the real stuff?

I had bought a little book for learning Wolof in Paris in January, and had various documents for learning Wolof: one meant for the volunteers of the NGO Tostan (of which I wrote my Bachelor's Thesis in Development Studies on!), and one from the above-mentioned US Peace Corps Gambia site. In addition, I finally bought the more academic Wolof text book, ”J'apprends le wolof” in a book shop in Dakar in May.

After four months of more or less persistent self-learning in my room with my Wolof books, watching news and other programmes on Wolof TV channels, listening to endless joking in Wolof, where am I in my quest of learning the language?

I'm still far from being fluent, or even understanding most of the content of a normal conversation. But during the last month I have begun to feel that I master at least some notions of Wolof, and it feels less impossible to remember words or to even use them in occasional discussions. From work-related occasions I have learnt words such as ”garbage” (mbalit), ”malaria” (sibiru), ”diarrhea” (biir buy daw), ”mosquito” (yoo), or ”clean” (set).

From colleagues I have learnt some less useful words such as ”big buttocks” (ndiayefonde, ortography non-accurate here) – that was pretty much the first thing the women working in the kitchen wanted to teach me. In fact, the Wolof-English dictionary by the Peace Corps in Gambia has four different words for ”buttocks”. The importance of big size is demonstrated also through the example phrases in the dictionary:
”She has big buttocks” (Dafa am kofal ku rey.)
”She has sizeable buttocks” (Kus bu em la amee.)

The equivalent phrases for masculine organs that I found in the same dictionary are somewhat weird, especially when it comes to their potential usage in every day life:
”A sizeable penis is good and tasty”. (Ganda gu ema baax te saf.)
”He touched his penis”. (Lamba na kooy am bi.)

The latter actually happens a lot in public places: men tend to keep their hand in their crotch without any shame, something that we have not stopped wondering with female foreign friends. Several explanations offered for this include: they affirm their masculinity in this way; it itches down there; the things need to be kept in place especially if the person does not have any underwear; the trousers have to be adjusted or kept in place with the help of the hand; the gesture protects against any bad eyes thrown against him and his sexual organ. I have yet to confront any Senegalese man with this subject, but I highly doubt receiving any reasonable explination for their behaviour. If anybody happens to know the true reason, let me know.

Sometimes the Wolof course books offer hilarious insights of the society. In Swahili books I remember discussions including questions such as ”how are your cows doing?”, a question that I never had to use in Tanzania while living in urban environment. The Wolof text book ”J'apprends le wolof” has one chapter with a very realistic sounding conversation in which the foreigner is trying to buy something to drink or to eat from a street restaurant, with little luck:

- How are you? (Literally "Do you have peace?", Jamm nga am?)
- I'm fine. (Literally "I'm in peace", Jamm rekk.)
- Bring us two beers and a limonade! (Indil ñu ñaari beer ak benn limonaat!)
- We don't sell alcohol here. (Dunu jaay sangara fii.)
- Then bring us three limonades! (Kon, indil nu ñetti limonaat!)
- We only serve food. (Lekk rekk lanuy jaay fii.)
- You don't sell even water? (Dungeen jaay ndox sax?)
- We only have tap water. Nobody sells it. (Ndoxu robine rekk lanu am; kenn du ko jaay.)
- Then bring us four dishes of rice with fish! (Indil book netti ceebu jen!)
- Ah! I'm just going to close – it's time. Go to a hotel! (A! Damay tej de. Waxtu wi jot na. Demleen ca oteel ba!)
- But I have tourists with me who want to taste the Senegalese food. (Nii, danuy ay gan te begga mos toggu Senegaal.)
- So, you'll wait until tomorrow. (Kon, dangeen di xaar ba elleg.)
- Tomorrow we won't be here anymore, we're going to Dagana. (Elleg, dunu fi nekk; danuy dem Dagana.)
- With whom are you going to Dagana? (Kan ngeen di andal Dagana?)
- With nobody. We have a good friend there. (Andunu ak kenn. Danu fa am xarit bu baax.)

Now, for example the conversation above I could (almost) do already on my own. Considering the amount of time I have used for trying to learn the biggest national language in Senegal, it's a pity that I will return to Finland in less than two months, and will have little chances of keeping up my language skills there. At least I might be able to exchange a few words once in a week with my Senegalese drumming teacher who's in Finland since the 1980s – if he still remembers the language, that is!

How to end this post except by saying that it was supposed to be something like ”Wolof for beginners”, meant for people wanting to learn bits of the language, and to illustrate how learning a new language offers a deeper understanding of the local culture(s). And then I ended up rambling about buttocks and men's obsession with their masculinity...well, that is also very, very Senegal.

Moving, vol. 2

2010-07-02T20:43:00.014+03:00

In June I did even more moving than during the first month. And around 2000 kilometres in Senegal takes a lot longer than it would take in Europe! Something that also differs here from traveling in European countries is that the thought of looming death hits me every time when stepping into a car. The frequency of road accidents is high in Senegal, and traffic is considered as one of the biggest health risks.

As the seat in the car is determined on the order of arrival, I normally don't have a choice to really decide where to sit. Only the front seats have seat belts, and the people in the front normally put them on only just before a police checkpoint.

Who's driving?

When I told that part of my work will be travelling to the various project sites around Senegal, I was asked before leaving whether I would be driving or would have a driver. Well, the second option is closer, though it is not a vehicle for me only, but for at least 6 other people besides me. One of the most common forms of public transport between towns is a shared 7-place taxi.

Having a taxi driver who is accustomed to the Senegalese traffic culture is, nevertheless, not always a good thing.

The driver on the way to Kolda (10-11 hours in a seven-place taxi, including a crossing over the river Gambia and the country of Gambia) was a perfect example of reckless driving. In addition to nerve-wrecking situations with some pedestrians when driving through towns, he would gulp water from a huge container, blocking his sight to the road for quite a few seconds at a time (those seconds felt long...). My colleague travelling with me saw the look on my face when this happened the first time, and he giggled: ”This doesn't happen in Finland, does it?”

Security questions aside, I don't really mind travelling in public transport. Normally nobody bothers me, and it's still an interesting cultural experience for me, although I have done it for dozens of times already in different African countries. If lucky, there is at least some music in the car - normally either Senegalese mbalax or religious music - since otherwise there is little activity inside the car: people tend to sit quietly, perhaps fiddling their mobile phones or sleeping.

Small is beautiful

Windshields of seven-place taxis and mini buses normally contain a plethora of different stickers. Verses of the Qur'an, photos of wrestlers, marabouts (religous leaders or healers, depending on the context) or of the 80s Madonna (the singer) often cover a fair amount of the windshield, often half smashed or at least cracking badly. In Finland already one small crack in the windshield is the start of a disaster. Here if it is still somehow possible to see through the window or to scotch it together, nobody sees the need to change it yet as it's still working fine!

Seeing a flashy European Commission four-wheel-drive whoosh by while sitting in a minibus and waiting it to continue moving along on the sandroad in the middle of a stretch of villages between Niakhar and Diourbel (both our project sites) made me smile and think how different development cooperation work can be, depending on the organization. It would definitely be a very different experience to work for a big international structure here - more comfortable and better-paid, for sure, but right now I am happy to avoid all the rigid bureaucracy and work with actual people on the ground. But, just to give an image of the type of car we were in:

NGO-style travelling in Senegal: "air-conditioning" works even through the bottom of the car.

Speed limit signs by the roads are less common in Senegal than in European countries. Then again, I'm not really wondering why: maybe two cars out of hundred in which I have been in Senegal (excluding private people's cars) have had working speed meters. In any case, most roads have either speed bumps or are in such a bad condition thtt it is not possible to go faster than 40 kilometres per hour.

Money, money, money

The further from the capital one gets, the more the roads deteriorate and often drivers prefer driving on the less bumpy sand path which forms next to the asphalt road. Though the Gambian roads were a lot worse than Senegalese ones: sand roads, making them very dusty during the dry season and probably very difficult to drive during the rain season. Luckily the European Union is funding the construction of the new Trans-Gambian road: for all European readers, that's where your tax money goes, too, not only to fund the nice EC cars of the workers of the EU Delegation!

In any case, it is not the cars that I am jealous for big organizations, but having money in general. I have used my own francs to make more copies of an information brochure on the project, as our copying money for the month was finished (maximum 4000 CFA, giving you 80 one-side copies), or to buy magazines or other material related to environment as there is no budget for that. Also, when sending invitations for a local discussion forum on waste management we had to count every franc when printing the invitation, copying it and buying the envelopes. We ended up buying the small envelopes as they were only half price (50 CFA, 8 cents) compared to the A4 envelopes. Although it's good for environment to use less paper, the lack of being able to print things without paying 50 cents for each sheet of paper really does complicate work sometimes.

I doubt that the EC or UN offices have these kind of problems. However, the sound of vuvuzela reminds me that it would also be unlikely to watch World Cup matches on TV with your colleagues and other passers-by :) So, here we go, Ghana should draw quite an audience in front of the project site / restaurant TV set!

Seven wonders of Dakar

2010-06-17T09:38:00.004+03:00

Today once again I am about to leave the cute little town of Mboro, my more or less permanent place of residence in Senegal and replace it with Dakar, the less cute and crowded capital of Senegal - this time to welcome my boyfriend for a visit to the Western tip of Africa.

Visiting Dakar from time to time for work and leisure is a great pleasure – and almost like a visit to a wonderland. If selecting carefully places to go to, one could live in Dakar pretty much like in a European city. At least if one has enough money, as I tend to use in one day in Dakar the amount of money I would use in a month in Mboro. So here we go: seven wonders of Dakar that I personally have enjoyed.

1. Modern art
The month of May was especially good culture-wise in Senegal. In the end of May I travelled for the annual jazz festival in Saint-Louis, northern Senegal, where I also visited some art galleries with exhibitions related to the Dakar Biennale, month-long modern art happening in Dakar and in a minor scale in Saint-Louis.

My very personal favourite of the works displayed - would have bought it if I had extra 1000 euros to spend.

In Dakar I only visited the main exhibitions and two ”off” exhibitions, one just by the National Gallery in downtown, and another one in the Village des Arts, near the airport. Exhibitions turned out to be somewhat weird experiences: the visit to the National Gallery resulted to one marriage proposal by the guide working there, the main exhibition at the IFAN museum gave me one new Facebook friend, and in Village des Arts I pretty much wandered alone in the sand-floored exhibition hall. The art itself in the Biennale was of interesting, though often very depressing and sombre with many references to immigration as well as on the fathers and revolutionaries of the independence struggle in various African countries.

The exhibition hall in Village des Arts, with fans and sand floor.

2. Dance spectacles

I was very excited to see that in May/June programme of the Institut Francais (formerly known as Centre Culturel Francais, CCF, name with which everybody still calls it) there are two dance performances, both nicely scheduled on the eve of monthly meetings I should come to Dakar anyway :)

The spectacle I went to see in the end of May was named as ”Fingerprints” (Empreintes). The group Bananga, led by the Congolese choreographist DelaVallet Bidiefono, came from Congo Brazzaville, and was extremely good. Part of the music was played live, with a drummer and one of the dancers playing guitar and singing at one point. The sticks stomped by the dancers, attached to a round bottom presented the fingerprints that we want to leave to the world. Dance was very physical and energetic, including some ”African dance” movements (see New York Times article delving more into this topic), although most of the movements came from the side of contemporary dance. The audience, mostly consisting of white-skinned people as usual at the Institut Francais appreciated the spectacle with a standing ovation in the end.

3. Veggie food: Tofu and falafel

In Dakar it is actually possible to eat vegetarian food in restaurants - something completely unthinkable in Mboro, if fish is not counted as a vegetable. I perplexed my colleagues by asking whether the Libanese take away restaurant has falafel on their menu – they did, but nobody in the office had never heard of this dish before.

Another treat, and a tip for vegetarians is the restaurant Bidew of the Institut Francais. For lunch and during show evenings they serve tofu burgers, probably the only ones in the whole city! The price is not that bad either, 3500 CFA (5,5 euros) for a burger with fries or salad. A very welcomed change to the usual - though normally very tasty - rice-with-fish-or-meat-and-sauce menu that I tend to eat daily.

4. Dairy products: cheese and ice cream

Continuing with the culinary delights: proper cheese is rare in Mboro, and I normally devour only Vache qui rit, small triangles of cheese spread wrapped in aluminium foil. In Dakar I ate actual cheese for breakfast, and I indulged myself with a whole platter of cheese at the Institut Francais restaurant, Thursday being a special cheese night there.

Ice cream is another treat of Dakar: N'Ice Cream is an excellent spot for ice cream near the Scouts' Headquarters and the Sandaga market. This circular little building holds dozens of ice cream flavours (and I still have quite a number of them to try!), and for 1000 CFA (1,5 euros) one gets a huge serving of one scoop. Highly recommended, and always very popular both among the local bourgeouisie and expats.

5.Shops

Dakar is all about commerce. And somehow I always end up returning from Dakar with more stuff: last time with

- three pairs of shoes, two pairs of them from Sandaga market. I could not help bursting into laughter when the salesman assured me that ”they are very good quality”, having him joining me with laughter after seeing my reaction. The most exquisite pair with silver polka dots was found from an actual shoe shop of a Lebanese owner (it is probably not possible to leave Africa without each time buying silver-coloured shoes)

- parts 3 and 4 of the Aya graphic novel series (post coming up on this topic)

- J'apprends le wolof, and children's book ”my first French-Wolof dictionary with 1000 words”, both very useful for language learning

- another children's book on Senegalese wrestling

- map of Senegal

- academic book (Karthala series) on marriage and divorce in Dakar

The shoe collection

Besides shops for local consumers, during the last few years big Casino supermarkets have been popping up in different neighbourhoods of Dakar, mainly serving the Senegalese middle-class and non-Senegalese expats. Probably one of my biggest cultural shocks took place in the huge Casino supermarket where I went after spending one month in Senegal. I felt so out of place with my flipflops, scarf and partly Senegalese clothing among all the rich (white and black) people – yet it would have been just an ordinary supermarket in Europe. Just looking at the prices of beauty products or more upscale clothing made me feel dizzy, and besides deodorant and nail polish remover that I went there to look for in the first place I ended up buying weird stuff like scotch (tape) and notebooks featuring cover photos of Yekini (the champion of Senegalese wrestlers at the moment).

6. Monument of renaissance

This cooperative achievement of North Korean builders and Senegalese architect Pierre Goudiaby, 49-meter tall statue that is promised to last for at least 1 200 years to the citizens of Senegal, is better known as the Monument of Renaissance. The statue is particularly visible on the West Corniche and in the neighbourhood of Ouakam where I often stay during my visits in Dakar. During the night it has kitch, blinking blue lights - maybe to avoid airplane crashes, as the current airport is situated quite near the monument. President Wade has planned to build a complete museum complex around the monument, and has already reserved one third of the expected revenues to himself as the right of the inventor. The rest of the benefits should then cover the building costs of 27 million dollars. President with great visions, he sure is!

7. Rooftop sheep

”Almost everybody has sheep in Dakar.”

Well, that was something I did not know before, although the sight of various animals on the streets of Dakar is very frequent: cows, sheep, chicken, you name it. On the roof of the house of my colleagues, here he is, enjoying the views of Dakar!

Rap issues

2010-06-10T02:04:00.011+03:00

During the last few days I have done some extensive online searching - on out of all the people - Lil Wayne, financially one of the most successful American rappers at the moment. Yet recently, as Wikipedia tells me, he has changed into rock with less enthusiastic reactions from the critics.

Why Lil Wayne?

Last Saturday was the World Environment Day, and I participated in the activities organized by the scout project workers in the town of Kolda in Casamance. The last activity was a film screening, and as we are still missing proper videos on environmental education, we showed one film obtained from Kolda's Water and Forest management service (Eaux et Forets) on sustainable forest management in the region, beekeeping and income-generating activities for the local women.

To attract more audience and keep people entertained while waiting for the actual screening to begin, we normally show music videos, images of nature or just play music with the loudspeakers.

As it happened, one of the videos saved on the desktop of the computer that we used for the projection was Lil Wayne's & Birdman's "Leather so soft" - now watching it actually made me laugh, as it has all the possible rap clichés and almost seems like a parody. But a parody it ain't, and besides lyrics which call women as "bitches" or "hoes", the video itself shows women in very denigrating positions (as is usual in the mainstream rap or r'n b videos).

During the screening I already remarked to the responsable person that it is not quite the type of music video that is proper for showing to a very varied public (by age, ethnic background and religion) that we tend to have in the film projections - or just to show it anyway in connection with the project. In some projections in Mboro they would only play religious music, depending on the quartier or village, as "modern" music is taken as improper by the older generation.

In order to explain why exactly I, or any reasonable person should dislike Lil Wayne for his lyrics, I ended up surfing on various sites and watching way too many YouTube videos on the topic. Let's just say that it might have been even worse (Snoop Doggy Dogg was very popular in the cyber cafes of Burkina Faso three years ago...), just check some other lyrics by these gentlemen in a brilliant service Rapgenius, explaining the deeper meaning of rap song lyrics. Of course in Senegal most people do not understand anything of the American English lyrics anyway, but just showing the images was already enough to make me want to scream...

However, during my web searching I discovered something very disturbing from Lil Wayne's life: he was abused / raped when 11 years old, by a 14-year-old girl who was encouraged to do it by Lil Wayne's surrogate father. A blog article on the Washington City Paper site describes the events and has a clip on a talk show where he talks about the events, clearly not amused by the topic. While not excusing the lamentable attitude towards women altogether in the world of hip hop, it makes one think where all the misogyny comes from at least in his case.

The day after the film screening my judgment on this particular music video were something like "perhaps showing music videos where the rappers sing about drugs, money and whores does not fit very well the local (mostly Muslim) values, and it is neither something that I personally want to see linked to environmental education, or this project specifically".

And what happened to the video in the end?

For now it has been deleted from the desktop of the computer in the scouts' center in Kolda, at least. I also downloaded some Senegalese videos to show instead - I'll take the local version of machismo anyday over American mainstream hiphop, and have men singing sugar-coated songs about love, and women dancing fervently (or vice versa, there are plenty songs with reversed action roles as well in Senegal!).

So, let me present one Senegalese sweet song by last year's hit artist here, Abou Thiobalo in YouTube: the lyrics tell about a young man who has a desperate crush on his neighbour, but he does not know how to tell about it.

This year's biggest hit song would, however, be Viviane Ndour's wrestling-themed song "Champion", which is a cover from Whitney Houston's "I have nothing" theme song from the movie Bodyguard, as probably all over 25-year-old people in the Western world would know. The name of Whitney Houston in Kolda was neverheard...I told that her singing style resembles to that of Celine Dion, another artist here who had her videos on the computer desktop together with Lil Wayne (what a pair!) :)

I was given two interpretations on Viviane Ndour's huge hit song: yes, she sings about the Senegalese wrestling - very nicely depicted in the video - but she might also be singing about her being the champion. She was married to Youssou Ndour's brother, they got divorced a few years ago, but are now back together again - making her the champion for winning over the man's heart again. Sweet.

In any case the Champion video is a beautiful example of the way in which many foreign songs are covered here with a complete makeover into a fully-fledged mbalax song (another example that I have heard was a Senegalised "Gangsta's Paradise" - see an article on mbalax at the National Geographic site). Note especially the change of rhythm and melody in the end - also very typical for mbalax pop songs according to my observations. More music in the following posts, hopefully accompanied with happier topics than this one!

Smells, odours, fragrances and scents

2010-05-14T20:27:00.008+03:00

”It smells like Africa.” I remember having this lovely cliché in my mind when descending from the plane at the airport of Dakar 7 weeks ago. A similar general mixed smell of earth, wind and fire (!) might exist in other continents on the same climat zone, but having only been to Europe, Africa and North America so far, for me it is the smell of Africa, both East and West.

I take it as a sign of acculturation to be able to distinguish smells related to Senegalese food: I can tell now whether the restaurant at work place is preparing the most common dish, fish with rice (tiepboudjen) or maybe peanut sauce with rice (mafe). While walking on the street, I recognize the smell of the little meat/fish pies, fried in oil and stuffed with spicy onion-tomato sauce. The smell of the Senegalese tea (ataaya) is also easily distinguishable with a strong smell of - well, less surprisingly - tea, with several (dozen) spoonfuls of sugar and fresh leaves of mint.

Unfortunately, most of the time the smells tend to be quite unpleasant. Garbage smells. Horse poop smells. Toilets smell. In fact, one of the things I was worried about when hearing that I would have the luxury of a proper in-door toilet in my one-room apartment: would it not be actually better to have the toilet outside in the case it stinks? To my great relief, my bathroom happens to have one of the least-smelliest toilets I have encountered so far in Senegal. Yay, one of the little joys in life in Senegal!

If my speculations and sense of smell are correct, there are clear cultural differences between African countries. In Benin I often marvelled how good most people there smelt (excluding moped taxi drivers after a full work day), but in Senegal it is generally only the women who smell nice.

To put it bluntly, many Senegalese men stink :) The purity prescriptions for prayer five times a day only include washing hands, feet and face, thus leaving the really smelly parts unwashed. In Benin people used to have showers in the morning, during the siesta in the afternoon and again in the evening, including whole body (well, they said they were going to take a shower so I take it means a complete shower). It could also be that the bad-smelling men render the more fragrant odours coming from the opposite sex even more noticeable: is this the difference made between men and women in Senegal?

Sometimes the women smell even a bit too nice in their big dresses infested in incense and perfume. The incense business is especially big here: women use different concoctions of "thiouraye", incenses sold on the street or in special shops. Besides beauty purposes, incenses are used for all ceremonies: baptemes, funerals, weddings...I have not yet assisted any ceremonies, so I have not been able to compare the incenses of ritual purposes to those used for seduction.

While in Zanzibar there were only a few options to choose from, here it is a whole brand of industry to choose from different fragrances, dried or fresh. Apparently men know which mixture or "brand" their wives are using in a similar fashion as many Westerners would know what perfume their wives or husbands use: I testified one man buying nonchalantly a specific incense in a small shop specialized in incenses and other beauty products.

As a fan of Senegalese wresting, I could not resist buying myself a small glass jar of a fresh, unidentified green concoction of incense called ”grand combat”. Its smell penetrates even the glass jar in a plastic bag, making me wonder whether I will ever be able to actually burn it. I reluctantly bought quite an ugly incense burner to be used with coals. The other option was electric, but made in China and I have a tendency to avoid those products here with no proper safety standards, stuff just dumped to the market.

In any case, I hope to resemble - odour-wise, at least - more the Senegalese women than the men in the future.

The glass jar with unidentified green stuff and the burner to be used with coal.

Hard Day's Night

2010-04-29T12:25:00.009+03:00

I thought of comparing a bit the different work environments I have been exposed to lately: the European Commission in Brussels, and the project Jappoo/Woomal by the Senegalese scouts where I am working at the moment in Mboro, Senegal. This post is thus dedicated to all my fellow colleagues at the Commission :)

The climate conditions and surroundings are certainly different when compared to the grey skies of Brussels. There won't be a drop of rain in Mboro before June, for sure, and the daytime temperatures hover around 30 degrees – in the morning only 21-22 degrees with a bit of wind and clouds. During the 30-minute walk to work on the straight road to the center of Mboro from my house, I encounter approximately three cars, four horse or donkey carts, a few other people walking and one bicycle. Not much traffic here.

This morning, for example, I passed by a woman who carried a huge pile of firewood on her head, had around a 3-year-old child on her back, and a teddy bear in her left hand. When the child remarked me passing by with a hasty cry of "toubab!", we exchanged a few smiles and greetings before I continued my way.

When I arrive at the work place, I say ”bonjour” to everybody who happens to be present – not completely unlike in Brussels, as there people normally greet the guards, others in the elevator and at least colleagues of the same office or while meeting them in the corridor. However, in Senegal also a round of handshakes with everyone is the norm, whether I know them or not. The handshake is accompanied by asking in different ways ”ca va” / how are you / how is the morning going / how is the family doing etc. This is also repeated in steady intervals when new people arrive: friends, visitors or volunteers who come and go, chat, watch TV or pray. At the Commission it was possible to pass almost a whole day without talking to anybody if I was alone in the office.

Of course, in Brussels I actually had an office. In Mboro, the open space where people tend to work with their computers or papers, have meetings or discuss with colleagues and strangers – it is actually a restaurant started by the project Jappoo (health and education project supported by the Luxemburgish and Belgian scouts). Yet, I quite prefer this to sitting in a dark and dusty office like the ones I have seen in Senegal so far, and enjoy having plenty of light and wind.

Inconveniences worth mentioning include having only two electric sockets which are quickly blocked by one computer and TV, and the drilling noises coming from the neighbouring craftsmen ateliers (wood work, leather...) which tend to disrupt concentration. I remember fondly the nurturing e-mails sent by the Commission services warning about frequent demonstrations on the Rue de la Loi which might cause disturbances in the working environment.

The Commission provided us with a table phone and a computer, whereas here it is pretty much expected that I have my own computer and a mobile phone with me - and after trying to work for a while with an extremely slow table computer with French keyboard in Dakar, I rather stick with my own laptop. As a positive note, the wireless internet is working extremely well in Mboro (even better than in Rufisque), something unknown in the EU, apparently for security reasons.

Obviously the most important moment of the work day is lunch hour. As our work place is also a restaurant, we eat here (anyway, there are very few other places in general where to eat out in Mboro). And yes, there is a ”plat du jour”, only one option, but unlike at the Commission, it is usually very tasty, and even better, free for workers and volunteers of the project! At least four, often 6-7 persons share a huge plate of food which usually consists of rice with sauce: either peanut sauce or the most frequent dish in Senegal, tiepboudjen (rice with fish and vegetables).

The Senegalese coffee, ”cafe touba” (spiced and sugared black coffee) is usually only drunk in the morning with breakfast, while afternoons and evenings are dedicated to ”ataaya”, Senegalese tea (or actually Chinese green tea prepared in a Senegalese-Arabic fashion). Now, making the tea can last anything from one to two-and-half hours, depending on the person making it. There are three rounds of it, and the first round of boiling is the longest, from 20 minutes to one hour. The two following rounds are shorter, with more sugar and mint involved in the process. While the tea is boiling, people play Scrabble, watch TV, talk about football, the projects or whatever is happening. This week we also had a barbering session.

Barber shop at work place.

At this point I should probably mention that most people hanging out at the ”work place” are not hired, nor really working, but involved in the project as volunteers and remunerated with very small allowances. If there is an evening activity that they are organizing, they may receive a sum of less than one euro for buying dinner, for example. Only the main responsables of the projects receive a small salary which is nothing compared to what people earn in international organizations in Senegal.

So far I have only attended two meetings, and there are some similarities between Brussels and Senegal: they last long, at least two hours, and they are often very formal. Whereas in the Commission many meetings discussed coordination, strategies and action plans, the meetings in Senegal concentrate on the actual issues on the micro-level. The amounts discussed are also very different, more like one-figure numbers instead of 6, 7 or 8 number figures (in euros) as in the Commission! A very common form of awareness raising, a group discussion session (”causerie”) is organized here with around 12-30 euros depending on the distance of the locality, since most of the costs are related to the transport.

Ongoing animation: Babacar Siby posing questions to the villagers on diarrhea.

After participating in two evening events in ”nearby” villages (30 kilometres, taking one hour on a bumpy road) this week, I have to admire the dedication and animation skills of the project workers and volunteers. These two events, big group discussions dealt with diarrhea, one of the biggest health problems in Senegal besides malaria and respitory disesases. The events included music – these being more traditional villages, religious chants instead of latest pop hits – discussion on diarrhea with the villagers in a participatory manner, asking them questions and celebrating the correct answers with dancing.

Everything was conducted in Wolof, which forced me as an observer to rely on the translations of others. In any case it was an incredible cultural experience for me, when the women of the village came to greet me, shake my hand and kiss me on my neck (!) while dancing. Certainly, part of the excitement was due to the possibility of receiving money or other gifts from the white woman, representing the rich Europe. But I would like to believe that it is at least partly genuine hospitality that the Senegalese people are proud of.

Some dancing along religious music after a correct answer in the discussion on diarrhea, its causes, consequences and solutions.

Evenings after work are very different from the Commission, where we tended to go out to chat in bars or listen to jazz concerts with stagiaires at least 3 times a week – this would often include tasting a Belgian beer or two. In Mboro, if there are no evening activities planned, the work day ends around 6 or 7 pm. I might stay for a while to watch TV or stay connected to the internet, or to wait for the dinner food to be prepared in the Jappoo restaurant and buy some to take with me, as near my home the only place to get food is the neighbouring family.

During the first weeks I have been quite tired in the evenings, and have been perfectly happy to watch TV or chat in the neighbours' houses: either news or Senegalese wrestling, always on TV, or switch to satellite channels offering Arabic music videos or quality documentaries made all over the world. Last week I followed reportages from South Africa and Peru, and discussed on general topics such as gender relations or religion. This has made me feel not like being on the margins of the world, but right in the center of it all. Maybe even more than Brussels, the centre of Europe, imagines itself to be.

My home

2010-04-26T12:11:00.002+03:00

I am housed in CIFOP, Centre International de Formation Pratique which is situated around 3 kilometres from the town of Mboro. CIFOP has been financed with the help of Luxemburgish scouts since 1988, and it offers its students teaching, lodging and one meal a day for 10,000 CFAs / month (around 15 euros). The fields of learning include agronomy, woodwork, metallurgy, mechanics, hairdressing and construction. I just realised yesterday that I'm living in a vocational school ("amiska" :) in Finnish), though a bit isolated from the students and their classes.

My house, which is actually a studio, comprising one room and a bathroom. It's quite adorable, really, and luxurious with its own, Western-style toilet when compared to the students' rooms.

The obligatory selection of flip-flops in different colours.

The golden curtains are not exactly my style, but now I have already gotten used to them - and acquired yellow sheets to go with them.

The view from my terrace: my gate, and a water tower which provides good-tasting, drinkable water. The neighbour's roosters roam around my yard during the day and wake me up in the early hours of the day.

My laundry on the terrace – the way to spend Saturday mornings.

The acquisition I am most happy so far: a turquoise mat, and the tools & results for a pillow-adjustment session. Senegalese pillows are a bit challenging for spoiled toubabs like me: I adjusted it to fit my demands better by removing some of the fillings with the help of a knife.

Moving

2010-04-25T15:37:00.010+03:00

Almost a month had passed in Senegal: a lot of the time it has meant moving around, from city to another city or inside the limits of a city. Rufisque, Dakar, Fimela, Toubab Dialaw, Mboro...the time spent in various vehicles of public transport or walking would make something like 60-70 hours in total, I guess.

The local transport that I used for moving inside Dakar during one week consisted mostly of blue "Dakar Dem Dikk" (= Dakar aller-retour) buses. I was proud to be able to mainly use the public transport, although it is a lot hotter and more time-consuming than taking a private taxi. Although taxis would cost something like 1,5 euros to 6 euros maximum in the Dakar city area, it feels ridiculous to pay that much when I know that a bus, 10-20 times cheaper, will also take me to my destination. My decision could have been different if I had not stayed very near of the end stop of the bus line 7. Getting into the bus with the first passengers meant that I could get a seat, something which on the second stop was already impossible. I tried once the minibuses with less clear routes to go the centre as well, but I would say that the DDD buses are a lot more comfortable and trustworthy than the dubiously assembled minibuses, notorious for having problems with brakes...

Tickets for the Dakar Dem Dikk bus and the minibus Dakar-Rufisque

When I ventured out on the bus to some routes or stops I did not know, I had to rely on other passengers to tell me where to get off, and they were always adorable: if the one I had asked for directions had to get off earlier, s/he entrusted me to someone else sitting in front of me, for example, and if even that one got off the bus earlier, it was made sure that again someone else would take care of me. Such was the case when I took the bus to visit a Finnish cultural/social centre Sunu Keur (”our house”) in Grand Yoff, a poor neighbourhood in the northern parts of Dakar (blog in English, article in Finnish. I was told to get off at the Shell station of Patte d'Oie - ”everybody knows it” - since for some reason directions are often given with the help of petrol stations. Anyway, with the help of three successive helpers in the bus, I got off at the right stop and phoned the responsible at the centre who came to pick me up from Shell a few minutes later.

The by far most expensive ride that I took was on a taxi from Rufisque to Mboro – 30 euros, around 100 kilometres, 3 hours, and a stop at the police station in some random village. The driver failed to show a proper sticker in the windscreen, apparently a marker for an assurance or for a tax. The taxi driver only spoke Wolof, so the reasons were not quite that clear - in any case he had to follow the officer to a some kind of a station. While my driver was inside ”negotiating” to get his driver's licence back, I waited in the car and quickly became the general amusement for the village kids. Half a dozen of them approached the car first very cautiously, waving me shyly, then coming closer and closer while giggling and shouting out ”bonsuur”.

The taxi with wunderbaums parked in a village.

After the taxi driver returned from the police station, swearing for a while in Wolof, and we continued our way to Mboro, he seemed to be a bit lost on the way. It turned out he really did not know how to get there in the first place. We stopped to ask maybe from 7 different people on the route, and finally found our way to Mboro, although I could have told him the same directions with the help of my map, if only my language skills would have been sufficient. When I asked him to sign a receipt for me after the trip, it turned out that he was also illiterate, which might explain feeling lost on the way - at least I could read the various nameplates (shops, road names etc.) of villages and towns to see where we were situated.

Now installed in Mboro, I have switched into walking as the most frequent method of transport. The public transport is scarce, but I also quite enjoy walking the 3-kilometre distance to work, ideal in my opinion. Some 7-seater taxis swoosh by on the route that goes just past my house: the other direction leads to the sea, and the other to the town itself where my workplace is situated. In the morning there are few people walking, but in the evening the road is much more lively, with joggers, women with firewood, horse carts and more taxis coming and going to and from Mboro.

The long road to Mboro.

In Mboro it is not even that hot before 10 am and after 5 pm – and even during the hottest hours it feels like nothing compared to the inner country, such as Fimela which I visited two weeks ago (blog text in Finnish, but with photos). Here I can still function and move around during the day without a constant fear of a heat stroke. I have read that the sub-climate in the Niayes region, the patch on the coast stretching north from Dakar all the way to St. Louis resembles Mediterranean or South African climate: it is never unbearably hot, always with plenty of wind, and the nature is quite green even now, during the dry season.

The latest form of moving for me is running: on my last day in Dakar I stopped at Citysport, a fancy sports equipment store, where the salesman switched into American English after my first phrase in French – quite annoying, really. I switched back into French and asked for jogging shoes to try on, finally exiting the store with an addition to my Visa bill and a brand new pair of shoes. I tried the shoes first time in action yesterday - jogging to the beach and back - and realized that I really need to run more after all this sleeping and eating I have been focusing on so far. With the running shoes and lovely foresty environment I am living in now, there are no more excuses for not doing any exercice!

My African Idol

2010-04-24T18:52:00.003+03:00

One of the moments from elementary school that I will never forget are the times when we had to bring our favourite tunes to music class and have them reviewed with the whole class: we listened to maybe 5 or 6 songs during one class, and after listening everybody gave their points from 1-10 with a short explication. Like a poor version of "Juke Box Jury" ("Levyraati") on TV where they also showed the videos made for the song. Just as a sidenote, Wikipedia tells interesting facts on this show: in the UK they showed it only between 1959-1967, 1979 and 1989-1990, whereas in Finland (suomeksi) we liked it so much that it went on non-stop from 1961 to 2005. A classic TV show!

To get back to the topic: I remember bringing two songs to the school juke box jury, and both of them were completely demolished, both by the teacher and the other kids, with only a few exceptions, notably my friends who probably gave them better notes than they would have normally done. The other one was Enigma's "Return to Innocence" (I know...), and the other one was "7 seconds" by Youssou N'Dour & Neneh Cherry. Do I need to add that normally kids brought music such as American hard rock or Finnish pop? I guess it makes sense for me to have traveled and lived this much in weird countries after all the semi-etno stuff I was forcing others to listen when they were 12 years old...

My minor traumas from the elementary school music classes were, however, happily washed away a week ago, last Saturday. That afternoon I was given a possibility that was hard to believe: tickets to a "dinner-gala-concert" of Youssou N'Dour in a fancy hotel - for free. Later I heard that normally these tickets sell for 50.000 CFA (75 euros) each. Youssou - or "le vieux" (the old, a respectful name) or "le grand" (the great) as he's also referred to in Senegal - just released a new album "Dakar-Kingston" last week which combines reggae (the music style I love to hate) with Senegalese mbalax rhythms.

Although I felt quite out-of-place among all the glitzy upper class Senegalese people (me, another Finn and some random white guy where the only foreigners there) with their glittering dresses and impeccable suits by the swimming pool in the inner yard of the hotel, I enjoyed the concert enormously. I still hope to have another chance to see him in a more relaxed and intimate environment, hopefully in one of Dakar's clubs, or in his own night club Thiossane when he apparently performs frequently. Ba beneen yoon, Youssou ("à la prochaine / until next time")!

The end of a 17-year-long wait (although I have to admit that I never strived very actively to end this wait) - seeing Youssou N'Dour live on stage.

Fervent fans on stage - a man in a suit dancing here, later he gave his expensive-looking watch to Youssou to show his appreciation.

We were even ushered to take a photo together with Youssou after the concert, but he left the backstage too quicly...I'm not sure if I am relieved or disappointed of that.

Toubab week-end

2010-04-16T15:06:00.003+03:00

After spending 10 days almost exclusively in Senegalese company in a very Senegalese environment in Rufisque and central Dakar, I felt like doing something completely different and touristy, something that toubabs (white/Europeans) do. So on a Saturday morning I packed my small backbag, forgot almost everything that was necessary except sunscreen which I sort of forgot to apply later on, and headed to the Route National No. 1 which passes by Rufisque and normally takes me to the other direction, towards Dakar.

With the help of asking directions from a few locals, I found the spot for direct bush taxis, one of which took me from Rufisque to Toubab Dialaw. I am evidently getting used to the local comfort standards: sitting at the furthest back seat (the 7-place taxis, Peugeot 506s have three rows, like in a family car) I was waiting for the car to get full. While the Senegalese mamas were packing their bagages and stuff in the trunk, I was wondering where the smell of fish came from, turned my head and saw about 10 kgs of fish piled in the trunk, just behind me. Swearing silently I shrugged my shoulders and hoped that the natural ventilation – open car windows – would at least keep the flies away during the trip. In one hour I arrived safely as the last passenger on board at the end stop, and paid the 400 CFA (around 0,70€) as everybody else.

Guidebooks tend to praise Toubab Dialaw, the first beach resort on the Petite Côte stretching south from Rufisque as one of the nicest, more low-key and quiet holiday destinations in Senegal. After spending a week-end there, I can confirm this, but the writers have forgotten to mention that it might be more relaxing to go there with someone, and definitely not as a lonely woman. One of the most annoying toubab effects is having hordes of young rastamen following you wherever you go, offering all kinds of services, but well – one just has to live with it, and either stay inside the hotel compound or stay away from those resorts altogether.

Beach where you are never alone - at least the dogs are always there.

After a quiet dinner by myself, I decided to pop in the local small disco next to the hotel where I was staying. When entering I just stared at the venue with disbelief for the first few seconds: it had about 30 local men (or from neighbouring countries, at least Guinea and some anglophone countries were present) dancing, drinking or sitting around, and almost no women. In short, I felt like stepping into a snake pit.

I mentioned the visible lack of women to the first one coming to chat me up, and he tried to show me all the three women that were there – one of them the bartender. It was quite hilarious in a way, but reggae music and the feeling of being trapped drove me quickly away to my 4000 CFA (6 euros) dorm bed.

I had a few plans on what to do during a perfect toubab week-end: to go for a horseback ride, and go for dance and/or drumming classes in the hotel Sobo-Bade where I was staying in. I ended up only doing the former, as my muscles were too sore on the next day (and still are, after 5 days!) to even think about any physical exercise. Not to mention my skin which was a bit red and sore after walking on the beach before the horse trip.

Somehow things always look better on horse-back.

Sunday was spent as it should be: sleeping late, eating slow breakfast on an exquisite terrace with a view to the sea, reading in a hammock and having a super-expensive lunch in the local standards (5000 CFA, almost 8€). Seeing the tourist prices in general was a bit shocking: after getting used to having coffee to go in a plastic mug for 50 CFA (0,07€), or to sit down and drink it in a glass for 100-200 CFA (0,15-0,30€), it felt outrageous to pay 500 CFA or more for a cup of coffee, or 2 euros for a breakfast including coffee, bread and an omelette when usually it costs one euro. Now when writing these prices down it feels ridiculous to be worrying about such sums of money, but still: local coffee costs 10 times more in a tourist place than on the street! I guess we can afford it, and enjoy the views then...

Not bad for a breakfast view.

For tourists potentially heading out for Toubab Dialaw: Sobo-Bade is indeed highly recommended, huge cultural hotel complex also offering batik, drumming and dance classes as well as excursions. It was the first big hotel built in Toubab Dialaw in the late 1980s by a Haitian writer-artist Gérard Chenet. They also contacted the horse-ride company, Chevaliers de la Savane which offers 2-hour rides in the savanna, a few kilometres from the village for 12,500 CFA (19 €), including the lift from the village.

This highly enjoyable, albeit also frustrating week-end reminded me again of the things linked to the good and bad sides of being a tourist in Africa: yes, it can be damn beautiful – the beaches, sunsets and the nature – but that the nicest and the most genuine people are not found in the tourist resorts. This was one of the reasons that it felt so great to return to the usual office life, to the busy streets of Dakar and just to converse with ”normal” Senegalese people at the Scouts' House in the fairly ugly town of Rufisque.

Hammock-time in Toubab Dialaw.

"Les choses marchent quand-même"

2010-04-14T18:46:00.015+03:00

"Things work, anyway", would be the very rough translation of this quote from a night watchman at the tiny hotel where I stayed during a field trip to one of the Woomal project ("Woomal" meaning "development" in Wolof, the environmental education project I'm working with) sites, in Diofior. He asked me the usual "how do you like Senegal?" question, and I replied something polite, as usual. We continued by comparing the unemployment in Senegal and in Europe (which for most people here is just one country), and chatting a bit in the dark night in the Senegalese countryside, then still with electricity, later on with almost a daily power cut.

How do I like Senegal? I'm wondering if it is possible to experience all the phases of a cultural shock in two weeks, since that is how I feel. It was even somewhat surprising for me to be shocked with...all of this: beggars, heat, garbage allover, discomfort and other things I had already gotten used to in Benin. There is a certain symbolism, me being back here, finishing a circle and beginning a new one: after all, I ended my West African tournee here last time and flew from Dakar back to Finland almost exactly three years ago.

First few days were a bit overwhelming, having one day for settling down, acquiring a Senegalese phone number, buying some medicines and a mosquito net for traveling (which I of course forgot when going to Diofior-Fimela, and the hotel had none...ouch), and just walking around in Rufisque, a town or a large suburb 25 kilometres from Dakar - distance that is best measured by the take it takes, often 2-3 hours in a minibus due to the traffic jams on the route.

The view of the street in Rufisque where I lived the first two weeks.

The second day, Thursday, I was taken to the headquarters of the Senegalese Scouts, right in the centre of Dakar next to (or in the middle of) sprawling, giant market of Sandaga. We had a meeting on the camp that was organized the next week-end, starting on Friday in the park of Hann in Dakar. I listened to the semi-French, semi-Wolof discussion, and the next day I pretty much spent in the park pitching tents, fetching water and wood, or just sitting and waiting stuff to arrive at the camp in the forest. The participants of the camp, mostly girls as the camp was on "promotion féminine", arrived bit by bit from different regions of Senegal, some more chattering than others.

The camp was quite a start for me, I have to say that! I was initiated to the Scout life, learnt about the particular challenges facing girls and women in Senegal, got to know many great people and inhaled heavy dozes of campfire smoke. I managed to amaze people by being able to eat with my hands the delicious Senegalese food we were cooked by the camp cook, but was less enthusiastic about the spontaneous dancing and singing part when it came to be my turn...anyway, quite a few photos from the camp are now uploaded to a Picasa album.

While Saturday was mostly consacrated for discussions and drafting an action plan (EC stagiaires, any memories on these?!?) to better include girls and women in the Scouts' strategies and programmes, on Sunday we had a "rally" at the park together with the "Friends of the park" (Les Amis du Parc). The Scouts set up four different action points that the five groups of participants had to search for and accomplish, one of which was an environmental one and under the responsibility of two very knowledgeable Senegalese Scouts and the Finnish guest, a.k.a. me. We presented the Woomal project, had some tough questions on environment, recycling and Finland (me displaying there the Finnish-ness), and also action: gathering some garbage from the surroundings, assorting them, and thinking ways to reuse them. An artist from Dakar was also there, helping to make objects from recycled materials.

Toubab (white/European) trying to impress with her grinding skills.

After the busy first week-end, the holiday on Easter Monday was sheer bliss. Then I had 1,5 days in the office in Dakar, mostly going through the project documents, and then I was off to Diofior and Fimela with Ousmane working for the micro-credit organisation of the Scouts, FONEES (Le Fonds National des Éclaireuses et Éclaireurs du Sénegal) and going to Diofior to deliver some material and check the accounts. We were back in Rufisque very early on Friday morning, and I spent the day distance-working from Rufisque, as Fridays are the worst days when it comes to traffic to and from Dakar. After a relaxing holiday week-end in Toubab Dialaw (see the next post), I returned to Dakar full of energy on Monday, and moved for a week to a Finnish residence in Dakar to avoid the 4-5 hours of traveling every day between Rufisque and Dakar.

"One's destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things." ~ Henry Miller

Writing down these activities show what I have been doing, but not really what I have been feeling or experiencing. The first few days included so many new things, such as trying to learn the basic greetings in Wolof (and the learning continues...), getting used to the kind of familiar, but still new, environment, trying to remember the names of all the people I have met...overwhelming, as usual. Then the exasperation and the feeling of being annoyed struck: why are people spending so much time for chattering instead of working? Why is there always such a hassle with everything? Why isn't there a system for the collection of all this garbage? Why did I leave all the comfort and the beloved ones in Finland and come here in the first place?

Then I began to readjust. I began to chat with people on diverse topics, greet them with patience in French and Wolof, wanting to understand. I started to see the details and find what is needed for everyday life: tiny local shops, breakfast shacks, bus stops and so on. I was also immensely exhilarated to find my favourite snack from the Benin days, sugar-crusted peanuts sold in used glass bottles! And I have learnt to appreciate little things when using public transport, such as getting a proper seat and some air through a window - although the air might smell of urine and garbages, but it's air, nevertheless...

Peanuts in a vodka bottle.

What does Senegal mean to me so far? It's a country of hard-working people where the blind recite praise for Prophet Muhammad on the street and in the buses, earning money with their voice. It's a country where the mute sell Chinese pirate copies of mobile phones, for exmple with the text "Phone" in the back instead of "iPhone", and with space for two SIM cards instead of only one to maximize all the promotion offers of different telephone companies. It's a country where the amount of sugar poured into the tiny tea pots makes the end result remind more of a syrup than tea - delicious though. It's a country where there is always space for one more person, be it in a minibus or in a dining table. It's a country where beaches can be deadly, both for swimmers and for immigrants venturing off to the Canary Islands.

While in Belgium everything might seem to work, but in reality doesn't, here everything might seem to be a complete chaos, but things work out in the end. For example in public transport vehicles there are actually people who check your tickets regularly - no free-riders here!

The inevitable waiting here is not that annoying as long as it happens in the shadow and having the possibility to sit down, read something or just watch the world pass by. In any case a one-hour-wait with +27 degrees feels much shorter than a 20-minute-wait with +5 degrees, a drizzle and a cold Northern wind, freezing on a Bruxellois tram stop with no trams in sight.

La Francophonie has left its unmistakable mark to the bureaucratic culture of countries they colonised - maybe this is why it seems easier for me to adapt here compared to other Finns who are maybe less accustomed to the legacy of illogical Frenchies: I have lived altogether almost two years in French-speaking countries, and have simply learnt to accept that this is how it is, don't fight it, work with it. Otherwise I will just end up being bitter and complaining all the time, and although it is necessary from time to time, I rather enjoy my stay here while it lasts.

Helsinki – Brussels – Casablanca – Dakar

2010-04-05T16:16:00.006+03:00

Editor's note: the text was written on Tuesday the 30th, but I was too busy or out of internet connection until now to publish it...so here it goes:

I am writing this text in Casablanca while waiting for a transfer flight to take me to my final destination, Dakar. The airport is one long hall with a light-green roof, pretty cool modernistic windows, Arabic hits as background music. Most of the people here are either heading back to Europe or continuing to the Middle East, or Western and Central African destinations such as Senegal. A lot of men with long robes and beards, and a lot of very stylish women with high heels and veils. The airport has the usual selection of souvenir and tax free shops – and a Zara store with an almost too friendly service ("soyez la bienvenue! let me take your clothes to the dressing room already!") where I went for some final shopping.

The airport of Casablanca.

Royal Air Maroc was also the cheapest airline for flying to Dakar from Europe, but so far I have only been pleasantly surprised. The food was extremely tasty when compared to the European airlines. RAM has bad reputation for luggage being delayed, but after seeing all the African mamas with their half a dozen huge bagages at the Brussels airport, I'm not that surprised anymore that some of them are lost on the way.

I passed by Brussels last night and had a very nice get-together reunion with some of the old EuropeAid stagiaires, and some of the new ones. It actually felt like I had not left Brussels at all in the meantime because it was all so familiar...and while I was in Finland, it felt like it had been ages since I left Brussels.

Former and new EuropeAid stagiaires having some Belgian beers in Bonneffoi.

Tonight I will be again in a totally different kind of an environment of which I will continue to write about here, but for more work-related scout/development things I will discuss in a new blog only in Finnish (and Google translate really sucks with Finnish language, sorry about that for non-Finns!) : http://woomalista.wordpress.com.

My month in Finland was extremely nice, although now I remember all the things I was supposed to do during those few weeks. However, it was still well spent. I had a graduation party together with my sister for some of our nearby relatives in Varkaus, and for that I made two binded copies of my Master's thesis. I went for a special place for binding in Helsinki, one of the two that were mentioned on the ad pages of the University of Helsinki student's calendar. What an odd experience! I already began to think that the place was closed down since it was not visible to the street, but then I found it in the inner yard of the building, with a sign probably dating from the 1950s.

There was another door in the hallway with a sign ”please enter”. The (presumed) owner was in there with a customer, half-buried in the middle of dusty books, papers and covers. Yet he was in no way a bookworm, but one of the most talkative persons I have ever met. He spoke to me about wells in Africa, about his brother's friend who had gotten married with a South African and had bought an island somewhere, about the worsening quality of the current paper material and how people don't care about books anymore...basically he did not stop talking for half an hour or so when I finally managed to escape his little binding factory. This whole thing was repeated when I went to retrieve the binded copies of my thesis, only with different topics such as Senegal, languages, Karelia and the weather outside. In the end I got my two copies with bright red covers and golden writing, just as I asked them.

Another quirky encounter in Helsinki took place last Saturday when I remembered that I had not bought any chocolate eggs for prospective little witches that might visit on the morning of Palm Sunday (Finnish tradition, children dressed as witches, going from house to house, wishing good luck with colourfully decorated branches and getting chocolate eggs, candies or money for present). So I stopped in a little corner shop (kiosk) that Otto had previously described as ”the weirdest shop he has ever been to”, selling everything from porn videos to toys, basic food stuff and always having coffee on sale, only 80 cents per cup.

When I entered the shop to see whether they would have some chocolate eggs, the (presumed) owner jumped up hastily from the coffee table, ran to the counter and eyed me suspiciously. I looked at their candy selection and saw some full Kinder eggs next to some of the inside surprises wrapped again in Kinder folio paper. I enquired the price, to which he replied: ”you know, there's a surprise inside them”. Me: ”Ehm, yes, but how much are they?”. Him: ”You can have the three of them that are left for €1,50”. Me, thinking that it's below the usual selling price, tried to see the best before date but was distracted for having the urge to leave as soon as possible – he was not really scary or anything, but the shop just smelled strongly like hair that has been un-washed for a few weeks. I paid the eggs swiftly with a perplexed look on my face and tried not to burst laughing when leaving the shop. His communication skills were the exact opposite of the owner of the book-binding shop – Finnish people truly are more diverse than what the clichéd picture makes us believe. It makes me wonder what exactly is meant by ”Finnish ways of doing” or ”Finnish culture” that those strongly opposing immigration refer to, but that is a whole other topic.

As for the Kinder eggs: they were, indeed, four months old. Luckily there were no children ringing the doorbell on Sunday morning and we ended up eating the somewhat dry, odd-tasting eggs ourselves.

Now it is time to get on the plane for Dakar - will continue later!

Home sweet home

2010-03-13T10:09:00.002+02:00

"It's not a holiday. You're unemployed and homeless."

Thank you, Otto, for reminding me of that sarcastically on one morning when I rejoiced at sleeping long on my "holiday". I'm going to take this as such anyway. During one month in Finland, I have enough time to meet friends and family besides getting my things and papers in order at the university and unemployment office before leaving for Senegal.

Right now I'm in Varkaus, the hottest news town of the week: on Monday, a 3-month-old baby was kidnapped here while sleeping in his baby carriage (it's normal here to let babies sleep outside in their carriage, until -20 degrees or so - they sleep well for some reason, properly covered of course), and found a few hours later seriously hypothermic and covered in snow. Until Thursday the police had gotten as far as being sure that "the kidnapper is a human being", wild animals such as lynx being suspected earlier. Yesterday they found out that the kidnapper was another child, a 12-year-old girl.

Another crime that got into national news from my home town was published on Tuesday: a man was shot in the head by another man under influence (not so surprisingly, since nothing happens in Finland without alcohol). Nothing super special there, but then the motive was revealed: it seems to be a murder, planned for a long time and related to a fight over a business company. Before we used to use knives for show-downs, now the big world style has entered Finland as well...

However, besides these bad news this week, I have been positively delighted to be in my home country, especially in Helsinki which is beautiful when covered with snow! Unfortunately I have no photos of this exquisite winter, because my camera is being repaired at the moment. You just have to trust me that it is absolutely gorgeous here! It's just so adorably Finnish having people around complaining that it's "already too hot", when it's +3 degrees instead of the usual -15 celsius they have been having here this winter.

Helsinki also offers some quirky sights, such as a guy with a pair of skis in a brightly-neon-coloured skiing outfit waiting for a tram right in the centre of Helsinki. I find it difficult to imagine this happening, let's say in Stockholm where they have also had comparable, exceptional amount of snow this winter.

Today is the 70th anniversary of the end of the Winter War between Finland and the Soviet Union, which ended with giving away one tenth of Finland's surface and 430 000 people moving to the Finnish side from Karelia. Fittingly for these past few days I have felt slightly nationalistic pride when preparing a pair of skis with the appropriate ski wax and actually skiing for 5 kilometres in bright sunshine with a couple of minus degrees yesterday.

Last night we embarked on another nationalistic activity with my sister - today we'll be celebrating our graduation party, as both of us have graduated during the last 6 months, she as the Master of Health Sciences just a few weeks ago and me as the Master of Arts in September. We decided to organize a common small party for some relatives, and the baking included also Karelian pies (Wikipedia, and they are even registered in the EU, "Traditional Speciality Guaranteed", together with other regional products such as champagne), because the best ones are always made at home!

If I were to give an initiation for foreigners on Finnish people, I would make them watch the Finnish version of the reality TV show "Farmer wants a Wife", subtitled or preferably dubbed in suitable regional dialects of the dubbing language. Of course, the show taking place in Finland, for equality's sake it's not only men seeking wives, but also women seeking husbands.

It's safe to say that the scenes at least for the dialogue are definitely not scripted in Finland. In fact, there is no proper dialogue, but mostly just awkward muttering and smiling. People are so incredibly shy that they often even avoid proper eye contact! Desired qualities for a partner include being straight-forward, reliable and easy-going. One guy with a very wide Eastern Finnish accent described how he likes people to get straight to the point, not circling around issues for ages - would definitely make a bad fit with any typical representative of countries south from the Netherlands!

Although the activities themselves in farms seem to be more or less similar as in Finland, the surroundings seem a bit more grandiose in the UK, for example. While Finnish farmers show their suitors the wooden churches of the nearby little towns or take them to horse races, in the UK "Desmond also manages a 300-year-old mansion".

I also suspect that the possible gifts given to the desperate farmers vary between countries. The most romantic gift given to a Finnish farmer lady by a prospective suitor was - TADAA - a knife! Didn't see that coming, did you..? The reaction of the farmer-ess was quite telling: she truly admired the knife, and then the couple even kissed before continuing their work in the cowhouse. So, if you want to impress a Finnish woman, that's what you should get them for a present. Roses or jewellery are nothing compared to a proper, hand-made knife!

Panic on the streets of Brussels

2010-02-26T01:04:00.002+02:00

I hate leaving. Especially when you've spent five months in a city that has proved to be at least an experience dozen times better than you had expected; or when you've met the most active, greatest and friendliest people Europe has to offer. In short someone is applying and wondering: should you come for a traineeship at the European Commission in Brussels? Yes, you should.

Work-wise I was lucky to be in a unit that was less about procedures and more about the content: the quality of aid. I had the possibility to see how the European Commission cooperates - or at least tries to coordinate - with other international donors or UN agencies. I was also lucky to have enough time besides my duties to participate in events and trainings that were often more useful for me personally than for my unit, strictly speaking.

During the five months I created, edited and read countless of excel sheets both for work and traineeship activities, organized half a dozen of cakesales and three speed-dating events with my fellow stagiaires for our/their trip to Ethiopia. Although temporal and financial restrictions finally prevented me from joining the 10 EuropeAid trainees going for a study trip to Ethiopia for two weeks in the beginning of March, I enjoyed enormously taking part in the big hassle and observing the shifting group dynamics.

Group work in general is something I really learned a lot on. Doing your own stuff, independently from others is not really possible at the European Commission. Everything you write, from minutes to draft papers is read by several people (a strange thought after leaving university where most of the time maximum 2 people read your work); it is scrutinized and often commented with track changes in the word document. Everything seems to be about revising, drafting, brainstorming and collaborating, meaning meetings after meetings, and e-mail rounds with 40 people in CC, everybody commenting their own bit of the text.

All this sounds time-consuming, and my colleagues tell me that it is. While wholly understanding the purpose - sharing the workload and not having the responsibility only on the shoulders of one person, thus ensuring the diversity of views - it does seem like a heavy exercice, coming from a Nordic administrative culture which is more decentralised and where bosses in general trust their subordinates to be independent and responsible enough to make their own decisions. Perhaps I'm a bit too idealistic and far from reality here, as I have never properly worked in the Finnish government administration...

Enough about work and working cultures: there's the rest of the day which begins after-work, normally from 6pm -> ! I have rarely come home before 10pm, often not before midnight. Especially recently there has not been much to do at home: internet was off for three weeks, and the only activities left were eating some quick 5-minute pasta (and I've had plenty of those!), or reading (less tempting after browsing through documents and studies for 8 hours). And well, more importantly the world of Belgian culture with 800 different beers, free cafe-concerts, old movie screenings, breweries and beer museums, or trainee pub quizzes await outside.

Now, before going to bed and waking up for my last working day at the European Commission (for now), I wonder to myself: will I ever see Cafe Belga, Bonnefooi, Bar du Matin, Brasserie de L'Union, le Chat-Pitre, Wild Geese, Botanique, L'Archiduc, Matonge district, L-41 canteen or any of the other trainees ever again? I sincerely hope so.

And, strangely enough, I will come here at least for one night on my way to Senegal if everything goes well. Alors, a tout a l'heure, Bruxelles!

Holiday in Scotland

2010-02-20T20:04:00.000+02:00

I knew it, and was expecting it, but it still hit quite hard when I heard the first proper conversation in Scottish between a bus driver and a passenger going to Glasgow from Prestwick airport: I could not understand a single word, though the meaning of their verbal exchange was somewhat comprehensible from the context. That was a rough welcome to Scotland for me!

During the one-hour busride to Glasgow I admired the amazingly green Scottish winter scenery: sheep, a sign for ”watch out for elderly people” (they love signs in Scotland!), the little villages and countryside houses.

In Glasgow I visited the gloomy cathedral and a rather presumptuous Necropolis, and was quite surprised to find brochures for whisky tours in a cathedral (only in Scotland!). I took some photos at George Square with Japanese tourists and watched the statues of great Scotsmen being covered by snow. I went for some shopping in the design district, and ended up only buying a tacky Scottish language kitchen towel. I relaxed in a vegan bar/restaurant/club 13th floor - highly recommended for more alternative-minded rock lovers, with very cute albeit uncomprehensible bartenders. In the evening in moved on to Dundee by train, spent there two days and had a quick tour in Edinburgh before flying from there to Brussels South again.

During my first day in Glasgow I already learned that when they ask you ”are you OK?”, people are not worried about you although I might look completely lost – it just means ”Can I help you?”. I tried to get rid of a huge smile on my face whenever somebody said anything in Scottish accent, but found it extremely hard since hearing that accent just made me childishly happy. During the next three days I also heard the more Eastern accents of Dundee and Edinburgh, but it's the Glaswegian one that amazed and definitely challenged me most – and I thought that Nigerian English is difficult to understand...

In the 13th floor – after being astonished by the cheap price of the best whiskies in the bar, £2,20 for a shot - I had an encounter with the British class system, if my social analysis is correct. A local ”older gentleman” chatting me up and trying to guess my nationality for several minutes, going through all Eastern European countries just sighed at some point (and I'm unable to litterate his accent here): ”Aaaw, you have such a strong Anglo-American accent – you must be veeeery educated, I can't even talk with you”. I have never before been refused to being talked to because of my accent – and there's not much I can do about it, really...

My next post will most likely wrap-up my time in Belgium, which is running out with an increasing speed: only one week to go. Having non-functioning internet at home now for 3 weeks, and also incredibly slow experience with the internet connection in a cafe today, it seems that the next post will also be written in Finland, the land of modern technology, where I'll be staying for one month before moving on to Senegal – and finally better respecting the blog's name again!

Remembering 2009.

2010-01-26T01:35:00.003+02:00

Just something I did last year (and at least two years before last year...).

Happy and stress-free new year to everybody!

Tintin and Leopold in Congo

2009-12-19T12:11:00.000+02:00

I am ashamed to admit that I only started reading the main francophone Belgian newspaper, Le Soir last week - and only due to the fact that it was available free in Exki, a common chain of lunch take-away food near the Commission. The Commission sandwiches are less appetizing after a while, and I haven't had much time for proper lunches lately due to trainings, choral concerts and actual work.

The main topic in paper of last week's Thursday was the possible lawsuit against the publisher of Tintin, a.k.a the national symbol of Belgium. Bienvenu Mbutu Mdondondo, a Congolese student in Belgium accuses the album "Tintin in Congo" (known in Finnish as "Tintti Afrikassa") of racism and wants it to be transferred from bookshops to museum displays. He pressed charges in Belgium in 2007 - still pending - and in France in 2009 (Figaro article on the issue in French). Mdondondo has proclaimed to be ready to go to the European Court of Human Rights, if needed.

Previously Tintin in Congo has already been moved out from children's section to adult graphic novels in bookshop shelves in the UK (article by the Guardian), and placed in the special collection only accessible by appointment in the Brooklyn Public Library.

Young Hergé has transmitted the patronizing colonialist view perfectly in this second Tintin comic book, but looking at it now feels as astonishing as when reading old geography books or guidance books for missionaries going to the field. Tintin in Congo portrays Africans as child-like, naive, big-lipped creatures who speak French badly (worse than the dog Milou, or Snowy in English, it is poignantly noted) and in need to be "civilised".

The photos in this post are from EuropeAid's trainees' visit to the Africa Museum in Tervuren, 14 kilometres from Brussels. A huge building next to a forest has excellent temporary exhibitions (now one more anthropological about an ethnic group from Southern Ethiopia, the Omo people, and another mixing tradition and modernity, "Persona" with dozens of masks and modern African art), a pretty good permanent exhibition with artifacts mostly from Central Africa. There is also a dead zoo section with stuffed animals and plants, and on top of it all a historical section.

I was particularly keen to see how Belgians are dealing with their somewhat ugly past in Congo. Based on the historical narrative presented in the exhibition the answer is: they are not. The texts in the exhibition stated that "some abuses took place in the early 20th century" - a mild understatement considering that millions of Congolese died during Leopold II's rule, although the exact number is hard to measure in the absence of reliable statistics.

Yet, in the exhibition the colonizers and generals are pretty much treated as heroes who sacrificed their lives to the "economic and social improvement of Congo" (the text in the statue picture). That is not the way in which the history of colonialism should be presented in the 21st century.

In fact everything in Brussels seems to be named after King Leopold II. He has a park next to the European Parliament - the whole EU quartier is called "quartier Leopold", thus having loads of hotels and apartment blocks named after Leopold. The end stop of the main circular metro line is also "Leopold II". Many of the most opulent buildings in Brussels have been built with the money Leopold managed to extract from Congo, and the wealth of the country was largely built on that same blood money.

To an outsider it seems that Belgium has some un-dealt issues with its past. Perhaps this Tintin episode will give a chance to delve deeper into the colonial past, and to teach the new Belgian generation something about the ways in which Europeans treated non-Europeans. Including a note about the racist attitudes and the historical context in which Tintin in Congo was created could be in place in Belgium as well - in the UK it was added as a foreword already in 2005. Changing the past might be impossible, but changing our attitudes should not be.

A-B-C - go!

2009-11-20T21:51:00.012+02:00

Time for another hobby post - last spring I wrote about my leisure activities in Finland (in Finnish), and I figured it would be time to do that in Belgium as well. Already six weeks (or seven?) have passed, and I have had plenty of time to slip into some kind of routine life rhythm.

Dancing classes which I started promisingly in the beginning of October were annoyingly cut for some weeks because of a very persistent cough, which is now slowly fading away (I hope!). I have been able to go to flamenco classes for a few times, ballet and last Sunday also for a sabar class (Senegalese dance).

A in the title of this post refers to another favourite sport of mine: the annual football league of the trainees is about to start. I was hesitant to join the team of our Directorate-General first, because it looked like I would be the only woman. In the end, that was a requirement for the team to play - to have at least one female player on the pitch during the whole match - and I'm now one of the two women in our team which we proudly named Aidletico-RELEX. AIDletico refers to AIDCO, our department of development cooperation, and RELEX is the department for foreign relations with whom we joined forces. Our amazingly stylish badge was photoshopped by our captain Nick, and some football-minded readers might recall its style from somewhere...

B is for Belgian beer. I never imagined I could start liking beer enough to actually voluntarily order it in a café-bar, but it has happened in Brussels! The local one (well, there are 800 of them) beers are often quite treacherous since they can be triply strong compared to the normal ones, with 11-12 percent of alcohol. Enough about beer :)

C is for carols: today was the first rehearsal for annual European Commission Christmas carol choir. It was unlike anything I expected - the choir leader was a British chap who seemed to be walking straight out from a Monty Python show. No warm-up, no playing through the song once with a piano which was there, just singing the songs off-hand like that.

I could barely manage with reading (and singing!) the notes, but the lyrics were even more tricky. Although I have been used to singing songs in various languages in the Kassandra choir in Helsinki, we have never had this many languages during one rehearsal: Dutch, French, English, German, Polish, Slovenian, Czech, Romanian and Latin so far. More to come next week! It was a bit of a shock, but most of the choir members had participated in this for many years already and were much more accustomed to the style. Other trainees were quite devastated as well, it seemed...

Besides kicking, dancing and singing, I have also been doing voluntary work (surprise, surprise!). Although now it is for selfish goals: EuropeAid trainees are fund-raising money for an eventual field trip after the end of the traineeship, in the beginning of March in 2010. So far we have had cake-sales, selling gluhwein (glögi) outside the European Parliament on a square, organized a speed-dating event (photo is from there) and contacted some companies for sponsoring. We also have our own blog, http://aidco2010.wordpress.com, where all the latest and upcoming events will be reported!

This week has been particularly Finno-Ugric: on Tuesday I went to see a documentary by Imbi Paju at the European Parliament called "Sisters Across the Sea" (which will apparently be also shown on Finnish TV, FST5 on 30 November according to an article in Kaleva).

I quite liked the documentary which verged on the brink of being too cheesy, but stayed on the better side. It told about the relations of Finnish and Estonian women's and girls' associations before the Second World War - for Finland the obvious organization was Lotta Svärd. This event was organized by the Estonian Representation, and the hosts were two MEPs, one from Estonia and another one from Finland, Heidi Hautala who is also the president of the sub-committee on Human Rights in the European Parliament.

Yesterday there was another Finnish-Estonian event, this time organized by the Finnish Cultural Institute, but held in the Goethe Institute. Sofi Oksanen, Finnish-Estonian writer presented her latest book "Puhdistus" (FIN) / "Puhastus" (EST) / "Zuivering" (NL) / "Purge" (ENG, upcoming next year) and was interviewed by another Estonian MEP, Indrek Tarand. This Tarand became famous even in the Finnish newspapers for running as an independent candidate and getting almost 30 percent of all the votes for himself in the last EU parliament elections in Estonia. Pretty impressing!

All in all: it's busy in Brussels, but I like it! Although I wish I had a few more hours in a day...

Ah, les belges!

2009-11-07T16:06:00.005+02:00

Warning: this post includes a lot of complaining about little things.

I can't help but be constantly reminded by a friend of mine who also did an internship at the European Commission and later on worked there as a consultant for a few months. Samuli warned me: "On the face of it, everything seems to be working in Belgium. In reality, nothing works.

Oh, so true. It is strange how differently and SLOWLY things function (or don't at all) in Belgium. Luckily I have been spared from taking care of all these practical things such as acquiring an internet connection, electricity and gas contracts or other, seemingly simple issues. In the end they are not that simple. Most of the things take one month. Having an internet connection? 4-6 weeks. Electricity? 2 weeks, at least, if the former tenant has called in his/her electricity contract in the apartment. Fridge? About 3 weeks.

There are all these minor things that just don't make sense. For example, there is an automatic laundry place next to the house I'm living in. Which is very nice, except that at least this week they are suddenly closed. No idea how long they will be closed, because the windows are covered with papers and there is no sign on the door (nor was there one before they closed). I'm hoping it is just because this is a holiday week in Belgian schools and they will open in a few days, otherwise I will have to look for another laundry place...

When it gets to bigger issues, there is transport: public transport system is really bad compared to other European capitals. Buses and trams are always late, metro often suffers of "perturbations" and just doesn't come until after 20 minutes of waiting, and during the week there is no transport after midnight. On Fridays and Saturdays there are night buses until 3 am, but that's it.

Health system is just weird. You need to have your own doctor that you randomly choose from a list from yellow pages or ask from your nearest pharmacy. Then you pay to the doctor privately (a lot!), get a receipt which should be refunded 75 % from the local "Mutualité", or from health insurance in my case. I would rather go to a normal health centre, but there are none...I would have to even choose which hospital to go to if needed! I don't need this plethora of choices, could you make it simple, please!

Coming from a country which has one of the best library infrastructures in the world, the state of Belgium's public libraries (or the only one I've seen in Ixelles) is quite devastating. Although there are dozens of excellent bookshops, that library sucked big time - not just that the selection is very limited, but you have to pay money to become a member and borrow books! Libraries should not cost, period. Having free access to information is a sign of a civilized country to me. Sorry, Belgium!

This was not meant to be only complaints, and to balance a bit, here are my top three favourite things in Brussels:
+ yummie 1 euro samosas in the night shop just next door from my house (and having the night shop that close in general is great, open until 2am!)
+ waffles and frites...
+ interesting job, great colleagues and co-stagiaires

In the end these things make my stay here worthwhile and I would not want to be anywhere else right now. Maybe just somewhere a bit warmer, which brings me to the end of this post and a reason to write one last complaint. My heating is still not working properly, only one sixth of the radiator is actually warm. Despite the visit of a Polish maintenance man and a British landlord. So maybe it's not only Belgians that I should blame...

Mood for Senegal

2009-10-18T22:10:00.005+03:00

Two weeks in Brussels have passed by so quickly - it also means that already one tenth of my traineeship period at the European Commission has been completed. Have to say that I am still overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of this whole machinery of European development cooperation. From next week on, I am supposed to "replace" for a month one of our office workers who is moving to a EU delegation in the Philippines. That includes functioning as the expert on conflict prevention issues: I know the basic content of SSR (security sector reform), LRRD (linking relief, rehabilitation and development), SALW (Small Arms and Light Weapons), and some other nice abbreviations I have learnt so far, but it does not make me an expert...we'll see if I need to do something else besides taking notes in meetings.

After work there is the limited amount of freetime in Brussels, which I have mostly been spending with other stagiaires. On my own I have been going to cinema, and it has lately been orientated towards Senegal in one way or another - partly by coincidence, partly because of my interest. I went to two different independent arthouse cinemas: Flagey (10 minute walk from my home) and Cinema Arenberg in the centre, near Grand Place.

In Flagey we were only an audience of dozen people in a big theater, and the film was called "Les Tremblements Lointains", directed by a Belgian, Manuel Poutte, but filmed in Senegal. It dealt with the more-than-common phenomenon of migration from Senegal to Europe, meeting of cultures, but changed in the end into a psychological/spiritual journey towards the heart of darkness, or something like that. I quite liked the film - had no expectations, really, but went to see it because of its posters all around the city.

Another film with a slight connection to Senegal was an American film called "Goodbye Solo", directed by Ramin Bahrani whose other films I definitely want to see after seeing this one. Goodbye Solo is a story about a Senegalese taxi driver who is trying to make his fortune in a small town in the US (and eventually to become a flight attendant...), and his encounter with an old, American white man. Both characters are so real, and actors simply amazing. Highly recommended. Both the action and the plot are less important than the interaction between these two men from totally different backgrounds. The film deals with life, death, suicide, American culture, immigration...very moving.

Today I was also supposed to go to a Senegalese dance (sabar) workshop, but, hmm, I slept a bit too late and will have to try again in one month when the next sabar dance class will be organized. I had an initiation to sabar in Helsinki a few months ago, and it felt really difficult compared to other types of African dances I have been doing. But having a challenge is great, so I definitely want to continue learning!

Why all this talk about Senegal? Because - if everything goes well - I will spend at least 6 months there starting from next March. I will be volunteering for an environmental project of the Finnish Scouts, implemented by an NGO under the Senegalese Scouts. This Etvo volunteer programme is administered by Kepa, the Finnish umbrella organization for NGOs working with development issues. The exact place is Mboro, some 100 kilometres from Dakar and is situated here according to the Google map. Pretty exciting, and a welcomed change after reading through all these piles of strategy papers on development cooperation projects and programmes: to actually participate in one!

One last link in the end, to a BBC article on the young Senegalese men willing to risk their lives for migrating to Europe: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/8251029.stm. Quotes from the article tell why: "I used to be able to work in Italy for just one month and earn enough money to spend the rest of the year living it up in Senegal", or: "They just see people returning from a few months in Europe and then building a flash house and driving a nice car and they think: 'I had better go and check this crisis out for myself,'" Issa told me, adding that even if you worked as a civil servant for 15 years you would struggle to match that."

Impressions bruxelloises

2009-09-25T13:18:00.002+03:00

I went to Brussels for a week, and what did I get?

First, the thing I went there to look for: an apartment, or rather a room in which to stay for five months. I made the decision already after seeing four different rooms during the first two days. Finding an affordable (read: less than €500 with all charges) furnished room for a short-term rental in a city with thousands of trainees coming there every year was not THAT straight-forward. It was still a lot easier than finding a place to stay in Helsinki right now.

Not my house, unfortunately, but an art nouveau house of an architect Victor Horta, now a museum in Ixelles (a part of Brussels where I'll live).

I'll have a smallish room with two little roof windows, facing some gorgeous art nouveau buildings across the street, in a house with five other trainees of various institutions. I'd assume it's around 20 minutes by public transport to the EU Commission buildings, and perhaps 30 minutes by foot, if I'll ever feel like walking in mostly humid and grey Brussels.

Last week, however, was extremely sunny in Belgian standards (so I understood). The week-end could even be described as hot. Since the apartment issue was quickly solved – signed the contract on Wednesday, got the keys on Saturday – I had time to go sightseeing the city. Probably a good thing, considering that from 1 October onwards I'll be working every weekday from 9 to 5 or more. I also managed to open a bank account after answering to a bunch of questions during a rendez-vous I had had to schedule a day earlier. At the bank I also found out that I am a "personne physique" and not a "personne morale" - whatever that means, then, in French legal banking language.

I was planning to go to cinema – there are several independent theatres and small festivals going on almost all the time – but the excellent weather changed my intentions. It was quite enjoyable just to take a tram to another part of the city, have a coffee or lunch somewhere, and read a bit for my hopefully last exam in the university.

A somewhat strange encounter with the locals took place on a Sunday afternoon walk through St Gilles, another very mixed neighbourhood of Brussels. We sat in a brasserie which was recommended in my hip ”map for young people” to be a truly local place. Our order at the bar was taken by the angriest woman ever in restaurant business. She was nagging at the other workers for not being quick enough with the dishes, meaning that she had to pour a certain type of beer in a different beer's glass – veeeery bad, apparently. She was spreading her hands, sighing loudly and either talking to herself or to us, it never was very clear to me. Definitely a different kind of approach to customer service: not as automatized and sterile as in many places. Personal for sure, although perhaps less pleasant for customers!

All in all, Brussels really made a positive impact on me. It is vibrant, full of cultural events, has good food and nice cafés, is neither too small nor too big and is consequently great for walking around. Typically the neighbourhood changes very quickly – after admiring some of the poshest houses and shops, only 50 metres later the environment changes completely and there are blocks of run-down houses and beton flats from the 1960s. The capital of Europe is very eclectic and diverse: there is much more to Brussels than just the EU quartier. Luckily it is also cheaper than Helsinki: after five days in Brussels I was already complaining if a glass of wine happened to cost as much as 3 euros or more...

Different nationalities gathering together in Brussels also bring their own foods with them. During my week I ate a few obligatory baguette-sandwiches and one croque-monsieur, some African dish I had never tried before (maybe from Cameroun or Congo, not sure), Moroccan food, a Portuguese pastry and Lebanese lentil salad. The famous three Belgian dishes - fries, mussles and waffles – have to wait for my return to Brussels on 30 September.

I was lucky to have also free dinners in various places: one at an apartment I went to see (Portuguese vegetable soup and Dr Oetker pizza!), another at a meeting of local teacher-to-be students who are going to do their practice in Helsinki in October, and the third one at a certain Estonian residence in the European quartier. Thank you all very much for feeding a poor student, soon a poor trainee :)

Dinner at the Estonian residence with very ascetic furniture (pillows and mattresses) at the moment. Totally sufficient though - simple things are the best!

Kahvittelua ja uutisia.

2009-08-09T12:44:00.003+03:00

Ah, mikä vapaus gradun palauttamisen jälkeen! Vaikka sen jälkeen onkin ollut kaikenlaista pientä hommaa - rahaa pitää kuitenkin hankkia jollakin tavoin - on ollut aikaa myös vain istuskella, lukea kirjoja ja juoda kahvia. Aion jatkaa tätä vielä elokuun toivottavasti pitkään jatkuvassa lämmössä, mutta suositukseni tähän mennessä kierretyistä kahviloista Helsingissä:

Villipuutarha Kalliossa, Roskapankin vieressä.
+ epätavallinen sijainti
+ sisustus
+ suhteellisen laaja haudutetun teen valikoima, ruokia en vielä testannut

- hintavahko (tee 3,50€)
- epämukava tuoli, mutta sohvia oli myös tarjolla
- usein täynnä

Cafe Regatta
+ sijainti meren rannalla - voi katsella melojia ja Espoota
+ kahvikupin hinta: santsikupin ottaessa saa 5 senttiä takaisin, asia joka mainitaan aina kahvilaa esiteltäessä
+ erikoinen kokonaisuus kaikin puolin Sibelius-monumentin kupeessa

- pieni valikoima syötäviä asioita
- kitschin määrä on yliampuvaa jopa minulle

Viinikahvila Viola
+ sijainti Kaisaniemen kasvitieteellisessä puutarhassa
+ vehreä puutaloympäristö
+ suomalaisia marjaviinejä

- santsikuppi kahvia maksaa ylimääräistä (kahvi 2,20€)
- hintavahkot leivonnaiset

Erityistä tuntuu olevan se, että nämä kahvilat ovat hiukan syrjässä keskustasta, jonka ovat valloittaneet ketjukahvilat ja muut steriilit paikat. Näissä on tunnelmaa - voin suositella kaikkia lämpimästi!

Sitten uutisiin: ensinnäkin, kuten mainitsin alussa, se gradu on palautettu. Valmistumista odotellaan. Toiseksi, olen menossa Brysseliin harjoitteluun EU:n komissioon, DG EuropeAidiin toimistoon, joka keskittyy ihmisoikeus- ja konfliktikysymyksiin. Viisi kuukautta lokakuusta eteenpäin olisi tarkoitus viettää siellä. Kolmanneksi voin vielä mainostaa Kassandrakuoromme keikkoja ensi torstain Kuorojen kierroksella, joka avaa Art Goes Kapakka -festarit. Viimeinen kerta ainakin näillä näkymin nähdä/kuulla minut tässä kuorossa, jonka joudun - surullista kyllä - jättämään vuodeksi tuon Brysselin takia.

torstai 13.8.
klo 20 Corona, perinteikäs biljardibaari Eerikinkadulla
klo 21 Soul Kitchen, lungimpi ravintola-baari Kalliossa
klo 22 Siltanen, über-trendikäs uusi baari Hämeentiellä

Valitse omasi ja tule kuuntelemaan!

LISÄYS: Neljäs, pieni ylpeyden aihe ilmestyi viime viikon maanantaina postiluukusta kopsahtaneessa Helsingin Juhlaviikkojen tabloid-lehdessä (jaettiin Hesarin välissä, ja myös monissa ilmaisjakelupisteissä). Siinä oli mukana kirjoittamani pieni juttu Stefan Kaegin ohjaamasta Radio Muezzin -teatteriesityksestä Juhlaviikoilla. Kirjoitin ensimmäistä kertaa 400.000 kappaleen painoksena leviävään tuotteeseen...

Lessons learnt in the ex-Byzant

2009-07-12T22:01:00.005+03:00

I returned on Friday from an 11-day vacation to two of the most important cities of the Byzantine imperium: Istanbul and Thessaloniki. We spent first two days in Istanbul, then took a night train to Greece, to Thessaloniki, stayed there for two nights, then continued to a small village of Agios Panteleimon for a Greek wedding and returned back to Istanbul the same route for three more nights.

Besides a lot of sightseeing - a dozen of Byzantine red brick churches, ruins, castles, half a dozen of mosques and some more ruins - and countless matches of backgammon, we indulged ourselves with delicious (and sometimes weird) food, drank refreshing white wine, shots of ouzo/raki (especially at the wedding!) and on the Turkish side at least a few glasses of excellent tea every day.

Yummie Turkish tea in Pierre Loti café in Eyüp, Istanbul.

But what would traveling be without learning things? I was happy to notice that my learning skills had not been totally destroyed by thesis-writing. After two days I could almost read the Greek alphabet, and mastered a few words of Turkish. On the return flight I surprised even myself when I understood what the stuert answered to a lady in the toilet queue in Turkish: "bir saat", meaning one hour (to landing, I presume).

Besides a few new words, tastes and experiences, I learnt that attitudes of (some/many) men in Istanbul - a very modern and cosmopolitan metropol, as it probably always has been - were really stuck to the Byzantine period when it comes to women.

I often felt like standing behind a language barrier since very few people spoke English well enough to actually discuss something. Communicating with the local people in the same way as in New York or in Africa, for example, was simply not possible. Those working with the tourism industry were obviously more skilled in English, and we ended up having a longer conversation with a bazaar salesman. He sold tavla (backgammon) boards and seemed like an enlightened, intelligent man and was also a good seller: not too pushy, inquiring carefully what we wanted and liked. But then in the middle of bargaining for a tavla board, Otto asked about this other game the guy was also selling that we had seen being played in cafés and tea houses in Istanbul. I still don't know what the game is called, but it has colours and numbers...anyway, the salesman got carried away and started to explain: "Oh, that's what women often play. You know, women are really bad at backgammon. Like driving cars, hehehe. That game was first designed for handicapped, retarded people and so, it's easy because of the colours. Women like to play that."

Snap, he had compared women to retards just like that! I stared at him silently while Otto remarked: "Do you realize what you just said in front of my girlfriend?". The seller tried to save his skin by saying that he only referred to Turkish women, obviously, and it's all different for other nationalities (quite an insult towards Turkish women!).

Somehow we ended up buying a tavla board from him (tired, not wanting to continue the bargaining at another place). It might be because of the seller's misogynist comments that the board seems to dislike me, I tend to lose more games than I usually do...

It's not only in Turkey where women are thought to be disabled to play games that require mathematic skills or thinking. I recall that in Zanzibar where I played a lot of bao, a Zanzibari guy was very astonished to hear that I could actually play the real version instead of the one that "children and women" normally play. The simplified version, as I later learnt, consists of just moving the seeds around the board and not really counting anything as in the real version. Pretty boring.

On one hand, these denigrating stereotypes constructed by men on the intellectual abilities of women (either retards or children to them) somewhat diminish my belief in humanity, but on the other hand they make me feel lucky for being born in Finland where only red&green feminists (I guess me, then) are hated by some groups of men. I also just don't get what is it that women see in Mediterranean men - not saying that they are all alike, but many have really archaic views on gender roles.

Obviously these disturbing encounters were only a small part of the whole trip. Most of all I really enjoyed being on an actual holiday which had nothing to do with my studies, work or interning of any kind (except that the wedding I went to was of another UN intern last fall). Just looking at the photo below makes me feel tranquil and thankful for being able to see such a beautiful place. Seeing different places and meeting people in their all ugliness is the point of all traveling - this trip fulfilled those goals, for sure.

Lake Vegoritida from our hotel terrace in Agios Panteleimon, Greek Macedonia.

More photos here.

Harrastelua.

2009-05-30T09:33:00.008+03:00

Blogissa on ollut hiljaista, kuten aina silloin kun olen Suomessa. Vähemmän kirjoittamista, enemmän tekemistä vapaa-ajalla ehkäpä? Tänä keväänä olen voinut syyttää lisäksi gradua ajan puutteesta. Ei, se ei ole vielä valmis. Mutta melkein!

Kun yritin miettiä, mitä muuta olen tehnyt tänä keväänä kuin gradua, ei tullut oikein mitään mieleen. Tarkemmin ajateltuani tajusin, että olen sentään tehnyt muutakin kuin töitä ja gradua. Tämä kevät (ja tuleva kesä) on ollut parasta aikaa koskaan harrastusten osalta.

Viikot ovat rytmittyneet harrastusten ympärille: maanantaisin Kassandra-kuoro, tiistaisin myös Kassandra ry:n järjestämät bollywood-tanssikurssi ja rumputunti, toukokuusta alkaen torstaisin jalkapallopeli, ja sunnuntaisin flamenco-tunti (ks. tammikuun postaus Olé). Parina toukokuun viikonloppuna olen tanssinut kolmisen tuntia päivässä vierailevien afrotanssin opettajien kursseilla, joista tiedotetaan muun muassa mainiolla Afrotanssi-sivulla.

Muina päivinä jaksaessaan on sitten voinut tehdä jotain ihan toisenlaista, kuten käydä torstaisin Punaisen Ristin vapaaehtoisvierailuillla Metsälän säilöönottoyksikössä. Siellä saa vähän erilaisen näkökulman maahanmuuttoon ja turvapaikanhakuun kuin seuraamalla HS-keskusteluja. Taksvärkin kansainvälisyyskouluttajana toiminen tarjosi taas toisenlaisen tavan tehdä vapaaehtoistyötä. Suosittelen kaikille aiheesta kiinnostuneille.

Ehkä hauskinta harrastuksissa on se, että niissä tapaa niin erilaisia ihmisiä - yleensä kun tuppaa pyörimään lähinnä humanistien ja valtiotieteilijöiden kanssa. Tuttavapiiri laajenee niin paljon, että melkein joka päivä törmää johonkin tuttuun kaupungilla. Maailma kylässä -festivaaleilla ei juuri muuta ehtinytkään kuin vaihtaa kuulumisia uusien ja vanhojen kavereiden kanssa.

Toinen nautittava asia on esiintyminen. Kuorossa se on mahdollista useamman kerran kaudessa - seuraava kaikille kuulijoille avoin (ja ilmainen!) esitys on Espoon keskuksessa ensi viikon lauantaina MOVE-festivaalilla klo 11.30, näin ohimennen mainittuna mainoksena. Mahdollisuutta Kaustisten kansanmusiikkifestivaaleille osallistumisesta mietitään parhaillaan, toivottavasti lähdetään!

Tanssin osalta tilaisuuksia on harvemmin, mutta eilen flamenco-tuntilaisemme esiintyivät Tanssikoulu Baila Bailan kevätnäytöksessä. Esitystä edelsi noin 30 tanssitunnin lisäksi muunlainen valmistelu, hameiden sovittamisesta nutturan kieputtamiseen: koko kevään oppi tiivistyi kahteen ja puoleen minuuttiin ravintola Kaisaniemen tanssilattialla, yhtenä ryhmänä yhteensä 23 erilaisen esityksen joukossa. Itseeni flamencon estetiikka vetoaa huomattavasti vahvemmin kuin näkemieni salsa- tai reggaeton-esitysten enemmän kuin vihjaileva liikekieli ja hiukan halvan näköinen vähäpukeisuus, mutta makunsa kullakin.

Tiivistettynä: olen onnellinen ihan mahtavista harrastuksistani! Hienoa, että tanssia lukuunottamatta ne eivät edes vaadi juurikaan rahallista panostusta, taloudellinen tilanteeni kun ei ole kehuttava tällä hetkellä. Ehkä ne halvat huvit ovat lopulta parhaita - mukavat ihmiset ja mielekäs tekeminen riittävät pitkälle.

Paul Auster and me.

2009-03-13T08:50:00.001+02:00

During the last few months, I have read four books by Paul Auster, watched one of his movies and seen him twice. Might sound a bit obsessed. The reading part was because I figured New York City would be the best place to really immerse myself in his books, although the fourth one (Book of Illusions, 2002) I got as a Christmas present when already in Finland. In September I began with Brooklyn Follies (2005), on sale for 4 dollars at the Strand Bookstore at the Union Square in New York. Then I continued with his latest novel, The Man in the Dark (2008) which I bought for 20 dollars at the UN: the benefits of the sold books, donated by Auster's publisher, went for the UN staff Development Fund to build a library (hopefully to get some books in it, also!) in Uganda. When I moved from Manhattan to the Brooklyn side, I finished his most famous piece, New York Trilogy (1985) - Auster's breakthrough book which is composed of three mini novels.

Coincidences, double lives, obsessions for incredulous missions, stories inside stories - that is Paul Auster as a writer. As a speaker he is enchanting, annoying and incredibly witty. He began by telling how he was invited to this event for UN staff, flattering us a bit: "I remember when I was asked already in January if I would like to come and read at the UN - I leapt, although I usually always say 'no' to everything, but this is very special." After that he just started to read extracts from his book, first a lengthy part from the beginning, then a few pages from two other parts of the book. Later on when I opened the book myself, I couldn't help hearing his voice in my head when reading it. It felt weird, as if I was carrying his voice inside me wherever I went.

The most interesting part began after the reading: discussion and the possibility to ask questions, which the audience, mostly composed of Paul Auster fans, had plenty of. Auster was asked about the exception in his production, Brooklyn Follies, which is more humorous and perhaps more 'normal' than the rest of his books. Auster noted that it was the time of Bush's re-election and he was furious because of the state of his country: "Normally, when you are depressed, you want to write comedy, and when you're happy, tragedy". He was also asked about his youth, his writing process and how it feels like to read one's own text to an audience. All of his answers were perfect sentences, full of intelligence, humor and self-awareness.

After the reading and a Q&A session, we were allowed to rush downstairs of the UN library auditorium, buy his new book and get it autographed. Initially I was hesitant but decided to use my money for a good cause. Having the author's inscription on the first page might have had some influence in my decision, too. We had an exchange of words lasting for a few seconds (my small talk skills might still need some improvement):
"Riikka - isn't it a Finnish name?"
"Yes it is, you guessed well!"
"It's a lovely language, Finnish."
"Yes, it's a wonderful language - as are all languages, of course..."
"Yes..."
And then I ran happily off with a new book under my arm, back to my office across the street again.

I did some simple google research and found out interesting little facts: Auster has the honour of being "the most shop-lifted writer with William S. Burroughs and Charles Bukowski" (from an interview in Financial Times in 2005). He still writes all of his manuscripts in little notebooks by hand. And of course, he is not 'only' a writer, but also a translator (from French, especially in his youth), a movie manuscripter for and a director for Smoke (1995) and The Inner Life of Martin Frost (2007). Mediocracy of the latter movie somewhat reduced my admiration - or rather brought it to a more realistic level. At least he is not perfect in everything he does!

Luckily I am not alone with my Paul Auster folly. Besides the enchanted critics in several American, Finnish and British newspapers, also readers worship him. I somehow want to savour his literary production, to have these Auster-periods. The first one was in 2005 when I decided to acquaint myself with this writer I had heard only good things about. I bought Leviathan (1992) from a used-books shop in Helsinki and had hard time reading the first 100 pages - it took months to get it started. After those 100 pages I couldn't drop the book out of my hands. I was impressed. I began to read another novel, Timbuktu (2000) in Finnish, but somehow got stuck again and had to return it unfinished to the library at some point.

And the second time I saw a glimpse of Paul Auster? It was, suitably enough, a mere coincidence. I was waiting for Otto to come through the security and customs at the JFK airport in November when I saw a tall, blond woman together with a shorter, grey-haired man hurrying past me at the arrival area: it was the writer-couple Siri Hustvedt and Paul Auster. I could not but smile.

Read more on Paul Auster:
* List of interviews at Auster's official homepage: http://www.paulauster.co.uk/interviews.htm
* Interview in the Gothamist and in the Guardian in October 2008
* review of the Man in the Dark (2008) in San Francisco Chronicle
* Interview in the Times in 2004, before Bush's re-election
* summary of the UN staff event at the UN radio

Tunteita ja totuuksia.

2009-01-25T23:19:00.005+02:00

En tiennytkään, että osallistuin poliittisen elokuvan festivaaleille. Viime viikon aikana DocPoint -festivaalit täyttivät Helsingin elokuvateatterit, ja sekä työvuorojeni lomassa (olin toista kertaa peräkkäin vapaaehtoistyöntekijänä, nyt teatterivastaavana Bristolissa) että ehtiessäni niiden aikana onnistuin näkemään yhteensä 12 dokumenttielokuvaa, keskimäärin kolme päivässä. Festivaalilla esitetyt elokuvat heijastelivat tämän vuoden teemaa, joka oli "Totuus".

On ymmärrettävää, että dokumentit herättävät jotenkin enemmän ärsytystä, tuohtumusta ja ahdistusta kuin tavalliset fiktioelokuvat. Ovathan ne, ainakin jollain lailla, "todempia": tunteet nousevat pintaan eri tavalla, kun tietää tuon kaiken tapahtuneen oikeasti, oikeille ihmisille. Samalla dokumentit ovat aina jonkun ihmisen - yleensä ohjaajan/käsikirjoittajan - näkemyksiä kuvatusta aiheesta. Kuinka ollakaan, monella katsojalla on eri käsityksiä asiasta, ja mitä kiistellympi aihe on, sitä varmemmin hän haluaa myös ilmaista OMAN mielipiteensä.

Useiden DocPoint-näytösten jälkeen pidettiinkin kysymys-ja-vastaus-sessioita, joissa oli paikalla elokuvan edustaja kertomassa dokumentista ja vastaamaan mahdollisiin katsojien kysymyksiin. Jotenkin arvelin, että holokausti-muistojen perään Itä-Euroopan kiertueelle lähteneestä israelilaisperheestä kertova dokumentti Pizza in Auschwitz herättäisi keskustelua, kun näytöksen alussa kerrottiin ohjaajan olevan paikalla keskustelua varten elokuvan jälkeen. Ja kyllä, muutaman asiallisen kysymyksen jälkeen yleisön joukosta sai puheenvuoron mies, jolla oli mielipide. Hän halusi esittää sen, ja seurauksena oli noin viisi minuuttia kestävä monologi siitä, miten väärin Israelin hallitus toimii jatkuvasti, selostus Palestiinan konfliktista ja syyttävä sormi kaikkia israelilaisia kohtaan, mukaan lukien ohjaaja Moshe Zimermann. Onneksi keskustelusta lopulta selvittiin aikuismaisesti ilman enempää vihan lietsontaa.

Esitellessäni tänään toista Israel-aiheista elokuvaa, myös Finnkinon levitykseen tulevaa Waltz With Bashiria (kaksi loppuunmyytyä näytöstä DocPointissa, yli 600 hengen teattereissa!), todennäköisesti tuo samainen mies Auschwitz-yleisöstä otti puheenvuoron sitä pyytämättä, kesken esittelyni. Tällä kertaa elokuvan taustoihin keskittyvä monologi kesti ehkä vain 30 sekuntia, mutta tuntui minuuteilta, kun seisoin lavalla mikrofoni kädessä jokseenkin pöllämystyneenä. Toivon mukaan en ollut liian töykeä vastatessani vaahtoajalle: "Eiköhän tämä tarina tule esille elokuvassakin...".

Äsken näkemäni Täynnä Tarmoa -dokumentti pääsi Helsingin Sanomien otsikoihinkin siitä tehdyn rikosilmoituksen vuoksi. Lähinnä Porvoon Tarmon koripalloseuran managerointiin keskittyvä, hyvin tragi-koominen ja suomalaisuutta ikävämmistä näkökulmista tarkasteleva elokuva nauratti yleisöä enemmän kuin mikään muu näytös, jossa olin ollut. Koeajalle tulevat kamerunilaiset ja amerikkalaiset "Kunta Kintet", kuten heitä ystävällisen rasistisesti kutsuttiin, olivat melkoisen ihmeissään tarmolaisten sähellyksestä. Eroilmoituksensa lopussa jättävä manageri mainitsikin dokumentissa, että suomalainen urheiluseuratoiminta on amatöörimaisuudessaan samalla tasolla tai jopa alempana kuin namibialaiset kansalaisjärjestöt, joiden toimintaa hän oli ollut kehittämässä Ulkoasiainministeriön hommissa. Omakohtaisen kokemukseni perusteella epäilen, että järjestötyö on kaikkialla samanlaista säätämistä: ikinä mikään ei toimi niin kuin pitäisi, jokin on hukassa, rahat loppu tai ihmiset eivät hoida hommiaan. Sinänsä Porvoon Tarmolla ei siis ole mitään hävettävää dokumentin suhteen - nyt vain koko Suomen kansalla on mahdollisuus nähdä ne kaikki epäonnistumiset TV-ruudultaan, kun dokumentti esitetään myöhemmin Ylellä tänä vuonna.

Toinen näkemäni urheiluaiheinen dokumentti oli Tyson, jossa entinen raskaansarjan nyrkkeilyn maailmanmestari ja sittemmin kyseenalaisista tempuista kuuluisammaksi tullut Mike Tyson kertoo omaa totuuttaan puolitoista tuntia. Isosta miehestä kuoriutuu esiin herkkä, pieni poika, joka ei isähahmonsa Cus D'amaton kuoltua yli 20 vuotta sitten ole voinut enää luottaa keneenkään. Yksinäinen hahmo, joka ei osaa hoitaa nais -eikä raha-asioitaan: surullista katsottavaa.

Ihan oikeasta politiikasta kertoo sen sijaan Liikkumavara, terveys -ja sosiaalipoliittisen valiokunnan työskentelyyn keskittyvä dokumentti, joka on (kuulemma) aihettaan kiinnostavampi esitys politiikan arkipäivästä eduskunnassa. Liikkumavara näytetään myös TV:ssä lähiaikoina. Näkemistäni dokumenteista esimerkiksi Intia-sarjaan kuulunut Lakshmi and Me ja Kate Bush -fanaatikoista kertova Come Back Kate ovat tulossa Ylen ohjelmistoon, joten kannattaa seurata ohjelmatietoja tarkasti!

Puhuin festivaalin aikana muiden docpointtilaisten kanssa siitä, miksi oikeastaan pitää käydä katsomassa elokuvia, joista melko varmasti tulee paha olo. Mitä hyötyä siitä on, että näen kärsimystä tai väärintekijöitä valkokankaalla? Joihinkin epäkohtiin on mahdollista tarttua jollain lailla, mutta toisiin ei kertakaikkiaan pysty vaikuttamaan. Silloin voi ajatella, että nähty dokumentti on edes jotenkin laajentanut omaa maailmankuvaa, ehkä jopa täydentänyt käsitystä ihmisyydestä. Kyynisemmin ajateltuna voi olla tyytyväisempi siihen, mitä on, eikä valita kaikesta, mitä ei ole, sillä aina jollain on asiat niin paljon huonommin. Kuten sillä 18-vuotiaalla venäläistytöllä, joka myi neitsyytensä 3 000 dollarilla ansaitakseen rahaa Moskovassa opiskeluun - ruumiin, sielun ja rahan yhteys oli aiheena dokumentissa Virginity.

Ennen kaikkea dokumentit kannustavat ajatteluun, sillä se, mikä valkokankaalla näyttää todelta, ei sitä välttämättä ole todellisuudessa. Filosofit voivat vastata paljon tyhjentävämmin kysymyksiin totuuden lopullisesta olemuksesta, minä totean vain: kiitos tästä vuodesta, DocPoint.

EDIT: Löysin Ylen kanavien dokumenttien esitysajat:

TV2 Dokumenttiprojekti: http://ohjelmat.yle.fi/dokumenttiprojekti/ohjelmisto, ohjelmistossa mm. Liikkumavara ja Täynnä Tarmoa

FST5 (på svenska, mutta tekstit suomeksi): http://svenska.yle.fi/fst5/dokumentar.php, mm. Pizza in Auschwitz

YLE Teema, http://www.yle.fi/teema/dokumentit/, kaikenlaisia muita dokumentteja

Olé!

2009-01-10T15:25:00.002+02:00

Olin eilen pitkästä aikaa katsomassa flamenco-tanssiesitystä. Edellinen kerta oli viime helmikuussa, jolloin ihan oikea espanjalainen tähti esiintyi Aleksanterin teatterissa. Eilen olin lähiössä, Kanneltalossa, ja hintakin oli opiskelijalle kohtuullinen, vain 10 euroa. Esityksen nimi oli "Rojo - punainen", koreografina Maija Lepistö, musisoimassa bändi La Pandilla ja tanssimassa 13 Lepistön oppilasta, jotka olivat harjoitelleet vuoden ajan erityisessä koulutusprojektissa - tuloksena tämä esitys.

Eturivin paikka saattoi vaikuttaa siihen, että musiikki, tanssi ja tunnelma tempaisivat mukaansa. Vaikka tanssijoiden tekniikka ja koreografioiden vaativuus olivat - ymmärrettävistä syistä - eri luokkaa kuin viime vuonna näkemässäni teoksessa, olin todella otettu. Sen, mitä saattoi vielä puuttua teknisistä taidoista, tanssijat korvasivat tunteella. Seurasin tiiviimmin esiintyjien kasvoja kuin kantapäitä. Ilmeet ja tanssijoista huokuva asenne kertoivat enemmän kuin itse liikkeet; heissä oli flamencotanssijuutta espanjalaisillekin jaettavaksi. Yleisö osoitti suosiotaan raivokkaasti - vaikka suuri osa oli epäilemättä sukulaisia, tuttavia ja flamencon harrastajia, olen samaa mieltä heidän kanssaan: Olé, Rojon tanssijat!

Lähdin Kannelmäestä entistä vakuuttuneempana siitä, että kaivan ne Madridista neljä vuotta sitten ostamani flamenco-kengät varastosta (kunhan vain saan selville, mistä varastosta...) ja palaan parin vuoden tauon jälkeen flamencon pariin. Katselin esityksen aikana myös tanssijoiden hameita, joiden kaavaa yritin hahmotella päässäni: sellaisen leveähelmaisen, liehuvan trikoohameen voisi myös tekaista. Ei se kovin vaikeaa voi olla, eihän? (ks. sarjakuva aiheesta)

Africa in New York

2009-01-06T16:14:00.003+02:00

Although I'm not physically in New York City anymore, I'll probably keep on writing about it a few more posts. The previous post implied that there is a niche for every possible country or culture in New York - that is the essence of that city. Being an Africanist, I 'had to' get acquainted with the African-ness of New York and found it in very different places, some by coincidence, some I was really looking after for.

African Music Night at St. Nick's Pub
773 St. Nicholas Avenue at 149th st. (subway A to 145th st.)
Review on Not-For-Tourists website; somebody's blog entry on the night with some blurry photos; on the history of the pub on their website

I spent my last night in New York, a Saturday night, in St. Nick's Pub. Mainly because I was exhausted after all the packing and going around Brooklyn, rushing through the last places I still wanted to see and didn't want to go somewhere two-hour subway-ride or an expensive cab-ride away. St. Nick's was close to Washington Heights where I was staying the last week (I walked there and took a cab back, only 8 dollars), it was recommended by a colleague and hey: it was also mentioned in the Lonely Planet guide. The African Night is on every Saturday, other nights they have live jazz, and especially the Monday night jam sessions are reputedly excellent. Not to mention that this is all free - there is the usual tip jar going around and the bartenders try to persuade customers with their "two drinks a set, two drinks a set" yells, but most of the people seemed to ignore them and concentrate on dancing.

I can't believe I hadn't found this place before: they had an amazing band (or two or three bands, some of the musicians played in all of the bands, some changed) composed of musicians coming from different African countries, I would guess mostly from Mali and Guinea. The bar is tiny, it doesn't look like much from outside - and neither inside, except cozy and kitsch - they take only cash, but oh, are you going to have so much fun if you like this bluesy kind of West African music! I chatted with some of the people at the bar (from Senegal, Mali...) and the bar being so small, on my way to the restroom one guy in the band that I hadn't spoken to yet said something like "Hi, I heard you're leaving tomorrow?". A very small place. Mostly I danced, talked with another UN intern who came there to meet me on my last night, and danced some more. I returned home at 4am and felt a bit sorry I didn't know about St. Nick's before - something for the next time!

Djoniba Dance & Drum Centre
www.djoniba.com

The place to do African dance classes (or almost any non-Western dances) in New York is Djoniba. At the moment they are going through some economic troubles but are still having classes for $15, although in a different venue than before.

In the beginning I clearly over-estimated my dance skills and went for an intermediate class of West African dancing. The teacher was an excellent dancer, but so were the students. The rhythm was probably faster than I had ever danced to, and that is FAST. The class was way out of my league, unfortunately, but I still enjoyed just watching the other extremely skillful students dance. The students were just as diverse as New Yorkers are: mostly African-American, but also lots of Asian and white people enjoying the dance movements and filled with joy. Oh, and almost all the classes have live drummers - some have only one, but one class I attended had probably 8-9 drummers, earplugs were certainly needed!

After realising that the intermediate level is too high for me, but that the beginner level would be too boring for West African dances that I have been doing for years already, I decided to go for something new. I took Congolese dance a few times, with Funmilayo - again a totally different perspective for African dance, most of the dancing concentrating on in the hips and the belly.

I also wanted to try Haitian dances, somehow expecting it to be similar to Beninese vodou rhythms, the roots of many Haitians being on the West African coast, especially in Benin/Nigeria. Well, it wasn't: could be that we did dances which were less influenced by Benin and more by Congo or Europe, but in any case it was physically very demanding (I was aching for four days after my first class), and choreographically I adored it! I can highly recommend the teacher, Peniel Guerrierm (an interview; a very short video on YouTube) although I feel a bit sorry that he did not elaborate on the cultural background of the dances we were doing. Some of the movements were easy to decipher: imitating animals, such as a chicken or a snake, but most of them were not so clear to me. Again, maybe more another time...

Little Senegal
Around 116th street, Central Harlem.

Besides being the historical African-American district, Harlem is changing into an African, particularly West African, neighbourhood. A few blocks of Central Harlem are being called "Le Petit Senegal", the Little Senegal because of its garment shops, beauty parlors and restaurants offering services to the West African immigrants or African-Americans finding their roots. Since I lived nearby the first two months, I often walked along these streets and also tried some of the restaurants. Africa Kine is a bit more upscale restaurant (dishes around 10-15 dollars) with delicious Senegalese food (I had Thiebu Djen, "national dish of Senegal", rice-thing with fish and vegetables), whereas Le Baobab (review in TimeOut), another Senegalese restaurant on the 116th street had a more 'African' feeling with its blaring French channel TVs, relaxed atmosphere and more working-class customers.

Besides food, the outdoor markets on the 116th and 125th street offer other African products as well. The most common one is a plastic can of Shea Butter, often coming from Ghana. The text on the cover of the can promises that shea butter cures practically everything - something that I heard already in Benin! Supposedly, besides dry skin, it also cures bruises, rashes and sunburns. It's pure fat, made out of shea nuts (karité in French) and heavenly for dry elbows...I like it and I bought one for my mom, too.

Malian singers gathered quite a crowd in front of Adam Clayton Powell Jr. State Office building in Harlem, 125th Street.

African Diaspora Film Festival
http://www.nyadff.org/ (screaming link, beware!)

The whole thing with African-American vs. African identities intersecting and opposing each other is endlessly intriguing. At least one film has been made of this phenomenon of two very different black identities: Little Senegal (2001, imbd.com), named after the above-mentioned community in Harlem. I would imagine the movie has been shown at some of the previous African Diaspora Film Festival screenings - another Africa-related event I participated in December. They had loads of interesting films which, unfortunately, did not find their audience. Most of the screenings were half-empty. Could be the lack of advertising or the fact that most of the films were subtitled - there is a general aversion towards foreign, subtitled films in the US. I would love to write more on the films I saw, but because this post is getting too long already, I'll just add it on my ever-growing list of things to write...

Finland in New York

2008-12-29T16:06:00.004+02:00

Either I was deliberately searching for them or I just happened to bump into these things. Little traces of Finland in New York, in places I did not expect to see them.

Nokia. I know, it's global, but where else do they have a whole theatre sponsored? NOKIA Theatre Times Square is according to its webpage "New York City's finest concert venue featuring the hottest rock shows in Manhattan". I dare to doubt this, however - for example, I'm not sure how hot or rock is LL Cool J, one of the upcoming artists there. Nokia just can't be cool - Apple is cool, Nokia is just...well, you know.

Teuvo Tulio. Yes, our very own Latvian-Persian-Turkish-Polish film director Theodor Antonius Tugai, born in St. Petersburg but later grown up in Finland and known as Teuvo Tulio (1912-2000) was consecrated a 4-movie series called "Master of Melodrama" in the Brooklyn Academy of Music in November. I went to see two of the movies which were very cute and nostalgic to me, with their countryside portrayals and music scenes but which might have left some part of the audience perplexed...there was a long article on Tulio in Village Voice, among others. A favourite of the movie freaks, if nothing else!

Moomins. I saw the whole Moomin series translated into English first in a bookstore, then at my (Finnish) friend's (American) landlady's home. No explanation for Finnish / Swedish / Japanese readers needed on the Moomins.

Kaiku. A "Finnish world music" band, with two Finnish singers residing in New York, Jaana Kantola and Paula Jaakkola. I had read about them in Time Out or some other up-to-date publication, and was then asked to see them live in Zebulon, a very nice live music joint in Williamsburg. It was weird hearing songs in Finnish (and partly in English, French and Spanish, I believe) performed in a bar in New York. Most of the crowd was not Finnish - that much I could gather by the way they looked like - and thus did not understand the lyrics at all. You can have a look at Kaiku on their website and listen to them in MySpace. Another musical discovery including Finns was a vinyl record in a record store in Williamsburg, Academy Records: they had a recording of the Helsinki University Chorus (Ylioppilaskunnan laulajat) from the 1970s, including some "famous Finnish songs". It cost something like 3 dollars and if I had had more space in my luggage, I would have surely bought that one...sigh.

Finnish candy and make-up. The vodka-filled chocolate candies by Fazer were received with great enthusiasm in my office at the UN. I was surprised to see Finnish candy a bit all over New York: I saw Halva liquorice at Duane Reade's (a big pharmacy chain, everywhere in New York: pharmacy meaning here a store in which you can find almost everything from food to beauty care to medicine) and Fazermint in many general supermarkets. Well done for marketing! The same goes for Lumene, the biggest make-up brand in Finland - they were also everywhere, competing with the big French brands. Nordic beauty sells...

Scandinavia House. From the official side, there is the all-Nordic cultural center Scandinavia House where I sadly never went to, just went past it when walking from the UN to the Penn Station to take the train for my Thanksgiving holiday trip. They have art exhibitions, musical evenings and film screenings - maybe I just wasn't homesick enough to go there yet.

Besides these phenomena that I noticed myself, I got following remarks on Finland from New Yorkers:
"Oh, it's a very metal country!" (clearly from a metal fan)
"Isn't it really dark there?"
"Don't you have a lot of suicides there?"
"Didn't you win the Eurovision song contest a few years ago?" (from an Israeli, no American would know the Eurovision...)

All of these are pretty much true. Except that the suicide rates have gone down the last few years, nothing to boast about anymore. Seriously, which other country would be sick enough to be so proud of their high suicide rates? Maybe it's just our morbid sense of humor. When I was asked to describe my home country, I told something like: "It's quite boring and a bit like Canada, lots of forest and lakes." At some point I also added "but we have free education and health care" which brought about a great awe in the US. Welcome to Finland...

Bye-bye New York City!

2008-12-21T04:16:00.004+02:00

Wow, how quickly can one week pass by? I'm leaving New York City tomorrow, for those who did not know. I had so many things I was supposed to do this week - some of them I did, most not. I was hoping for more time to sit, enjoy New York, to read and to relax, but instead I slept late, went around Brooklyn, tried to pack my things in my bags and failed (until now, with a new bag) and just...didn't feel like I was leaving at all.

I've gathered a small photo collage here to show some of the things I did this week:

Snow. It had snowed before, too, but the flakes had always melted when hitting the ground. Yesterday (Friday) it snowed the whole day, and last night New York was one big slush zone. Today it has been more icy snow and freezing - colder than in Helsinki at the moment. It was funny to see people's reactions to snow: in the Bronx, where I visited the arts museum and just had a look around as Otto did when he was here, people were filming their children throwing snowballs. As always, children were the ones who were most thrilled about the snow, whereas adults were grunting when their shoes went through one-feet deep slush/water muddles by the pedestrian walkways. This photo is outside my last apartment, I moved (for the third time!) to Washington Heights, 171st Street in uptown Manhattan for my last week.

Christmas lights. I was being offered a tour in Brooklyn, one of the highlights being Dyker Heights, a neighbourhood famous for its totally, outrageously extravagant Christmas lights. The photo taken in the dark, without a tripod obviously cannot transcend the totally glittering surreality, house after another, and the feeling of being Alice in the Wonderland, but...just have a look. The swirling carousels also played music. A bit scary, really.

A view from the Empire State Building. I had to go there, because the highest point to see New York had been 'only' the 26th floor of the Beekman Tower, a hotel bar near the UN. After a long, but not agonizing wait in three different lines (luckily all of them inside!), I finally got up to the 86th floor. I'm glad of going there during my last week and not my first, because now I could actually relate to places and recognize buildings, also non-famous ones. Brooklyn-side was hazy, unfortunately, but I could see pretty much the whole of Manhattan - this photo is towards the Midtown East, such as the Chrysler Building or the UN buildings.

Green-wood Cemetery. Instead of going to Ellis Island, to see the immigration museum, I decided to head to Brooklyn, to a famous cemetery near Prospect Park. The traces of immigration were very visible there as well - many stones had birthplaces marked outside the US, majority in Europe though, this being mostly the cemetery for 19th century graves. Partly because of the snow and partly because of the hilly landscape it was extremely relaxing to walk there in the silence, in one of the most beautiful cemeteries I have ever seen. Except for the cars: I've never had to worry about cars in other graveyards, but this is America, meaning that you drive everywhere, including cemeteries! I was even offered a ride by another visitor when I was entering the premises...

Last thing I did today, my last whole day in New York City, was a very quick one-hour visit to the Brooklyn Museum. It was near the cemetery, cheap (suggested donation for students was only $4!) and I had wanted to go there anyway. I just wish I had had more time, because I only managed to see the African Arts section and run through the Gilbert & George special exhibition (photo) on two floors. Something left for the next time!

Yes, that is the question - will there be next time? I hope so, although so far the only place I have returned to after living there has been Paris. It is a pity that just now when
a) I don't need a map every time when walking around (at least in Manhattan, in most parts of Brooklyn I'm still lost),
b) I have learned to reply relatively cheerfully to people's "Hello, how are you?" greetings
c) I have become accustomed to use words such as "douchebag" or "schmuck" (well, I don't really use those words, but I could...)
- I'm supposed to leave?

It took one month to get used to the initial shock and to adjust to the culture, two months to learn to love this place, and three months to find the New York I love most. Like loads of bookstores and record shops, cafes and bars, in a warmer weather also parks and other green areas around the city. I would want to see the lights of all the different bridges again; to see amazing concerts and shows for almost free or for a small fee; to wander in the streets and discover things by chance; and to enjoy the most Newyorkish foods, such as the slice of Junior's cheesecake I just finished. See you soon, then, maybe (in New York English that might mean anything from tomorrow to never...)?

Live Tonight with Conan O'Brien!

2008-12-10T03:23:00.002+02:00

I went to the taping of the Conan O'Brien Show this afternoon. The tickets had to be reserved something like 6 weeks in advance, today being the first date with available seats. Since the maximum amount for one person was four tickets, I booked them all and advertised the extra ones on our UN intern Googlegroup. To my surprise they were all gone in about 20 minutes - and I thought that Conan O'Brien is famous only in Finland...

Due to lack of time (or a two-hour lunch today, last office lunch with my colleagues in a nice Spanish restaurant) and forgetfulness, I didn't even check tonight's guests online. I was happily surprised to hear that Hugh Laurie was the other guest to be interviewed, whereas the other's name I still don't remember. But besides guests and the show itself, even more interesting was to see the big machinery working behind it. Probably a dozen employees were just guiding the audience to our seats, counting and re-counting us and giving us orders. Half a dozen of 30-40-something men with nerdy or trendy glasses were shuttling around Conan during every little break, apparently going through last minute checks for the script. A few security guys and few other men and women were watching that the audience was behaving properly. During the warm-up jokes with Conan, one guy was even removed from the first row and put into the back row because he was a bit too spontaneous, getting up and hugging two other guys who Conan told to hug each other. Too dangerous to keep in the first row!

Also the reactions of the audience during the warm-up comedian were funny to us, reserved Europeans (Finnish, Polish and German). Everybody wanted to have their little moment in the spotlight, proudly yelling wherever they were coming from or just being overtly extrovert in general. One Canadian guy was putting himself forward a bit too keenly during the warm-up and the beginning of the show: standing up, doing hand gestures, cheering and laughing very loudly (faked laughter). He was also - luckily! - silenced very quickly. I would imagine that the security man told him to shut up or to be removed from the audience completely.

You can see the show live tonight on NBC (also online?), in Finland probably some night this or next week. I'm there, high up on the second last row in the middle of the audience, if they happened to shoot us at all. But it was fun to watch, I didn't have to fake laughter, guests were entertaining and the finishing rock band from New Jersey didn't suck too bad. All this for free, unlike many things in the US!

Kulttuurien kohtaamisia Kiitospäivänä.

2008-12-01T04:43:00.007+02:00

Viime viikolla Amerikassa juhlittiin yhtä vuoden suurimmista juhlapyhistä, Kiitospäivää eli Thanksgivingiä. Ainoan täysamerikkalaisen kollegani mielestä Kiitospäivä on ehdottomasti paras juhlapyhä, koska se ei ole uskonnollinen, sillä on hieno ajatus ja yleensäkin, on vain mukavaa syödä yhdessä ja kerätä ihmisiä pöydän ääreen. Hän kysyi omista suunnitelmistani ja ehdotti illallista ystäviensä kanssa, vaikka olikin itse pois kaupungista tänä Kiitospäivänä - olin kuitenkin sopinut jo suunnitelmia, joten sinänsä houkutteleva tarjous täysin tuntemattomien ihmisten kanssa illallistamisesta jäi käyttämättä.

Matkustin keskiviikkona töiden jälkeen Metro-North -radalla Hudson-joen länsipuolella pari tuntia pohjoiseen, Otisvillen asemalle. Alunperin tshekkilainen, 1970-luvulta lähtien amerikkalaistunut perhe otti minut lämpimästi vastaan, tarjosi kanagulassia ja valkoviiniä (kalkkuna odotti varsinaista Kiitospäivä-ateriaa seuraavana päivänä) ja matkan lähimpään isompaan kaupunkiin, Port Jervisiin baarikierrokselle.

Kiitospäivää edeltävä keskiviikko vastaa jokseenkin Tapaninpäivää Suomessa: se on pikkukaupungeissa vuoden paras päivä mennä baareihin tapaamaan vanhoja tuttuja yläaste- ja lukioajoilta, koska kaikki kerääntyvät kotiseuduilleen perheidensä luokse. Huomasin, että pikkukaupunkien baarit muistuttavat toisiaan kaikkialla, sillä baareista keskimmäinen tuntui erehdyttävästi Varkauden Rock Cafelta. Paitsi että Port Jervisissä kaikilla miehillä oli lippis päässä, joko oikein päin tai takaperin, ja siellä oli biljardipöytä ja jukeboksi. Jälkimmäistä laitetta käytimme varsin ahkerasti illan aikana - Janis Joplin, Johnny Cash, Pink Floyd ja Depeche Mode saivat kukin runsaasti soittoaikaa, jota koetimme vallata mahdollisimman paljon muilta, huonomman musiikkimaun omaavilta jukeboksin käyttäjiltä. Illan aikana puhuimme aseista, autoista, Metallicasta, Obamasta ja suomalaisista, muun muassa. Lopultakin kohtasin New York Cityn ulkopuolisen maailman käsinkosketeltavasti, sen "todellisen Amerikan" (ks. valokuva), pikkukaupunkien Amerikan, josta McCain-Palinin presidenttikampanjassa puhuttiin. Mielenkiintoinen kulttuurinen kokemus, vähintäänkin.

Kyltti New York Cityn Upper West Sidella sijaitsevan Ding Dong Lounge -baarin ulkopuolella.

Seuraavana päivänä, varsinaisena Thanksgiving-torstaina jatkoin matkaa Hudson-joen itäpuolelle Pleasantvillen hyvin keskiluokkaiseen lähiökaupunkiin, eteläafrikkalais-amerikkalaisen perheen vieraaksi. Odotukseni tarjotun ruoan suhteen jopa ylittyivät: kalkkuna karpalokastikkeella ja täytteellä ("stuffing", sen kummemmin määrittelemättä) oli suussasulavaa, lisäksi tarjolla oli bataatteja ja tietenkin kurpitsa- ja omenapiirakkaa. Nam! Suosittelen lämpimästi amerikkalaista kiitospäiväateriaa kaikille!

Tapasin kahden päivän aikana kaksi hyvin erilaista perhettä, omine karikatyyreineen. Toisesta löytyi ehta punaniska (häntä kutsuttiin lempeästi sillä nimellä): ronski rakennustyöläinen, joka keräili aseita. Ja nyt puhutaan siis useasta tusinasta erilaisesta mallista, tuhansilla ammuksilla. Toisesta taas kiukutteleva, super-nationalisti- ja siionisti isoisä, jonka puhe ruokapöydässä (jokainen kiitti jostakin) käsitteli USA:n ylivoimaista mahtavuutta kaikessa, sillä olihan se paras kansakunta koko maailmanhistoriassa. Lisäksi hän kiitti juutalaisia, ainoaa kansaa, jolla on yli 4000 vuoden historia. Pöytä hiljeni sen jälkeen hetkeksi, kunnes seuraava puhuja aloitti jostakin pienemmän mittakaavan asiasta, ja myöhemmin illalla minulle esitettiin anteeksipyyntö isoisän "juutalaiskommentista". Yleensä hän kuulemma esittää mielipiteitään vieläkin voimakkaammin ja käyttäytyy huonommin.

Kohtaamisia, sattumia - joskus ne johtavat uusiin kohtaamisiin, toisella mantereella. Ensimmäinen Kiitospäivä-perheeni oli seurausta kohtaamisesta Senegalissa, St. Louisissa. Martin sattui olemaan yötä samassa hostellissa espanjalaisten matkaseuralaistensa kanssa, ja päädyimme myös samaan hotelliin Dakariin, minun suosituksestani (ainoa budjettimatkalaiselle sopiva hotelli Dakarin keskustassa). Toinen Kiitospäivä-perheeni löytyi Nicolen kautta, jonka tapasin Sansibarilla expatriaatti-juhlissa (ks. Kotona Sansibarilla), ja myöhemmin asuimme samassa talossa kuukauden verran.

Vielä puoli vuotta sitten en olisi uskonut, että näkisin nämä jokseenkin satunnaiset matkaajatoverini New Yorkissa, mutta niin vain kävi, kiitos modernin kommunikaatioteknologian, joka tuottaa (hiukan avustettuja) sattumia jatkuvasti. Siskoni oli viime viikolla lomamatkalla Thaimaassa, ja sattuneestä syystä matka hieman pidentyi - luin lankoni, yhden satunnaisen matkailijan kommentin tilanteesta verkko-Hesarista tänään. Suomi-Thaimaa-New York: internet yhdistää ne kaikki!

Niin, mistä itse kiitin vuorollani Thanksgiving-pöydässä? Siitä, että minut oli kutsuttu vieraaksi minulle tuntemattomaan perheeseen, ja päivän hengestä ylipäänsä. Jokaisessa maassa tulisi olla vastaava juhla (eikä nyt puhuta siitä, mitä Kiitospäivän jälkeen tapahtui intiaaneille...), joka ylistää hyvää tahtoa ja vieraanvaraisuutta tuntemattomia kohtaan. Milloin itse viimeksi tarjosit ruokaa tai juomaa kohtaamallesi ihmiselle vain tuottaaksesi hyvää mieltä?

Mitä minä täällä teen?

2008-11-22T21:13:00.004+02:00

Kysymys, joka iskee aina ensimmäisen viikon aikana ulkomaille muuttaessa, on "mitä minä oikeastaan täällä teen?". Vastaus siihen löytyy ennemmin tai myöhemmin, tai viimeistään siinä vaiheessa kun on palannut takaisin kotiin.

Koetan tässä postauksessa vastata tuon yleisluontoisen kysymyksen yhteen osa-alueeseen. Kysymys, jota useimmin kuulen - niin YK-harjoittelijoilta kuin ulkopuolisiltakin - on "mitä sinä tarkalleen ottaen teet töissä?".

Tiedän, että monet harjoittelijat tekevät jotakin projektia: raportteja, selvityksiä, nettisivuja, tiedotteita tai julkaisuja. Omat työpäiväni kuluvat harvoin vain yhden asian parissa. Viime viikolla esimerkiksi kommentoin ja kirjoitin juuri julkaistulle erikoissivulle ihmisoikeusjulistuksen 60. juhlavuodesta. Aloitin myös etsimään artikkeleita ja mielipiteitä seuraavaan Civil Society Observer -uutiskirjeeseen, joka ilmestyy parin kuukauden välein ja jota tehdään yhteistyössä useamman ihmisen kanssa. Edelliseen elo-syyskuun numeroon kirjoitin artikkelien referaattien lisäksi esipuheen ensimmäiseen erikoisosioon - sitä tosin oikoluettiin melko rankasti, mutta tunnistan vielä omaa tekstiänikin seasta. Lisäksi olen koonnut nettisivuille ja seuraavaan painettuun Go Between -uutiskirjeeseen tulevaa kalenteria ensi vuoden merkittävimmistä YK-kokouksista- ja tapahtumista, joihin kansalaisyhteiskunnan edustajat voivat osallistua. Niitä on paljon.

Lähes joka torstaina teen muistiinpanoja ja kirjoitan toimistollemme raportin Department of Public Informationin NGO briefingistä, joka kokoaa Dag Hammarskjöld -kirjaston auditorioon joka viikko 100-200 kansalaisjärjestöjen edustajaa kuuntelemaan asiantuntijoita erilaisista ajankohtaisista aiheista. Tällä viikolla aiheena oli naisiin kohdistuva väkivalta, koska ensi tiistai, 25. marraskuuta, on julistettu asian teemapäiväksi. Asiantuntijoiden ja uhrien lisäksi äänessä oli multimedia: katsoimme useamman lyhyen dokumentin naisiin kohdistuvasta väkivallasta, muun muassa UNTV:n 21st Century -sarjan osion Turkin kurdialueiden kunniamurhista. Lisäksi voin mainostaa UNIFEMin ja Amnestyn yhteistä kampanjaa, Say NO to violence against women. Miljoonan allekirjoituksen tavoite on melkein täynnä, ja Nicole Kidman luovuttaa vetoomuksen YK:n pääsihteerille, Ban Ki-moonille ensi tiistaina. Nopeasti siis allekirjoittamaan! Lisää tietoa aiheesta löytyy UNIFEMin sivujen lisäksi YK:n väestörahaston (UNFPA) kampanjasivuilta, http://www.unfpa.org/16days/index.htm.

Töihin kuuluu myös kaikenlaisia rutiinitoimistohommia. Olen pyöräyttänyt useamman Excel-taulukon, etsinyt hotelleja ja lentohintoja erilaisiin tilaisuuksiin osallistuville kansalaisyhteiskunnan edustajille, päivittänyt tietokantaan ihmisten ja järjestöjen osoitteita, ja kyllä, myös keittänyt kahvia ja kierrättänyt mikrofonia yhdessä tapahtumassa. Rutiinitöidenkin ehdottomana positiivisena puolena on silti se, että niiden yhteydessä tapaa mielenkiintoisia ihmisiä ja oppii jatkuvasti uutta.

Tajusin hiukan liian myöhään, että täällä pitäisi olla käyntikortteja jaettavana - esimerkiksi kaikilla Columbian yliopiston kansainvälisten suhteiden opiskelijoilla on "tietenkin" omat käyntikortit. Tilasin lopulta itselleni netistä hienoja violetteja käyntikortteja (joiden taustapuolella lukee "Business Cards are FREE at www.vistaprint.com!" - ei ehkä niin tyylikästä, mutta halpaa), jos niitä vaikka vielä jollekin voisi tyrkyttää. Verkostoituminen on avainsana, huonompi juttu vain, että inhoan sitä yli kaiken. Jotkut harjoittelijat osaavat sen uskomattoman hyvin, ja monissa bisnes-henkisissä kouluissa verkostoitumistaitoja kuulemma jopa opetetaan. Ehkä Helsingin yliopistossakin jonain päivänä?

New York on YK:n lisäksi muutenkin mainio paikka nähdä elävänä maailman kuuluisimpia ihmisiä. Muutama viikko sitten näin Bill Clintonin puhumassa YK:ssa, ensi viikolla siis todennäköisesti Nicole Kidmanin luovuttamassa yllämainitun vetoomuksen. Kirjailija Paul Auster käväisi myös YK:ssa - siitä lisää jossain toisessa postissa! Olen jatkanut käymistä Columbian yliopiston yleisötilaisuuksissa, viime viikolla kuuntelin Orhan Pamukin keskustelua hänen englanninkääntäjänsä Maureen Freelyn kanssa.

Mutta mikä on oikeasti parasta työharjoittelussani täällä, kaikkien näiden uusien asioiden ja ihmisten lisäksi? Työkaverit. Toimistomme on pieni: viiden vakituisen joukossa on kaksi ranskalaista (joista toinen JPO), yksi ranskalais-amerikkalainen, yksi espanjalainen ja yksi amerikkalainen. Itseni lisäksi toimistossa on toinen harjoittelija, intialainen Priyanka. Harvoin olen ollut työpaikassa, jossa olisi näin rento ilmapiiri. Asioita tehdään kyllä tosissaan ja tunteella, mutta työkavereiden kanssa voi lisäksi jutella, käydä lounaalla ja kahvilla, vitsailla ja kertoa kuulumisia. Hierarkiaa ja byrokratiaa on vain nimeksi - hyvin epätyypillinen toimisto YK:ssa, näin minulle on kerrottu. Jos tästä saisi palkkaa ja hiukan vastuullisempia työtehtäviä, jäisin enemmän kuin mielelläni, mutta tällä toimistolla ei ainakaan ole varaa palkata ketään.

Työrupeamani YK:lla loppuu kolmen viikon päästä. Seuraavat kaksi viikkoa tulevat olemaan hiljaisia toimistossa, sillä kolme työntekijää viidestä vakituisesta lensi eilen massiiviseen kehitysrahoituskonferenssiin (Financing for Development) Dohaan, Qatariin. Viikot ovat muutenkin hajanaisia, sillä ensi viikolla olen ainakin yhden päivän lomalla Thanksgivingin takia, ja viimeisellä viikollani 8. joulukuuta on toinen suurista muslimipyhistä, Eid al-Adha. Koetan käyttää jäljellä olevat 13 työpäivää siis mahdollisimman tehokkaasti - en ehkä koskaan palaa tänne, joten nyt pitää 0ttaa kaikki irti!

Guest writer of the year.

2008-11-15T20:33:00.006+02:00

The next post is written by my dear boyfriend who visited New York for six full days and nights this week. Text is his, photos and captions mine. Enjoy!

I Feel Safe In New York City

The following is a collection of notes and tidbits from my brief stay at NYC, New York as requested by my gracious hostess. Since I am a pretentious ponce, I think I shall call them Vignettes of America.

1. I Have Nothing To Declare Except That I Am Awesome

Are you tired of waiting for an eternal damnation in Hell? Fear not, you can simulate your future in the Netherworld at the John F. Kennedy Airport immigration queue. A cramped cattle drive of tourists carrying their screaming offspring, the line that moves approximately a yard in minute, just long enough that you want to put your bags down, but just short enough that you must pick them right up to drag along a step or two. The room is heated but not air-conditioned and naturally the people standing before me at the queue have filled their Visa Waivers wrong and thus my block entry into the land of the free for an extra five minutes.

Once I get to give my fingerprints to the Department of Homeland Security, the immigration officer takes an interest in my sex life.

He looks my Visa Waiver over and over and leafs through my passport. Is he looking at my Chinese visa?, I think. Did I cross “yes” on the Waiver form's query about collaborating with Nazi war criminals during 1933 – 1945? Shit; busted.

Although I have a face only a mother could love with a suit to match, I rarely have trouble at airports. At JFK, it seems, they don't let just any vagrant in.

“What's the purpose of your visit?”, the officer asks.
“Tourism, sir.”
“Who's this person whose address you've put on the form?”
“A friend. I am visiting her.”
“How do you know this person?”
“I, uh, I am in a relationship with her, sir.”
“In a relationship. Where did you meet?”
“Finland. She's Finnish, working here. At the U.N. With a working Visa.”
“How long have you been seeing her?”, he continues. What. The. Hell, I think. He thinks I'm fishing for a Green Card, with a made-up American girlfriend waiting to tie the knot with me!
“Almost three years now.”
“Three years. Right. How much money are you carrying with you?”
“Around, uh, around eight hundred? 800 dollars, sir.”

That is apparently enough a contribution to the failing economy. I am finally let through to the U.S of A.

“Welcome to America”, he says when I pass through.

Otto and an eagle at the General Grant's Memorial near Riverside Park.

2. Teacher, What Was Crack?

At the Bronx Museum of Art an exhibition showcases street art and photography from the fifties to present, focusing mostly on New York. A class of what I presume to be inner city school kids, around eleven years old or so, are on a tour of the exhibition with a teacher that looks vaguely like an aging hipster. When I pass them, they are at a set of photographs of seventies New York streets. I stop behind the group to eavesdrop.

“Okay. What do we know about crack?”, the teacher asks the kids. They hesitate. Someone lifts a hand.
“Yes?”
“It's white.”
“It's white, right. What else?” Another hand is raised.
“It gets you high.”
“Okay, it gets you high. Before the crack epidemic started, New York was a different place. The worst thing that could happen was that someone hits you with a knife. Not anymore.”

I don't know about you, but I think getting stabbed is a bit of a bummer, but I suppose it's all about perspective. I didn't stay to listen if the teacher detailed the alternatives. Maybe during the worst crack years, many people were gnawed to death by rabid, crack-addicted wolverines?

The disneyfication of America has reached New York, probably has done so years ago, perhaps with Guiliani's term as mayor back in the day. New York in 2008 is not a Spike Lee joint or a seventies Scorcese epic about a city ready to explode. Travis Bickle would be lost here trying to find a target for his peculiar brand of vigilante justice, cruising around Times Square in his cab: “You talkin' to me?” “Yeah! I have scalped tickets for Billy Elliot: The Musical, sir!”

Perhaps it's just a misplaced sense of security, but I feel safe walking around NYC, whether it was day or night, Bronx or Brooklyn. It all seems like a big theme park more than a crime-ridden sewer it was in the fiction of my youth. And statistically, NYC is apparently the safest large city in the U.S. Not that I'm disappointed, mind you.

3. The Obamania Is Running Wild

This is not mine, but I'll use it anyway: “Change has really come to America. Even the less well-off notice it. Why, even the other day a homeless man was asking me about 'change'.”

The news in the Land of Hope! and Change! are all about the President Elect. What will his cabinet be like? What will be his first priorities as Commander-in-Chief be? Can he make good on all his promises? What kind of puppy will Mr. Obama buy for his children? MY GOD, WHAT WILL THIS PUPPY BE LIKE? WILL THE PUPPY SAVE THE ECONOMY?! OH, PUPPY!

The papers are bending over backwards to coin new Obama-related phrases. The man's popularity has been described as “Obamamania” (did someone add an extra “ma”?). January's inauguration ceremony was called by Metro, I shit you not, an “Obamapalooza”, with over a million people going to D.C to see the New Boss replacing the Old Boss. (A curious aside, there will be designated “free speech zones” set up for the possible protestors. Probably somewhere upstate.)

A million people hanging about as the first African-American President swears himself into office? Dear Secret Service, do not fuck this up, please, pretty please. Love, the rest of the world.

Gloomy New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street.

4. Five Boroughs in Five Days in Five Sentences

You can't find a bar that's open during working hours from the Bronx, but otherwise it feels you've somehow ended up in Mexico.

If you try to describe Manhattan in a sentence, you are insane or love really long sentences.

Brooklyn has a posh side and a less polished side and a totally sweet bridge.

Everything is old and small in Staten island, from the wooden houses to the corner bar that has stood there for fifty years, with the salt-of-the-earth bartender guy.

Fuhgettabout Queens, there's nothing there but the airport.

The cute (and long) Brooklyn Bridge.

'

5. The City as a Machine: A Mangled Analogy

A city is a mechanism for facilitating people. Helsinki, for example, is a small but functioning apparatus, whereas Espoo would be an unwieldy device that only a specialist could use or appreciate. New York, despite its size, is a functioning whole that can be easily savored even by a rube like myself, who would have trouble navigating out of a wet paper bag.

The instruction manual for The New York City Machine is the subway map. With it you can see where you are, where you were and where you are going: more essential information in a single image than a person usually has in his whole lifetime.

I most likely spent more time sitting in the NYC subway during my visit than doing anything else. The subway is, I suppose, the quintessential NYC experience. In a single subway car you can see the whole world: different Asians, Latinos, African-Americans, Caucasians, the rich, the poor, all headed somewhere.

Does everyone have a New York Guy? Someone you seem to see every once in a while, a person you don't know, or maybe not a person at all but some sort of an archetype come flesh? To me it was the ubiquitous MTA man: an African-American dude in his fifties, stocky build and a permanent, resigned frown on his face, sitting on the subway, standing at a street corner, hanging at the station in his orange vest with his hard hat on his lap, having seen everything so that now he isn't even looking, a maintenance man for the great City Machine. I swear I saw my New York Guy like three times in six days.

6. The Real American Experience?

Americana is an odd thing. When you see something that isn't like it was when you saw it in the movies, a diner or a burger or a yellow cab, you think that it is not a “real” American thing. Then when you see something that you immediately recognize from all the pop culture you've been soaked in, like blueberry pancakes for breakfast, it does not seem quite real. (Tasty enough, though.)

New York is a city of fiction, as real as it is not. It's a city that has more stories, songs, comics or movies written about it than any other. To exaggerate only a little, every other story I have ever read is set in New York. So can I be blamed for assuming to know the city when I come to see it first time in real life? The Brooklyn Bridge, The Empire State, the Staten ferry: it's all déjà vu all the time.

But once you learn to indulge it, you can enjoy New York as it always was: a story. For European immigrants it was a mythological symbol of freedom. For the kid reading comics, it is the city where Spider-Man and Daredevil hang out next to the water towers over Hell's Kitchen. To the film buff it's the surreal, bustling collection of eccentrics as seen in Woody Allen's movies.

No matter what your fictional New York is like, I guess everyone gets at least a glimpse of the city of stories that was previously only in their heads beneath the daily grind of the metropolis. They stop and turn and look and say “just like in the movies!”. That's New York, baby.

Otto Sinisalo is a freelance critic and a columnist. He is currently working on his first novel, Fictionopolis, to be published in 2009 by no one in particular.

President Obama!

2008-11-05T09:16:00.006+02:00

I actually didn't believe this was possible. But it is. America will have a half-black, African/American (because I refuse to say that he would be black or African-American, just a matter of principle...) president next year.

Tonight I went to two different places to follow the elections results: first to a huge Democrat party in midtown Manhattan, where there were just too many people and I had to escape to a smaller bar in Lower East Side. The fist photo is from the big party, and the other one is from Stanton Street in LES (Lower East Side) where somebody (maybe a Republican?) apparently lit a motorcycle on fire, causing two fire trucks to rush on the street. In the subway a couple was reading a fresh copy of the Daily News with a cover of a smiling Obama - very quick action for the press if they really released it at 1 a.m. already!

I just returned to my home in Harlem and I can still hear people shouting "Obama!!!" outside on the street six floors below me. Overall, I'm sensing that people feel more relieved than exuberant. I heard many people say they are proud to be Americans again or that their country has been given back to them and that the change is coming, obviously, as Obama's campaign promised.

I am not so sure about the change, but one thing is for sure: most of the world is happy for America today. However, Obama's daughters might be the happiest little girls in the world right now, being promised to have a puppy in the White House...

But, almost half of the country did not vote for Obama. Most of the white, religious, less-educated and anti-abortion people did not want him to be a president. African-American, university-educated, non-religious, liberal Americans got what they wanted. Next year will show if Obama is really what he promised to be and what they needed. I can say to be definitely happy for this country, with reservations. Nothing will really change before people change their attitudes - yes, we can? I hope so. We'll see if tomorrow morning we wake up in a communist country, with statues of Lenin on the streets: Obama was labelled as a Socialist, after all.

Ten things to do in a NYC subway.

2008-11-02T21:15:00.000+02:00

I enjoy observing people. One of the best places in the world for people-watching must be New York City, with its 8 million inhabitants, hundreds of languages and cultures, crowded subways and bright-lit streets. But since I tend to spend a lot of time in the subway - around two hours per day - most of my people-watching is focused on that area. Based on my perceptions during these hundreds of travel-miles so far, I listed ten possible things to do in a New York subway, depending on your skills, interests and energy level.

1. Watching people is obviously the number one thing. After that, I like to spend my time just for thinking.

2. Reading the free newspapers in the morning: my commute seems to be perfect for reading both Metro and AM, to catch up the latest gossips about presidential elections or the financial crisis.

3. Sleeping, especially during the late-night traveling. Just don't miss your stop.

4. Knitting seems to be in fashion now when the days are getting chillier.

5. Singing or reading sheet music: there a lot of music students on the number 1 line which I'm taking at the moment. I don't mind listening to their rehearsals in the subway at all!

6. Break-dancing - only possible outside rush hours, and somewhat dangerous in a moving car. But definitely doable, because I saw one group dancing to a Michael Jackson song. This is a very New York thing though...

7. Solving a Rubik's cube. I saw one guy doing and re-doing the cube multiple times in a row, with a stunning speed - most of the time his eyes closed. Very depressing for us not-so-special people.

8. Listening to your iPod / iPhone - this must be the most common way to spend time, after reading.

9. Chatting to your fellow passengers. Yes, you're not considered to be a weirdo if you talk to other people, it's totally OK!

10. Taking the subway to a wrong direction while writing these notes in a little black book. Which is not that fine when you're going to work in the morning and it is already 2am...

As an end note: It would be great to have more subway musicians during week-end nights - waiting for the metro which never comes (or that's how it feels like) would be a lot less painful with live music. Yesterday night I found another great subway music find, as an addition to my last post: Corey Frye yesterday on F line stop at 14th street. An amazing singer with an angelic voice! You can watch a badly filmed video of him playing at the Union Square station on YouTube and get a grip of New York subway life at the same time. For more New York subway scenes I would recommend a fan's video of "New York Cares" by Interpol.

Round-up of New York live music.

2008-10-27T03:27:00.004+02:00

Incredibly enough, I'm now in midway of my New York experience. Although tomorrow marks the beginning of my 7th week at the UN, I still have difficulties telling people what I'm exactly working on there. The work part will most likely be easiest to wrap up after I've finished my internship, so that will have to wait. But something I would like to share at this point are my musical encounters here in New York. I will just list them here, by date, place and performer, with a few comments on each of them and links (MySpace or homepages), if available.

Tue 30th September, Garage restaurant (West Village): un-known jazz band.
My first live music experience in New York was in this restaurant/bar offering free jazz concerts every night. Not bad. I liked the atmosphere (not too classy, not too hipster); the band whose name I have already forgotten played enjoyable jazz, nothing too unique, but just nice.

Wed 1st October, Drom (East Village): Ansambl Mastika & Watcha Clan.
One day after I saw two bands playing at a DROMA Gypsy Festival: Ansambl Mastika from Brooklyn and Watcha Clan from Marseille. France beat the US 1-0 this time, Watcha Clan were way more inventive, more diverse and more charismatic. The place was half-empty, unfortunately, which made the atmosphere quite lame - this band should've performed on a Saturday night when people are really going out and ready to dance. Great fun still!

Wed 8th October, Public Assembly (Williamsburg): Tam Lin, Sleepwalkers Parade.
There were three artists/bands performing for a very scarce crowd of people. Weekdays seem to be hard for music clubs in New York, too...anyway, if you're into mellow singer-songwriter / man-and-a-guitar thing, Tam Lin might suit your likings. Besides music, he also writes a very thoughtful blog that I can highly recommend. The second band I don't even want to mention because they were so bad, but the third one was an intriguing group called Sleepwalkers Parade, leaning strongly on their eccentric vocalist who reminded me a bit of Kate Bush.

Fri 10th October, Hammerstein Ballroom (Midtown West): Grizzly Bear, The National.
The evening was organized as the 40th anniversary of the New York magazine, but the reason I went there was to see The National. Not that the warm-up band Grizzly Bear was bad - it felt like we traveled in time to the 70s for a long progressive music trip. After them, the National was just mind-blowing, and I regretted not listening to them more than a few songs in Ruisrock last summer (had to run for the Interpol gig starting right after - why put two Brooklyn bands to play just after one another?!?). The last song stack especially to my mind, Mr. November (the best YouTube version I could find from two years ago), the final song in their album Alligator (2005) which I had to buy just to get this song. The live version is much more furious and full of energy than the one on album, especially because of the singer Matt Berninger's slightly neurotic, twitching movements and running around the stage. An amazing concert. (Photo not mine, stolen from another blog)

Fri 17th October, Music Hall of Williamsburg: And The Moneynotes, Walter Meego, Ra Ra Riot
When I noticed that Oxfam America, part of the huge international NGO Oxfam International offers volunteering possibilities in concerts, I signed up for one during my internship. Many big names, such as Coldplay or Wilco invite Oxfam to their concerts, but for me, only this one fit my schedule. I got a call few days earlier and off I went to collect names in a petition against climate change to be given for the next president of the US. Besides collecting signatures, we told about the work of Oxfam in general and distributed informational material on climate change. I blurbed out some really shameful sentences, like "climate change causes many bad things allover the world". What?!? I can only console myself that perhaps I have been listening to too many electoral debates here with politicians saying these monstrous simplifications on the state of the world. Now I kind of understand them: when you're pressured to say something quickly on these big issues, you end up saying nothing at all. Oh well, it was an interesting experience...

I heard the whole gig of the first band, And The Moneynotes (from Scranton, Pennsylvania) and was not very impressed by their songs. Then I went to see a couple of their songs live and wow: they were really having fun on the stage, and so was the crowd. A party band playing mixture of country, tango and whatever that I would not dream of listening to at home, but it works live. The second warm-up band was Walter Meego (from Chicago), definitely worth checking out if all this hip electro-rock-pop sounds good to you. The main act, then, was Ra Ra Riot (from Syracuse), apparently a hot new act right now, going to tour in Europe soon - and how could a band with violins on stage be anything else than cool? Not surprisingly they have been compared to the Arcade Fire, amongst others. Summed up: evening full of hip people watching these hip bands in a very hip concert venue!

Sat 25th October, The Shrine (Harlem): Dawn Drake & ZapOte, Chicago Afrobeat Project.
Yesterday I ventured out in the rain to a cozy place in Harlem, not too far from my home. The entrance was free, it was warm inside and the bands were playing soul/afrobeat/Brazilian music. First band, Dawn Drake & ZapOte played different music styles and quite basic stuff, whereas the second band, Chicago Afrobeat Project relied heavily on Fela Kuti's material - just mixing new and old a bit, having someone to rap on afrobeat, for example.

Any day in almost any subway station.
As a final note I must add that I have seen some of the most innovative and talented musical acts in subway tunnels. There are amazing musicians out there, most often in Union Square or Times Square stations: everything from big jazz groups to singers, violinists, comedians and dancers. I've stumbled already twice on to this guy, Michael Shulman, playing both cover songs and his own songs with an electrified violin. When I stopped to listen to him last time, other long-time fans began talking to me (as it often happens in New York): I was told that his version of Britney Spears' Hit me baby one more time is excellent. Quick search in YouTube gives dozens of matches, including this Britney song or these versions of Enjoy the Silence / Can't Get you Out of My Head. You must agree with me that this guy has a sense of drama. Tight, black spandex trousers, wild dance moves and a violin with blinking lights - what else could you wish for?

Sooo...this is it, so far. There are still loads of small joints in Lower East Side that I want to check out, and some famous ones (Bowery Ballroom for example) that I haven't been to yet. Not to forget all the places in Brooklyn, too - funnily enough, most of these bands / artists mentioned here reside in Brooklyn. NONE of the bands based in New York admit that they would live on the Manhattan side. I guess it rocks only in Brooklyn - or it might simply be the fact that the apartment rents are affordable enough there for the musicians. It's a hard living, especially in such a competitive environment as New York. I guess I have to keep on going to their concerts and support them!

EDIT on Mon 28th, 9.54 pm: last addition!
Of course I forgot at least one concert in New York: a great klezmer concert last Thursday in a charming venue called Jalopy, also functioning as a music school and an instrument shop in Brooklyn. The band was called Metropolitan Klezmer and awfully good - it was such a pity that they were like 8 people on stage, and we were 4 in the audience, which meant that we got only one set instead of two. A great experience anyway, and hopefully I'll catch the band later for a whole show...

Living in Obamalandia.

2008-10-14T04:39:00.005+03:00

Oh well, I'll just continue with the topic of politics. Besides the economic crisis, there is obviously another main topic in the news here - and all over the world - The Elections, with only three weeks to go. It annoys me a little bit that I'm here, in the heartland of the Obama zone with no real competition from McCain, which makes discussions quite boring. As for the campaign paraphernalia, Harlem is definitely the ultimate place for Obama-shopping, you can find practically everything around the 125th street...

Particularly Sarah Palin is relentlessly mocked in the NY free newspapers (yes, unfortunately I don't have time to read the NY Times during my subway ride to work, so I must content myself with the free ones) - but you've surely had the chance to read all about her in Finnish or whatever countries' newspapers. It seems that the US elections are perhaps even more passionately followed abroad, or at least Obama is embraced with an amazing fervour.

I attended today a panel discussion at the Columbia University, just around the block (or a few blocks) from my home in their International Relations department. The panel consisted of foreign newspaper correspondents from all around the world, including The Guardian, Le Monde or Le Sud Quotidien (a Senegalese newspaper), the topic being "Through Foreign Eyes: How Foreign Journalists View U.S. Election Coverage" (PDF brochure). The discussion was fairly interesting - plus that they offered free pizza and coke, very American - and at one point it turned to the question of the image of the US abroad, something that I briefly touched in the previous post. The Italian journalist claimed that most likely 90 % of Europeans would prefer to see Obama as the next president, and that the relations between the US and European countries would change significantly if this happens.

Mr. Dame Babou, the Senegalese correspondent continued to tell how people in Senegal are praying for Obama's victory, how they watch the debates until 4am and inquire about the recent poll results in the US. The whole issue of the possible Obama presidency is quite controversial in African countries: some believe that him being chosen would really change something and bring more aid to Africa, whereas some fear that he would not be able to express any support towards African countries so that he wouldn't be regarded as favouring Africa because of his roots. I doubt that any substantial changes would happen anyway, since Obama hasn't
exactly been very active on the African front even before. However, there are still some fervent Obamaniacs out there: just check this video "Obama campaign reaches Zanzibar" which I, for one, thought to be hilarious. At least it will be for those who have been in Zanzibar...

Meeting with the President of Love.

2008-10-10T04:30:00.000+03:00

Finally, a short report on the meeting with H.E., the President Ahmadinejad of Iran. Him being labelled after Osama bin Laden as the most dangerous enemy of the USA, I have to say I was quite surprised when all UN interns (we are 270 or so in the fall) were invited for a "friendly meeting" with Ahmadinejad. After all, he is commonly being referred to as "terrorist", and even liberal newspapers in New York were comparing him with Hitler - no doubt because of his anti-Zionist leanings.

So, there we went, to the glistening Manhattan breakfast room of Grand Hyatt hotel, to enjoy our free pastries, cakes and fruits and eventually to listen to the distinguished guests addressing us. Besides UN interns, there were also other (American) students who looked ridiculously young and asked somewhat silly questions during the discussion part. I'd estimate that we were around 400-500.

The event began with several hig-level people, Iranians or affiliated with Iran, speaking. There were university professors and ambassadors speaking before His Excellency stepped to the speakers' booth. I must say that although Ahmadinejad's smile gives me creeps, he spoke very eloquently. He didn't recite any Iranian poems as the other speakers did, but he mentioned the words 'peace', 'love' and 'youth' several times. Of course, he emphasized the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear project; stressed that they are not against all Israelis or Jewish people for that matter, only the Zionists; and instead of denying the existence of homosexuals in Iran, he just said that "people don't like them very much - but what everyone does inside four walls, is their own, private matter". I wouldn't say those statements differ that much from any other anti-US countries' opinions. In fact, great part of the world probably prefers Iran to the US - at least at the moment the Iranians are not trying to conquer the world as the Americans are doing.

Most of these political questions only appeared in our discussion part: we had 1,5 hours to ask questions straight from him (through an interpreter though), which in my mind was pretty generous. That, and the effort of organizing the whole meeting, was the thing which I was pondering most afterwards. Why did he do it? For the sake of good PR, of course, but why? Ahmadinejad met also with members of different religious groups on another occasion during his week in New York. He wouldn't really need to do that if he (or the actual deciding organs in Iran) was just going to blow up Israel. His motives confuse me. Anyway, his meeting was extremely successful, because I heard many people saying when they were leaving that they had changed their minds on Iran. I never had such a negative view in the first place, so I might not be the best example here. Maybe Ahmadinejad is the next Hitler as the media here is implying and I know that his speeches do not reflect his actions (as the worsening human rights situation in Iran). But he presented himself as courteous, welcoming and intelligent, attributes which could not be so easily attached to the current President of the USA, for example.

The end of the friendly meeting got a bit weird: due to overtime we are on already, the Ambassador of Iran promised that they would reimburse our lunch, no matter where we went to eat. Some of the interns apparently did do that and sent their receipts to the Embassy. Although we are not formally UN staff, I still felt that being a bit inappropriate. Actually, if we were UN staff, we should ask for permission at the Secretary-General's office...another thing we were "promised" was a trip to Iran, to go and see ourselves the country. I imagined that was more like a joke, but now they are at least talking about planning this trip - which also would be very inappropriate if paid by the Iranian state, considering that they are still grossly violating human rights there. Strange proposals, anyhow. I got an intriguing gift from Iran, because instead of having a photograph taken with President Ahmadinejad, I had to run to the bathroom and due to security reasons could not return to the meeting hall anymore. Iranian organizers were deeply sorry for me missing the photograph session (although I wasn't that much, I just needed to get my bag from the hall) and handed me a DVD of 'Nuclear Iran' in English that I still haven't had the time to watch. It will be interesting for sure...

Some of the things I remember best are his words directed to us, students all over the world. He described himself as "only a simple teacher" who was grateful to see us, full of hope and joy (!), wanting to learn more about thoughts and cultures and to discuss issues and find solutions. Ahmadinejad asked what we would do to help those one billion people living in extreme poverty (an excellent question for UN interns!), to help those 'many' (un-specified) countries living under occupation or the economic pressures in the world. Quote: "What would you do o resolve these problems, not to live in hostility, but to look at each other with kindness and love?".

When thinking of solutions to these problems, you can look for more information on President Ahmadinejad and his visit in the UN General Debate this September on the following (very biased) websites:

Transcript of his interview by Larry King: http://swyuda.wordpress.com/2008/09/24/larry-king-ahmadinejad/
CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/09/23/ahmadinejad.us/index.html

Weekly Standard: http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/795hlmvk.asp?pg=

Webpage of the President of Iran: http://www.president.ir/en/
Ahmadinejad's personal site (not updated), this one with interesting interactive comments on the right side: http://www.ahmadinejad.ir

Too much talking, too little action.

2008-09-26T22:52:00.010+03:00

The 63rd General Assembly began this week at the United Nations. This meant more than 130 heads of states, prime ministers, their royal highnesses and so on in the UN premises, and accordingly, fairly strict security measures. Two blocks around the UN headquarters were barricaded and the entry was possible only with a UN id, entrance ticket to a specific event or a proof of residence in that area. Besides dozens of NYPD cars on the streets, one could even see snipers on the UN rooftops, as in the photo. It felt a bit surreal, like walking in a movie set or something. Then again, during a few days I walked by a number of famous people, such as our President Tarja Halonen, UN's Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, musician Bob Geldof or economist Jeffrey Sachs. Bono with his friends was also around the corner, but I was working while he was flaunting around, unfortunately (see for example http://www.kansascity.com/440/story/813598.html). One of the most interesting occasions was our meeting with Iran's President Ahmadinejad, but more on that later. I am still not sure what to think about him, or that meeting in general.

However, many of the most interesting events are held outside the UN headquarters. Based on the discussions I got to follow around the GA in various side-events, most of the speeches of government representatives are quite tedious and repetitive. Yes, we all want to end the poverty and hunger in the world, yes, we should give more money and work together in this. Strangely enough, this never happens.

The economic downfall at the Wall Street right before the GA (General Assembly) made things even more complicated when it comes to funding poor countries. At the moment, FAO (Food and Agricultural Organization) and WFP (World Food Programme) together with other major international actors are begging for 1,7 billion dollars for immediate help this and next year, and 11 billion dollars in total to develop the small-scale agriculture in Africa in general. Only a minor percentage of this amount has been delivered so far by the developed countries - and the request by FAO was done in December 2007. I don't even want to start talking about the military expenditures of various countries all over the world, but at the moment the US government is struggling to save the country's economy. For that, they would need 700 billion dollars - not all of which would be necessarily lost, but most likely a large amount anyways. This rescue bill of 700 billion is almost 70 times the amount the international organizations asked for food crisis last year, a sum which seemed to be impossible to deliver. I realize I am oversimplifying issues here - Wall Street is so important for the whole world's economy - but many in the UN asked the same question which average Americans are asking now: why should we save the big financial banks and millionaires in Wall Street?

All these diplomats in their pin-striped suits, protocols and courtesies are quickly forgotten when stepping just across the street of the UN headquarters. I participated in an event organized by Global Call for Action Against Poverty (GCAP) which was truly something else. Yes, they talked about poverty and misery, but the difference was that the people who were talking had experienced that themselves or had worked with people on a grass-root level. The event's theme was even more interesting: it dealt with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on the New York level, of people who were poor or suffering of inequalities right here. Especially coloured and immigrant women were represented, telling the most heart-breaking stories about their lives. Images of America, represented by the Statue of Liberty, of being a land of freedom, liberty and strength, most often do not match with the reality. During this week, hearing and meeting some of these people who are truly doing things instead of just talking about doing something remind me why I am here. As I was being told by an American Africanist, an older gentleman on the street (there seems to be many of them around): "Keep your Finnish, people-orientated perspective - don't let yourself to be sucked into these big organizations and their nonsense!"

In short: I am happy to intern at the UN, learn new things every day, attend meetings and see people from all around the world. It is just sometimes very frustrating and very slow to see any results when political will is missing. Perhaps we should all become politicians as President Ahmadinejad told us? More on that some day next week!

Elämää kehittyvässä kaupungissa.

2008-09-24T05:29:00.003+03:00

Reilu viikko sekä New Yorkia että YK-uraa takana. Mitään koherenttia ei vielä saa sanottua, joten tästä tulee taas melkoista tajunnanvirtaa.

YK:n osalta olen ehtinyt tutustua pieneen toimistooni ja siellä työskenteleviin mukaviin ihmisiin, osallistua erilaisiin YK:n tapahtumiin ja harjoittelijoiden tapaamisiin ja ennen kaikkea, seisoskella kadunkulmassa tarkistamassa nimiä tapahtumien osallistujalistoilta, jotta ihmiset pääsisivät läpi tiukennetuista turvatarkastuksista. Ehkä vähemmän hohdokasta, mutta yhtä lailla tarpeellista työtä, jota tekevät harjoittelijoiden lisäksi myös muutkin toimistotyöntekijät.

Olen havainnut, että New York muistuttaa itse asiassa kehitysmaaolosuhteita monella tavalla. Ensimmäisen päivän vaikutelmia olivat: kuumaa ja kosteaa (ihan kuin Länsi-Afrikassa!), likaista (kuin missä tahansa kehitysmaassa), valtavasti ihmisiä (suurkaupunki), Yhdysvaltojen lippuja kaikkialla, kuten jokaisen metrovaunun kyljessä ja lentokentällä ympäriinsä. New York ei näytä maailman rikkaimman maan rikkaimmalta kaupungilta Wall Streetin ulkopuolella. Asunnoista löytyy torakoita ja hiiriä, rotat sentään hyppelevät vain metrotunneleissa. Elämä kaupungissa on mukavaa silloin, kun on tarpeeksi rahaa - muuten aika ankeaa, varsinkin kesän lämmön ja ilmaistapahtumien ulkopuolella. Tuloerot ovat valtavat: Wall Streetin ja Harlemin ihmiset elävät täysin eri maailmoissa. Kuva metrosillalta on muuten sen talon katolta, jossa asun tällä hetkellä, Broadwayn ja 125. kadun kulmassa. Minne muuallekaan Afrikan-tutkimuksen opiskelija muuttaisi New Yorkissa kuin Harlemiin..?

Wall Streetin talous romahti aika lailla niillä hetkillä kun saavuin New Yorkiin; Suomesta taas kantautui eilen ikäviä uutisia, jotka päätyivät täällä ulkomaanuutisten pääaiheeksi. Avasin sattumoisin TV:n ensimmäistä kertaa eilen aamulla ja hätkähdin, kun kuvaruutuun lätkäistiin Suomen kartta, lippu, ja kerrottiin parilla lauseella Kauhajoen tapahtumista. Eräs vanhempi Afrikan-tutkija-herrasmies kommentoi asiaa minulle myös kadulla, kun odottelin erään tapahtuman osanottajia saapuviksi. Newyorkilaiset seuraavat kyllä maailman tapahtumia ja pilkkaavat Sarah Palinia olan takaa aina kun mahdollista, mutta kuinkahan lienee asian laita muualla maassa..?

Aivan kuin sattumoisin Suomi näkyy (ja kuuluu) NY:ssa muutenkin tämän viikon aikana: konsertoimaan saapuvat peräkkäisinä päivinä niin Nightwish, Sonata Arctica, Apocalyptica kuin Amorphis. Tekevätkö ne jotain Amerikan yhteiskiertuetta vai..?!?

New Yorkin ensimmäiset päivät eivät sinänsä sujuneet kovinkaan ruusuisesti omalta kohdaltani. Asunto, johon luulin muuttavani, olikin huijaus, ja poliiseilta apua kysellessäni sain osakseni vain hippusen myötätuntoa, joitakin heikkoja neuvoja ja lausahduksen: "This is New York, honey!" Niin todellakin on, vaikkakin melko erilaista kuin oletin: Manhattanin keskustan ulkopuolella varsin mukavaa ja pikkukaupunkimaista. Brooklynissa voisi vaikka asuakin, ydinkeskustassa en! Viihdyn nyt täällä Länsi-Harlemissakin, Columbian yliopisto on ihan naapurissa ja kaikki tarvittava löytyy läheltä: 50 metrin etäisyydellä on ainakin neljä eri supermarkettia/deliä, kiinalainen, japanilainen, meksikolainen ja kuubalainen ravintola, pesula, metroasema, sekä tietenkin McDonald's, Subway ja Shell - moni näistä on auki vuorokauden ympäri. Kaikkea saa, jos on vain rahaa maksaa siitä. Pitänee paikkansa kaikkialla, mutta se vain jotenkin korostuu täällä. Mittarina voisi pitää sitä, että kuulut joko niihin joilla on tai joilla ei ole. iPhone(a), siis :) Kaikilla on jo se!

Start spreading the news.

2008-09-05T18:16:00.005+03:00

I have a good excuse for my silence: I have been busy with signing papers, scanning papers, applying for a visa, moving and taking care of all the usual things having to do with going abroad for a longer time. Those who have not heard yet - I'm going to New York City for a three-month internship at the UN headquarters, more specifically at the Non-Governmental Liaison Service (NGLS). If the name NGLS doesn't say anything, don't worry: it didn't to me either, until I got an e-mail telling that they would like to phone interview me for an internship.

From 15th September until 12th December I will be working with...something to do with civil society and NGOs (at least writing reports and drafts, following meetings and various media), not quite sure yet with what exactly. However, I'm quite confident that the mere experience of living in New York and seeing the UN bureucracy in action is already enough. Damn expensive it is, at least: the UN intern guide tells to expect expenses between 1500 and 2000 $. None of the interns is paid, of course, if not by the university (I will get a travel grant, but that's it). So, welcome to New York, especially if you want to buy me a dinner! I might have some space in my room for a few nights...

As for the title: I still can't get the song "New York, New York" out of my head. Aren't there any other songs about that city?

Benin-muisteloita muiden kautta.

2008-08-15T01:01:00.004+03:00

Laitan toisen postin heti tähän perään: googlasin ihan vain "villa karo" -aiheisia nettisivuja, ja tuloksista löytyikin monenlaisia näkökulmia, jotka mielestäni tuovat paikan luonteen aika hyvin esille.

Villa Karon perustajan, Juha Vakkurin haastattelu Kumppanissa.

Stipendiaatti Vivi-Ann Sjögrenin (nykyisin vakiokirjoittaja HS:n kuukausiliitteessä) tunnelmia Beninistä Työvoimaministeriön sivuilla.

Harjoittelijan kertomus CIMOn sivuilla.

Suomeen päätyneen beniniläismuusikon haastattelu Turun Sanomissa (linkki ei välttämättä toimi kovin pitkään).

Ja viimeisenä YouTubessa TODELLA beniniläistä musiikkia, agbajaa, Gbessi Zolawadjin esittämänä - taustalla lähes koko ajan Villa Karon rakennukset.

Mitä tein tänä kesänä.

2008-08-14T23:29:00.006+03:00

Ennen kesä loppui aina koulujen alkuun, elokuun puolessavälissä. Nykyisin venyttäisin kesää hiukan pidemmälle, mutta pimenevät illat ovat vankkumaton merkki siitä. Syksy tulee, joten blogiakin voisi alkaa taas päivittämään.

Mitä sitten olen tehnyt Uppsalasta palaamiseni jälkeen? En ainakaan kirjoittanut gradua, paitsi yhtenä päivänä tällä viikolla - siihen voin palata sitten syyskuussa, kun muutkin tarmokkaat uudet ja vanhat opiskelijat täyttävät kirjastot ja luentosalit. Sen sijaan olen:

* tehnyt töitä kahdelle eri taholle
* nähnyt kuuden vuoden takaista kämppistäni
* nähnyt kolmen vuoden takaista työkaveriani
* etsinyt uutta asuntoa ja löytänyt sellaisen
* festaroinut Ruisrockissa, sieltä muistan parhaiten Kentin, HIMin ja Interpolin
* tanssinut neljä päivää afrokurssilla, kolme tuntia päivässä (opettajana Papson Norsunluurannikolta/Pariisista)
* matkustanut sukujuhlille Savoon
* vieraillut Valamon luostarissa (perinteinen kesäretki)
* tavannut Suomessa vierailevia ja/tai asuvia beniniläisiä tuttuja
* käynyt pienemmillä keikoilla Helsingissä muun muassa Libertéssä ja Kuudennella Linjalla
* emännöinyt puolalaista ystävätärtä neljän vuoden takaa, Pariisin vaihto-opiskeluvuodeltani
* osallistunut Punaisen Ristin toimintaan ja kursseihin
* pelannut jalkapalloa
* voivotellut Suomen kesäsäätä aika monen ihmisen kanssa (på svenska: sommaren är kort, det mesta regnar bort)
* syönyt aika paljon mansikoita

Mitä haluaisin vielä tehdä tänä kesänä:

* pitää päivän lomaa ja istua puistoissa, kun ei ole vielä liian kylmä (jos vain tulisi sateeton päivä jossain vaiheessa)
* lukea Sofi Oksasen Puhdistuksen (varauksessa kirjastosta)
* nähdä uuden Batman-elokuvan
* käydä jossakin Art Goes Kapakka -tapahtumassa
* syödä vielä lisää mansikoita, vaikka nyt onkin jo liian myöhäistä - vai onko?

Suomen kesä. Elokuinen yö Hakaniemessä.

Feelings from Sweden

2008-06-29T12:36:00.007+03:00

Midsummer in Flogsta, Uppsala.

Midsummer maypole in the Old Uppsala, with folk-dancing and an extremely cheerful host.

Falafel pizza.

A question to ponder for those who speak Swedish.

MGMT playing in the Accelerator festival in Münchenbryggeriet, Stockholm.

Sill och Zlatan.

2008-06-28T23:01:00.002+03:00

Det här ska vara något som jag inte har gjort förrut: jag ska skriva denna post på svenska, för att hedra min tid här i Uppsala! Jag beklagar redan nu för alla mina eventuella misstag i detta relativt obekant språk...

Orsaken för rubriken är: under de här fyra veckorna i Sverige har jag slöt mig till att två av de mest svenska symboler for mig är sill och Zlatan (Ibrahimovic).

Sill har jag haft överallt - även en dag, när jag käkade i Ekokafeet och beställde en Tortilla Espanola: det fanns rökt sill med den. Och inte en liten bit av sill, men tre tjocka skivor som jag bara kunde äta upp. Fast jag har försökt att vänja mig vid denna fisk, jag kan inte ännu, jag bara kan inte...

Något annat som jag inte kan förstå ännu är sångkvällar på Skansen. Jag minns att jag läste om dessa kuriositeter i boken Vadelmavenepakolainen av Miika Nousiainen (en roman på finska som berättar om finskhet, svenskhet, och en mann som har lust att bli som en riktig svensk). Den enda saken som huvudpersonen i boken kunde inte göra var att sjunga med alla andra på Skansen - och nu förstår jag varför. Jag såg programmet Allsång på Skansen i dag och det var något jättekonstigt: omöjligt att beskriva, man måste ser den själv. I alla fall tror jag att jag inte heller kunde sjunga med där.

Nu måste jag återvända till rubriken och Zlatan. Jag har förstått att Zlatan är idolen för nästan alla svenska fotballfans och såsom alla invandrare som talar dåligt svenska (eller med en stark accent, korrigera mig om jag har fel). Upsala Nya Tidning hade en EM-bilaga för EURO 2008 och det fanns där ett särskilt brädspel om Zlatans liv med alla hans succer (eller suzzér, som de skrev rubriker här innan Sverige förlorade sina matcher). Det fanns till exempel ett citat var han beskrev en avdribbling av Liverpools back Stephane Henchoz: "Först gick jag vänster, det gjorde han också. Sedan gick jag höger, det gjorde han också. Sedan gick jag vänster igen och han gick och köpte korv." (Den här jämförelse med en korvkiosk är känd också i Finland, Antero Mertaranta har använt den på ishockeymatcher, tror jag?)

Säkert är Zlatan en väldigt kontroversiell och diskuterat karaktär, men han är också en utmärkt rollfigur för unga. Fast det är någonting som jag är lite trist för: varför är de hjältarna alltid sport -eller popstjärnor, speciellt när det gäller 'utlänningar', 'invandrare' (jag vet att Zlatan är född i Sverige och inte egentligen en invandrare, men han är ännu sett som en, eller hur?) eller andra 'annorlunda' grupper jämfört med majoriteten? Det ger automatiskt ett budskap att bara genom sport eller genom att bli en popstjärna kan du nå något utmärkt. Det påminner mig om presidentvalet i Amerika vilket har pekat att det är faktiskt möjligt för afroamerikaner att bli något annat än basketbollspelare eller fånge. Symboliskt värde är större här än resultatet själv.

Att avsluta mitt lilla försök på svenska ska jag säga bara att jag har njutit av min tid här. Jag har både kunnat arbeta ganska mycket med mitt examensarbete och träffat roliga människor. Tack för Sverige, vi ses igen!

Swedish National Day: Strawberries, Flags and Underwear

2008-06-07T12:21:00.006+03:00

The symbols of Swedish-ness to me: the flag and Rekorderlig cider next to each other on the grass in Uppsala City Gardens.

Sweden celebrated its National Day, Swedish Flag Day yesterday. I had to check with the help of Google (see one result on "the official gateway to Sweden") the reason for it, and I found out that it has been called a National Day since 1983 and given the status of a public holiday only in 2005. Very new tradition it is, then, although it does signify in some sense the end of Danish-ruled Kalmar union in 1523.

When comparing the ways of celebrating the National Day of Sweden (6^th June) and the Independence Day of Finland (6^th December), one can notice that they could not differ more. Certainly the time of the year already sets some limits: when Finnish ‘celebrate’ during one of the most depressing times of the year, when it’s sleeting and dark outside, the Swedish have a nice out-door picnic in the sun when the lightest days and the whole summer is still ahead. Perhaps it orientates the ‘national mind’ as well: when Finns are expecting the bad days and closing into themselves (‘things will only get worse, we have to prepare for everything’), Swedes think positively because the future looks so bright for them!

Besides the time of the year, the general mood of the celebration is very different. Most probably my few hours’ observations give only a faint picture of the Swedish festivities, but it seemed like most people spent their day off today with their friends and families, gathering in parks or in their homes. Everything seemed just so mysigt – the closest translation for that in English would be something like cozy or comfortable. The park was clearly a showcase for young people in their 20s or 30s: half of the young men were going about topless, presenting their abdomen muscles and playing football, and half of the women wore only their bra, contenting themselves chatting on the grass. So, when Swedes come happily together, sing songs and sunbathe in their underwear in the parks, Finns have gloomy candle marches to the veterans’ graves during the day. In the evening the whole nation sits in front of the TV, watching the ball with politicians and celebrities in the president’s castle. Sounds jolly, doesn’t it?

The official National Day programme included loads of speeches amongst the songs and orchestral pieces performed in the City Garden of Uppsala. Most of the words slipped past my ears, but I heard some intriguing parts of speech while having my sojakorv (soya-sausage in a bun) and jordgubbar (‘earth hubbies’, strawberries) in the park. The National Day is dedicated to all new Swedish citizens of the year (something I cannot imagine happening in Finland, even on the official discourse level: dedicating the Independence Day to immigrants!), and this year it was 100 years from the birth of Gösta Knutsson, the author of Pelle Svanslös (in Finnish Pekka Töpöhäntä, in English ‘the cat without a tail’). The speaker, an elderly man, was handy combining these two things casually by urging the new Swedes to read Gösta Knutsson in order to learn more about Swedish culture. This was topped with a child choir, masqueraded as cats and singing songs of Pelle Svanslös. Another phrase I heard was about Sweden being a fantastic country and the wish to keep it so in the future, as well. Perhaps another hint for the new Swedes?

On the whole, the festivities were not very extravagant, at least compared to yesterday’s new high school graduates who celebrated their studenten. White-capped (caps which remind foreigners of sailors’ hats, I’ve been told) bright-eyed hopes of Sweden were screaming and waving on trucks and cars going around the streets the whole afternoon. They seemed so energetic and proud of their achievement – so cute. I was sighing and sneering sarcastically together with my Gambian flat-mate: just wait, that is only the beginning…and here I am, seven years after my own studenten. If I were a Swede I would say: “How wonderful things I have done and learnt, and been to all these different places – isn’t it fantastic?” But since I am a Finn, I have to follow our way and say: “Not that bad really, I could have done worse.”

Afrikan tähteä etsimässä

2008-06-02T23:44:00.007+03:00

Vaihdoin tänään maata taas kuukaudeksi – vietän siis kesäkuun Uppsalassa, Nordiska Afrikainstitutetissa tekien gradua ja tutustuen Ruotsin ihmeisiin. Vielä eilen sunnuntaina ehdin kuitenkin parahiksi Helinä Rautavaaran museon Afrikan tähti –näyttelyyn. Tyypillisesti olin liikkeellä viimeisellä mahdollisella hetkellä: näyttelyn viimeisen päivän lisäksi meneillään olivat peräti viimeiset tunnit, kun kipitin Espooseen WeeGee –taloon puoli viideltä, puolitoista tuntia ennen sulkemisaikaa.

Jotenkin odotin sunnuntain ollessa kyseessä, että WeeGeen museoissa (niitä on viisi kappaletta samassa talossa, mistä hetken päästä lisää) olisi hurjasti ihmisiä. Luulin väärin: taisin nähdä itseni lisäksi kokonaiset pari muuta museokävijää, loput (noin tusinan verran) museon ihmisistä olivat valvojia ja myyjiä. Melko outo olo kuljeskella yksin valtavissa museosaleissa ja käytävillä, varsinkin Espoon modernin taiteen museon EMMAn puolella. Siellä olisi nähtävää hyvinkin toiselle käyntikerralle, koska tuolla kertaa energia ja aika loppuivat kesken jo Helinä Rautavaaran museon jälkeen. Suosittelisin ostamaan joko kolmen päivän lipun, joka on voimassa kuukauden verran, tai suoraan vuosilipun museoon, sillä yhden kerran lippu on melko hintava, eikä kaikkia museoita kuitenkaan jaksa kerralla koluta läpi. Nuo useamman kerran liput tosin edellyttävät sitä, että asuu melko lähellä tai omistaa auton – en minä ainakaan jaksa körötellä bussilla Espooseen saakka joka viikko... WeeGeessä sijaitsevat siis seuraavat museot: Espoon kaupunginmuseo (en käynyt), Kellomuseo (kuljin hyvin nopeasti läpi), Lelumuseo (en käynyt), Espoon modernin taiteen museo (kuljin hieman hitaammin läpi) sekä Helinä Rautavaaran antropologiaan ja kulttuureihin keskittynyt museo, johon varsinaisesti suuntasin.

Helinä Rautavaara (1928-1998) on epäilemättä ollut melkoinen persoona, ja Helinän elämäkerta (ks. Wikipediasta lisää, vieressä vielä lukemattoman kirjan kansikuva) on ainakin omasta mielestäni vähintään yhtä kiinnostava kuin museon esinenäyttely. Psykologian maisterista ikuiseksi uskontotieteen opiskelijaksi ja kaukomatkaajaksi sekä Apu-lehden toimittajaksi siirtynyt, kissamaisia silmälaseja kokoelman verran omistanut rastafari-täti on tuskin jättänyt ketään kylmäksi. Helinä matkaili vuosikymmenien ajan eri mantereilla, etenkin Afrikassa ja Etelä-Amerikassa tutustuen erityisesti uskontoihin niin Brasiliassa, Jamaikalla kuin Senegalissakin. Mukaan tarttui kaikkialla vähän kaikenlaista, ja matkojen seurauksena kerättyyn uskomattomaan esinekokoelmaan voi tutustua Helinä Rautavaaran museossa, joka saatiin perustettua pari vuotta hänen kuolemansa jälkeen. Esineiden lisäksi olisi mielenkiintoista tietää lisää ilmeisestikin hyvin sosiaalisen Helinän kuuluisista tuttavuuksista, joiden joukkoon kuului muun muassa Ugandan hirmuhallitsija Idi Amin.

Viime syksynä uutisoitiin varsin mielenkiintoinen debatti siitä, voivatko koululaiset mennä vierailulle museoon, jossa "tehdään alttareita ja uhreja" - kuten paperikukkia ja muovailuvahaliskoja, ainakin HS:n artikkelin mukaan. Espoon kaupunginvaltuutettu Leena Metsämäki (kd) oli tästä museon 'uskonnollisuudesta' niin huolissaan, että nyt lapsien on pyydettävä vanhemmilta lupa ennen kyseiseen museoon menemistä. En viitsi alkaa edes kirjoittamaan tästä enempää, koska niin naurettavalta koko juttu kuulostaa.

Antropologi Katja Uusihakalan käsikirjoittama Afrikan tähti –näyttely oli kuitenkin se, jota menin katsomaan. Kiertonäyttelyksi tarkoitettu, erityisesti koululaisille suunnattu näyttely oli kivasti tehty, mutta itse en siitä niin hirveästi saanut uutta tietoa irti – hyvä Afrikan historian pikakertaus se oli kuitenkin! Afrikan tähden eri pisteisiin pysähtyessäni aloin silti miettimään omaa suhdettani noihin kartan punaisiin pallukoihin, olenhan käynytkin osassa niitä. Kehittelyn alla on nyt sitten jatkosarja Afrikan tähden paikoista, joista minulla on jotakin omakohtaista sanottavaa. Katsotaan saanko sitä aikaiseksi, sillä muutama muukin blogiteksti odottelee vielä loppuhiontaa...ehkä Uppsalan Afrikka-instituutti innostaa kirjoittamaan lisää!

Ich war eine Berlinerin

2008-05-15T23:09:00.009+03:00

I spent five days in Berlin last week and assembled here a picture cavalcade of the most memorable instants. Many of those moments are related to eating and drinking: enjoying fresh Vietnamese food, sparkling organic apple cider, exciting Ethiopian meal or lovely Ghanaian mango and passion fruit beers called Dju Dju (their German info page at www.djudju.de), meaning the voodoo religion also massively present in Benin and Togo.

Our first day in Berlin, however, included loads of Russians. It was the 9th of May, the Victory Day (Der Tage des Sieges), and hundreds, if not thousands of Russians gathered in the Treptow Park in Berlin. Bringing flowers to the feet of the Soviet soldier statue (in the picture) was not the only programme number, but Russian bands played classic songs, sausages were grilled and vodka sold. What a great way to spend a sunny afternoon!

If you ever go to Berlin and love or even like coffee, go to an Ethiopian restaurant. There are several of them, but we went to Bejte, which served great food and the best coffee I've ever tasted in my life. Wow. Now I understand why they were all so excited about it in the movie Broken Flowers.

Every year during the Pentecost holidays, Berlin hosts a big multi-cultural event called Carnival of Cultures, Karneval der Kulturen. It means four days of free concerts of bands from all over the world, divided into four different, though fairly small stages, dozens of food, drink and shopping stalls, and happy people all around. It was a bit like Vappu (1st of May) in Finland, except cleaner and more relaxed. The main event takes place on Sunday: a carnival procession with a hundred or so trucks of different organizations, countries or groups showing their skills parades on the streets of Kreuzberg. An ear -and eye-blowing sight and sound guaranteed. The photo here is from the Farafina (the African) stage - in front of me I had an elderly nun and some apparently Beninese women dancing. Meeting of cultures, indeed.

On our last evening in Berlin, we had a cozy barbecue in a garden next to this plane which served during the Berlin airlift in 1948-1949 and continued serving until 1971. It is now based between the famous Tempelhof airport and a huge Sehitlik mosque, funded by the Turkish state and inaugurated last October. The barbecue was nice...

...but the high point of an every Berlin visitor is to taste the pork knuckle (Eisbein) with sauerkraut. If this doesn't look disgusting, then what? It tasted pretty much like Finnish Christmas food, though. I'm still glad I don't have to eat it ever again, hopefully. It is nicer to have your meat in an unidentifiable package instead of...pig's foot. Guten appetit!

Ilonaiheita.

2008-05-03T23:37:00.010+03:00

Varoitus: seuraava teksti sisältää paljon huutomerkkejä ja ihana-sanan toistoa.

Ensinnäkin: kevät on täällä!

Toiseksi: Suomessakin on alettu lopulta valmistaa suklaalakuja - kiitokset siitä Pandalle. Ihan/uutta, todellakin...vaikka hinta kirpaisee hiukkasen, tuollainen pieni pussi maksaa 1,39 euroa. Suklaalakut ovat jääneet makuhermomuistiin Islannin kesästä 2003, ja sen jälkeen olen syönyt vain korvikkeita, kuten suklaata ja lakua vuorotellen, tai viime kuukausien aikana Fazerin uutta Lontoon rae -suklaata, herkullista sekin. En siis voinut olla kiljahtamatta ilosta, kun löysin nämä Tarjoustalon karkkihyllystä!

Kolmanneksi: psykedeelisen vaaleanpunaisen dinosaurus-ilmapallon (eikö olekin söpö!) ja punaisen pörrömattoni päällä lepäävät upouudet, mielettömän kauniit balettitossuni! Eivätkö olekin ihanat! Niitä voisi katsella vaikka koko päivän - jalassa tossuja ei voikaan sitten pitää kuin ehkä vartin verran kerrallaan. Pitäisi mennä harjoittelemaan kovakärkisten balettitossujen alkeistunnille, nyt onnistuu kotona vasta kärjillä seisominen ja varova sipsuttelu seinästä tukien. Koska aloitin baletin vasta aikuisena, tuskin pystyn noilla ikinä varsinaisesti tanssimaan, hyvä jos jotenkin könkkimään eteenpäin. Mutta ei se haittaa, koska ne ovat niin IHANAT.

Puhuvia ratikkakuskeja ja täyttä hepreaa.

2008-04-19T22:05:00.004+03:00

Helsingissä paljon raitiovaunuilla liikkuvat ovat ehkä törmänneetkin ilmiöön: puhuvaan ratikkakuskiin! Viimeksi naistenpäivänä ollessani (monestakin syystä ikuisuudelta tuntuvalla) matkalla Espoonlahden kirkkoon, kutosen linjan kuski avasi yhtäkkiä mikrofoninsa ja toivotti kaikille naisille oikein hyvää naistenpäivää, saaden aikaan naurunhörähdyksiä pitkin vaunua.

Tänään matkalla elokuviin todennäköisesti sama kuski avasi sanaisen arkkunsa pidemmäksi aikaa: "Excuse me, mister maybe from Russia, could you please come here. I have some information about the tram you should change into..." Pysäkin tai kahden päästä pyyntö toistuu: "Excuse me mister, please, come here...or maybe you don't understand, njet panumaiu?". Tällöin viereiseltä penkiltä nousee mies, joka kiiruhtaa hymyillen vaunun etuosaan kohti kuskia. Ihmiset vaihtavat kummastuneita katseita ja hymähtelevät itsekseen tai toisilleen, kunnes hetken päästä kuski palaa ääneen, tällä kertaa suomeksi: "Ja näin vihreissä valoissa, tasapuolisuuden nimissä toivotan kaikille suomalaisillekin oikein hyvää viikonloppua!". Rautiovaunu kaikuu aplodeista ja naurun purskahduksista - jokainen matkustaja on taatusti hyvällä tuulella ainakin seuraavan tunnin ajan.

Niin helppoa ihmisten ilahduttaminen siis on, ainakin jos sattuu olemaan raitiovaunukuski. Mietin jo kaikenlaisia muita mahdollisuuksia, kaikkea sitä valtaa, jota kuskilla on - ihmiset ovat kyydissä kuitenkin, joten kuskihan voisi vaikka puhua politiikkaa tai ilmaista mielipiteitään yhteiskunnasta. Mieletöntä!

Raitiovaunu vei minut Kaisaniemeen katsomaan elokuvaa, jota voin suositella kaikille, ihan kaikille. Israelilainen Orkesterin vierailu (Bikur Ha-Tizmoret, The Band's Visit) on haikea, vähäeleinen komedia, jossa musisoidaan aiheeseen nähden sinänsä harmittavan vähän. Elokuva toisaalta perustuu hiljaisuuksille, rytmityksille ja katseille - tämän lähemmäs israelilaista Kaurismäkeä tuskin oltaisiin voitu päästä. Juonen voi tiivistää yhteen lauseeseen: kyseessä on egyptiläisen poliisisoittokunnan vierailu israelilaisen kaupungin arabikulttuurikeskukseen, mutta matkaan sattuu päivän kestävä mutka, josta elokuva kertoo. Outi Heiskasen arvosteluista skenet.fi:stä, tai MTV3:fistä (kaksi eri arvostelua!) voi lukea lisää, trailerikin löytyy, mutta henkilökohtaisesti pidin tätä parhaana näkemänäni elokuvana tänä vuonna yhdessä Menetetyn maan kanssa. On vain niin mahtavaa katsella valkokankaalla aidon oloisia ja näköisiä ihmisiä amerikkalaisten pahvinukkejen jälkeen. Lisää tällaisia!

Insinööri vastaan humanisti.

2008-04-19T12:52:00.005+03:00

Olen viimeisten parin kuukauden aikana kahlannut läpi kahta hyvin erilaista, suomalaisen miehen kirjoittamaa kirjaa Afrikasta. Ensimmäinen, viime vuonna ilmestynyt professori Eero Paloheimon (eläkeiän ylittänyt insinööri) Tämä on Afrikka avautui hitaasti, tuntui poukkoilevalta ja karkeasti kirjoitetulta. Toinen, Esa Salmisen (kolmekymppinen humanisti) esikoisteos Köyhyyden ammattilainen taas tempasi mukaansa sujuvan, mutkattoman kielensä ja kulttuuristen pohdiskelujensa ansiosta. En tiedä ovatko kirjailijat koskaan kohdanneet tosielämässä, mutta näin lähtökohtaisesti voisin kuvitella heillä olevan paljon yhteistä puhuttavaa. Molemmat turhautuvat kirjoissaan afrikkalaisten ja eurooppalaisten erilaisiin aikakäsityksiin, tehottomuuteen ja korruptioon. Molemmat kuvailevat naissuhteitaan, tai vain naisten ulkonäköä hyvinkin yksityiskohtaisesti, mikä on ilmeisesti ohittamaton teema kaikilla Afrikasta kirjoittavilla mieskirjailijoilla. Ja lopussa kumpikin sortuu - tai puhkeaa tarkoituksellisesti - Wainainan (ks. edellinen posti) ohjeiden mukaisesti Afrikan ylistykseen, kertomaan viha-rakkaus -suhteestaan. Molempien kuvaus Afrikasta on realistinen, välillä jopa inhorealistinen. Absurdit tilanteet kirjailijat ovat nimenneet eri tavoin: Paloheimon kirjan nimi tulee yleisestä sanonnasta, joka tulee tahattomastikin niin paikallisten kuin ulkomaalaistenkin suusta erilaisissa yhteyksissä: "This is Africa" tai "Ca, c'est l'Afrique", Salminen taas esittelee Sambiassa usein toistuvan Z-tekijän.

"Kutsun sitä Z-tekijäksi," Dani sanoi ja naurahti, "Z-factor. Eilen siitä oli oikein hyvä esimerkki kun oltiin Lusaka Clubilla syömässä. Tilasin tarjoilijalta valkoviiniä. Tarjoilija kysyi, halusinko kuivaa vai puolikuivaa", Dani jatkoi.

"Kuivaa tietysti", sanoin.

"Juuri niin. Tarjoilija siihen että 'kuiva on ikävä kyllä loppu.' Sanoin että otan sitten sitä puolikuivaa", Dani sanoi.

"Miksei hän saman tien sanonut että heillä on vain puolikuivaa, tai suoraan tuonut sitä?"

"Se juuri on Z-tekijä", hän nauroi.

"Ehkä hän ei halunnut tuottaa pettymystä ja toivoi että haluaisit puolikuivaa. Sambialaiset tuntuvat pelkäävän sanaa ei", sanoin. (s. 30)

Näiden kahden kirjan kertojista löytyy kuitenkin myös erilaisuutta. Salminen (tai kertojahahmo Petteri Savio!) asuu kahden vuoden ajan kehitysyhteistyöntekijänä vain yhdessä maassa, Sambiassa, vaikka hän vieraileekin välillä turistina muun muassa Sansibarilla. Salminen suhtautuu ympäristöönsä antropologin asenteella, tapoja ja käytäntöjä pohdiskellen, vaikkakin vähemmän syvällisesti kuin olisin odottanut ja toivonut. Paloheimo taas juoksee Afrikan maita läpi lentokoneessa, bussissa ja jokilaivassa, tekee pikaisia ja usein pinnallisia kierroksia pääkaupungeissa, pakolaisleirissä tai luonnonpuistossa. Silti hän kykenee tekemään välillä piinallisenkin yksityiskohtaisia raportteja afrikkalaisesta todellisuudesta ja keskustelee erilaisten ihmisten kanssa, niin kehitysyhteistyöntekijöiden kuin maalla asuvien perheidenkin kanssa. Kehitysyhteistyön kritisointi on kuitenkin molemmille yhteistä, lainaus jälleen Salmisen tekstistä:

"Ehkä koko tapa tehdä kehitysyhteistyötä on tosiaan vanhentunut: ajatus siitä että ihmisten elämä ja elinkeino perustuu peräkkäisten projektien tekemiseen, tekee heistä kerjäläisiä. Tietysti koko ajan ajatellaan, mistä seuraava projekti saadaan, ja suunnitellaan seuraavaa vuotta. Projektien pyörähtelevässä maailmassa on hyvin hankala rakentaa mitään kovin kestävää." (s. 161)

"Heti kun jotain hajoaa, ollaan pulassa. Rahaa ei säästetä korjauksiin ja varaosiin. Kyse on siitä ettei ihmisten tarvitse suunnitella mitä tapahtuu, kun laitteet hajoavat, sillä he luottavat siihen että kiltit rahoittajat antavat uudet", hän tuhahti. "Ihmisiä on liian kauan syötetty hopealusikalla, harva enää miettii miten elämää voisi parantaa tekemällä töitä." (s. 231)

Kirjat luettuani olen edelleen alkuvaikutelmani kanssa samalla kannalla: luettavuuden osalta suosittelisin ensisijaisesti Esa Salmisen kirjaa, joka kertoo viihdyttävästi ja todentuntuisesti siitä, miltä suomalaisesta, aloittelevasta kehitysyhteistyöntekijästä Sambiassa tuntuu. Nuoren miehen kasvutarina (kliseistä kliseisin!) on sulavasti kirjoitettu, ja sen lukee vauhdilla kannesta kanteen. Henkilökohtaisesta kehityksestä kertoo muun muassa Salmisen kertojahahmon kohtaama uusi, nuori suomalainen kehitysyhteistyöntekijä Sambiassa, joka tuskailee alussa kahden eri kulttuurin välillä ja ihmettelee, miksei Petteri asu tavallisten sambialaisten parissa vaan eristäytyy omaan 'linnaansa' palvelijoineen. Kirjan alussa Petteri itse paini samojen ongelmien parissa: Helsingistä pikkuyksiöstä ja suhteellisesta opiskelijan ja pätkätyöläisen köyhyydestä kehitysyhteistyöntekijän suhteelliseen luksukseen ja isoon taloon muuttaminen ei ollut hänellekään helppoa. Kahden Sambian-vuoden jälkeen kertojahahmo ei kuitenkaan jaksa enää kuunnella tulokasta: "Lähtisin seuraavana päivänä pois maasta, jota olin oppinut arvostamaan, rakastamaan, pelkäämään ja inhoamaan. Tänään en halunnut tutustua alkuahdistusten kourissa kamppailevaan nuoreen, joka oli hiljattain joutunut pitkin hampain vaihtamaan intianpuuvillan jakkupukuun." (s. 251)

Salminen kuvailee kirjan loppupuolella vastatulleen tanskalaisen miehen kysymyksiä Sambiassa elämisestä:

"Häntä vaivasi kulttuurishokki ja hän kyseli lakkaamatta. Miksi ihmiset eivät uskaltaneet sanoa huonoja uutisia vaan valehtelivat mieluummin? Miksi kotiapulainen varasti rahaa vaikka tiesi jäävänsä kiinni ja saavansa potkut? Miksei kukaan näyttänyt tekevän mitään töissä? Miksi nuoret naiset baareissa halusivat häneltä rahaa? Mitä malarialääkettä kannatti syödä? Hän oli pohjoismaiseen tapaan suvaitsevainen ja yritti kovasti ymmärtää." (s. 213)

Täsmälleen samoja kysymyksiä Salminen on itse käsitellyt kirjansa aiemmilla sivuilla. Suurempia ja vaikeammin vastattavia kysymyksiä taas esitetään Paloheimon kirjassa: mikä on Afrikan tulevaisuus? Mitä sille pitäisi tehdä? Ellei Paloheimon Afrikka-järkäleeseen jaksa tai viitsi heti tutustua, voi aloittaa hänen kärkevistä kolumneistaan: Taloussanomissa (4.11.2003) ilmestynyt kirjoitus monikulttuurisuudesta, tai edelliseen postaukseeni liittyvä 'Mitä Afrikasta saa sanoa?', Vihreässä Langassa (22.2.2008) julkaistu purkaus. Jälkimmäisessä Paloheimo siteeraa ilmeisen ironisesti Erkki Vettenniemeä, joka arvosteli Paloniemen kirjan HS:ssa täysin lyttyyn. Olen itsekin edelleen hämmentynyt siitä, että juuri WSOY julkaisi näinkin epätasaisen ja ristiriitaisen kirjan, joka sijoittuu jonnekin matkakirjan, esseekokoelman ja tajunnanvirran välimaastoon. En myöskään pitänyt siitä, että Afrikkaa käsiteltiin kokonaisuutena, jolla on kaikkialla samat ongelmat. Mantereen puolelta toiselle tapahtuvat hyppäykset yhden luvun sisällä, ilman selkeitä merkkejä siitä missä mennään, ovat ilmeisesti tarkoituksellisia, mutta minua ne häiritsivät. Toki vajaasta 500 sivusta löytyy helmiäkin, mutta kustannustoimittajan karsivaa kättä olisi pitänyt käyttää enemmän. Kirjassa on kuitenkin hetkensä - ensin luin mielenkiinnolla itselleni tutuista seuduista, varsinkin Grand-Poposta (Beninistä), sitten syvennyin muihinkin kirjassa käsiteltyihin teemoihin, kuten hallintoon, uskontoon, koulutukseen, sotaan ja turistielämään.

'Mitä sitten?' -loppupuheen sanoihin voin Paloheimon kanssa yhtyä: koulutus on ensiarvoisen tärkeää, sillä ilman sitä maalla ei ole tulevaisuutta eikä talouskasvua. Paloheimo ruoskii valkoisia hyväntekijöitä alentuvista oletuksista ja piilorasismista: "Kun väitetään afrikkalaisia ja eurooppalaisia henkisesti keskimäärin samanlaisiksi, oletetaan samalla selviönä, että näin pitää sanoa, koska muuten me pitäisimme afrikkalaisia itseämme huonompina. Niin omahyväisiä me olemme. Niin vakuuttuneita me olemme siitä, että mikäli joku poikkeaa meistä mihin suuntaan hyvänsä, on suunta aina huonompaan. Me pidämme itseämme täydellisinä." (s. 453) Ehkä Paloheimo kaikkine häpeilemättömine mielipiteineen vetää lopulta pidemmän korren rohkeudellaan. Olen enemmän eri mieltä insinööri-Paloheimon kuin humanisti-Salmisen kanssa, mutta juuri nuo häiritsevät ajatukset saavat aivot raksuttamaan kiivaammin.

SUOSITUS: Jos haluat lukea kehitysyhteistyöntekijän arkipäivästä ja kulttuurien kohtaamisesta Sambiassa, lue Köyhyyden ammattilainen. Jos taas haluat annoksen insinöörin kylmää realismia ja kyynisen läpileikkauksen Afrikasta, lue Tämä on Afrikka. Mielellään lue molemmat.

Paloheimo, Eero (2007). Tämä on Afrikka. Helsinki: WSOY. 467 s.

Salminen, Esa (2008). Köyhyyden ammattilainen. Helsinki: Johnny Kniga.

Afrikka, sarvikuonojen maa.

2008-04-10T18:53:00.001+03:00

VAI...

Afrikasta on vaikea kirjoittaa. Tai sanotaanko näin, että siitä on vaikea kirjoittaa uudella tavalla, tai sille oikeutta tekevällä tavalla. Toisaalta takertuu liiallisesti yksityiskohtiin, toisaalta erehtyy helposti maalailemaan laajoja, koko Afrikkaa koskevia yleistyksiä, jotka eivät kuitenkaan pidä paikkaansa. Tänään taas HIV/AIDSia käsitelleessä Topelian African Studies -seminaarin loppukeskustelussa syytettiin Afrikan käsittelemisestä yhtenä, isona kokonaisuutena. Kuinka sitten osaisi tasapainotella jossakin välimaastossa, sillä pakostakin joutuu sanomaan lauseita "Afrikassa sitä ja tätä", yhtä lailla kuin niin sanoisi Euroopan tai Latinalaisen Amerikan kohdalla. Olen tainnut pohdiskella tätä kysymystä jo aiemminkin, ja päätynyt siihen, että jos käsittelemäni asia koskee nimenomaan yhtä maata, käytän sen maan nimeä, jos taas olen kokenut tai kuullut samaa useammasta maasta, tulee helposti maaluettelon sijaan sanottua vain "Afrikka".

Onneksi löysin kepalaisen Esa Salmisen blogista (jonka Sambiaa käsittelevästä esikoiskirjasta lisää toiste) linkin kenialaisen kirjailija-journalisti Binyavanga Wainainan artikkeliin "How to Write about Africa", eli kuinka (ei) tulisi kirjoittaa Afrikasta. Suomennan tähän lyhyen pätkän - artikkeli on todella erinomainen, joten suosittelen sen lukemista kokonaisuudessaan.

"Käytä aina sanaa 'Afrikka' tai 'Pimeys' tai 'Safari' otsikossasi. Alaotsikot voivat sisältää sanoja kuten 'Sansibar', 'Maasai', 'Zulu', 'Zambezi', 'Kongo', 'Niili', 'Iso', 'Taivas', 'Varjo', 'Rumpu', 'Aurinko', tai 'Entinen'. Käyttökelpoisia ovat myös sanat kuten 'Sissi', 'Ajaton', 'Alkukantainen' ja 'Heimo'. -- Älä koskaan laita kuvaa länsimaistuneesta afrikkalaisesta kirjasi kanteen tai sen sisälle, ellei tuo afrikkalainen ole voittanut Nobelin palkintoa. AK-47, ulkonevat kylkiluut, paljaat rinnat: käytä näitä. -- Käsittele tekstissäsi Afrikkaa kuin se olisi yksi maa. Se on kuuma ja pölyinen, täynnä kumpuilevia ruohotasankoja ja valtavia eläinlaimoja sekä pitkiä, laihoja, nälkää näkeviä ihmisiä. Tai se on kuuma ja hikinen maa, jossa hyvin lyhyet ihmiset syövät nisäkkäitä. Älä turhaan takerru tarkkoihin kuvailuihin. Afrikka on suuri: 54 maata, 900 ihmisitä, jotka ovat kaikki liian kiireisiä nälkiintymään ja kuolemaan ja sotimaan ja muuttamaan pois lukeakseen kirjasi. Maanosa on täynnä aavikoita, viidakoita, ylänköjä, savanneja ja monia muita asioita, mutta lukijasi ei välitä kaikesta siitä, joten pidä kuvailusi romanttisina ja mielikuvia herättävänä ja ylimalkaisena."

Esa Salminen on myös suomentanut Wainainalta tähän mennessä kaksi kolumnia Kepan verkkosivuille, kaksi lisää on tulossa. Ensimmäinen on kehitysyhteistyökriittinen "Koko mustaa maailmaa oxfamoimassa", toinen on yhtä lailla mainio, humanitaarisia muusikkohyväntekijöitä ja maailmanpelastajia kritisoiva "The Power of Love". Otsikon Eppu Normaalin laulun (1988) kertosäkeen kohta "luuletko että kitaraa / soittamalla voi parantaa maailmaa" viitannee juuri näihin 'We are the World' -ihmisiin, joita nykyisin näkyvimmin edustaa U2:n Bono. Pikkulinnut lauloivat, että Bono oli taas käynyt Tansaniassa BBC:n kuvausryhmän kera, sieltä on siis oletettavasti tulossa jälleen vetoomuksia afrikkalaisten auttamiseksi. Sitä odotellessa...

Lopuksi hauska yhtymäkohta otsikon Eppu Normaalin laulun (1988) stereotyypittelevään sanoitukseen: sitä on ohimennen käsitellyt pro gradu -työssään (Tampereen yliopiston sivuilla pdf-tiedostona) viime syksyn alivuokralaiseni! Mainio gradu muuten, suomalaisista rocklyriikoista kiinnostuneelle - Afrikan ja 'kaukomaiden' osalta sanoituksia käsitellään sivuilla 84-87, koko gradun otsikko on "Sä luulit ei tällaista paikkaa olekaan" - Paikan kuvaukset suomalaisissa rocklyriikoissa 1970-luvulta uuden vuosituhannen alkuun. Lukemaan siis!

Contaminated cultures

2008-04-06T17:29:00.002+03:00

Can a culture be destroyed by outside influences? There has been a growing concern on the vanishing cultures around the world, especially in the third world countries. The Western civilization is spreading through mass media (Internet, TV, newspapers), consumer products (food, clothes, make-up...) and accelerating movement of people around the globe. This cultural globalization, or McDonaldization as it also has been called, is normally thought as something evil and destructive, a view shared especially by the intelligentsia.

On the surface it is true: even in the remotes village anywhere in Africa you can surely find a bottle of Coca Cola or Fanta sold in a tiny kiosk, whereas bottled water (being more expensive than coke and thus not accessible for ordinary people) is more of an oddity outside big cities. Sometimes the global products bring a whiff of familiarity in strange surroundings: I remember when our guests from South Africa last summer, when seeing the first McDonald's in Helsinki sighed - perhaps in slightly ironic fashion - "oh, it feels like home!". Instead of McDonald's, however, I took them to Hesburger, which sells "Finnish" hamburgers (yeah, right!) and to a basic Finnish outside grill kiosk, which they totally adored. Being abroad does make one miss recognizable tastes and resort even to these multi-national companies. Hell, I went to a Subway in Dar-es-Salaam, it being located conveniently near the YMCA hostel, when I was feeling hungry and wanting to get something I would surely know.

Getting back to the worries about the bastardized cultures, I've been recently reading texts from Kwame Anthony Appiah, a Ghanaian-English philosopher, currently in the esteemed Princeton University. It is fair to say that I have become enchanted by Appiah's writing, which is eloquent, provocative and fluid. He has been compared to Socrates (a 'post-modern' version of him!) or Oscar Wilde, and even told to be "the smartest person I've ever met" by a work colleague Henry Louis Gates Jr. Enough for the praise, Appiah's work speaks for him. The most renown piece is In My Father's House (1992), now phrased as a classic in African studies. After this break-through he has been writing particularly about race, identities and cosmopolitanist ethics. These themes are concisely gathered in an essay 'The Case for Contamination', published in NY Times on the 1st of January in 2006. In this essay Appiah approaches the question of cultures: what are they supposed to be like, and how can they be harmed by contacts with the wider world? Among other things he asks: "What can you tell about people's souls from the fact that they drink Coca-Cola?"

Kwame Anthony Appiah in his New York apartment, 2002. (AP Photo / Jerry McCrea)

People live in different cultural contexts and interpret the products of Western cultural imperialism in their own way. Appiah describes researches made on the response to American soap operas such as "The Bold and the Beautiful". For example a young Zulu man in South Africa had drawn lessons concerning relationships in the family while watching these series, and decided himself whether he approves or denies the values presented in them. Dutch viewers had concluded after watching "Dallas" that money and power don't protect you from tragedy. Thus, Appiah lashes at those who claim that cultural imperialism alters the consciousness of the poor recipients in the periphery, or in the rich world, for that matter. He asserts that according to this patronizing view, people are seen as tabula rasas, unable to reflect and form their own opinions based on both their own cultural background and those shown in the international media.

After some discussion about "malign" cosmopolitanism such as Islamic fundamentalism, Appiah continues with the cultural change and historical habits. He concludes that 'pure' cultures do not exist: thus there can not be any 'contaminated' cultures either, but "change is more of a gradual transformation from one mixture to a new mixture". Social trends change: two hundred years ago other customs (such as slavery) were accepted without any moral resistance, whereas other habits or ways of life (such as homosexuality or independent women) were scorned upon, or even punished.

Appiah argues against freezing 'cultures' into static entities, against putting people into neat boxes: 'this is what you are supposed to be like'. He notes that there has not been a culture which would not be a conglomeration of different influences and cultural traits. The borders of a 'culture' are not clear; people have several identities besides belonging to a particular community or culture. The danger of pure categories is obvious: stereotypes are too often used in an evil way, turning one fraction of people against another, 'us' against the 'others'. Already Adolf Hitler (and before him, surely quite a number of political thinkers) recognised the importance of homogenizing the enemy:

"As a whole, and at all times, the efficiency of the truly national leader consists primarily in preventing the division of attention of a people, and always concentrating it on a single enemy. -- As soon as the wavering masses find themselves confronted with too many enemies, objectivity at once steps in, and the question is raised whether actually all the others are wrong and their own nation or their own movement alone is right." (Hitler, Mein Kampf)

What Appiah proposes, instead of dividing people into cultures with unsurmountable differences, is cosmopolitanism. Tolerance and respect for difference, but at the same time freedom for each individual. Appiah believes that dialogue is possible, and that it might even yield into results, although not necessary an agreement. A phrase that students of Humanities should especially appreciate: "I am urging that we should learn about people in other places, take an interest in their civilizations, their arguments, their errors, their achievements, not because that will bring us to agreement but because it will help us get used to one another - something we have a powerful need to do in this globalized era."

Onnellisia ihmisiä.

2008-03-30T13:50:00.003+03:00

Olen tässä viime vuosina viettänyt melko runsaasti aikaa lentokentillä, sekä omien matkojeni vuoksi että odottamassa muita ihmisiä. Beninissä seisoskelin hiostavassa ja kaoottisessa vastaanottohallissa odottamassa villakarolaisia tai omia vieraitani useampaan otteeseen, Helsingissä olen taas ollut vastaanottamassa ulkomaalaisia vaihto-opiskelijoita yliopiston maksaman pick up -palvelun työläisenä. Epäilisin, että muutama tusina tuntia on siis vierähtänyt lentojen saapumisalueilla. Ajankulukseni olenkin usein tarkkaillut muita odottajia. Osa on selvästi työasioilla liikkeellä, moni odottaa perheenjäseniä, jotkut jännittävät rakkaidensa tuloa. Yhden lennon matkustajien purkautuessa ulos tullista samalla purkautuu ilmaan valtava määrä erilaisia tunteita, mutta päällimmäisenä näkyy väsymyksen lisäksi onnellisuus perillepääsemisestä. Mikään ei ole parempaa kuin se, että joku on vastaanottamassa lentokentällä pitkän lennon jälkeen! Tuloalue on siis ehdottomasti lentokenttien paras, onnea uhkuva paikka, joka on täysi vastakohta uinuville lentojen odottelualueille, kiiltäville shoppailukujille tai stressaaville lähtöterminaaleille (hyvästelyjä, jonottamista, turvatarkastuksia...).

Onnelliselta vaikuttavia ihmisiä olen nähnyt lentokenttien lisäksi erityisesti konserteissa tai keikoilla. En oikein ymmärrä miten Amélie kykeni muka katselemaan elokuvissa muita ihmisiä - eihän teatterissa ikinä edes näe muiden kasvoja, ellei valkokangas ole täysin vaalea! Keikoilla sen sijaan valaistus sallii katsojien tarkkailun. Tavastialla viime tiistaina, kun norjalaisen Kaizer's Orchestran keikka eteni yhä pidemmälle ja yhä vauhdikkaammaksi, levenivät eturivissä seisojien hymyt samaa vauhtia. Yleisö oli tosin lämmennyt kabaree-huumorille jo ensimmäisen esiintyjän, kanadanjuutalaisen Geoff Bernerin harmonikansoiton ja Hitler-vitsien myötä. Kävin eilen katsomassa ihan varsinaista stand uppiakin Painobaarissa. Tajusin siellä, että tämä nykyinen stand up -buumihan on vain amerikkalaistunut versio vanhoista kunnon kansantaiteilijoista, jotka kertovat murteella puhuen juttuja omasta elämästään, tutuistaan ja ympäröivästä maailmasta, välillä musisoiden ja hassuja lauluja esittäen. Yhden esimerkin tällaisesta katoavasta kansanperinteestä näin ukkini 95-vuotissyntymäpäivillä tammikuussa, mutta totuuden nimessä täytyy kuitenkin sanoa, että eilisten Painobaarin stand up -koomikoiden vitsit olivat hiukkasen parempia...

Muita musiikkikeikkoja, joissa muistan nähneeni lukemattomia ihmisiä hassu hymy kasvoillaan ovat ainakin Maritta Kuulan esiintymiset (viimeksi Tavastialla bollywood-tanssin harrastajia mukana lavalla), samoin The Flaming Sideburnsilta olen nähnyt enemmän kuin tusinan verran keikkoja, jotka ovat lähes poikkeuksetta olleet puhdasta rock-onnea. Sigur Rósin Kulttuuritalon keikan jälkeen valtaosa paikalla olleista näytti taas leijuvan aivan muissa maailmoissa: osa itki (ilmeisesti onnesta), osa vain näytti puulla päähänlyödyltä. Nykyisin keikoilta saa yhä harvemmin tuollaista elämystä, täydellisen onnen tunnetta, sillä niitä on vain nähnyt, ei nyt välttämättä liikaa, mutta niin monta, että joukosta erottumiseen tarvitaan todella jotakin erityistä. Turtumista onnen kokemuksiin ehkäisee tehokkaasti vastakkaisten kokemusten hankkiminen, kuten esimerkiksi viime kesänä Roskilden mutaliejussa rypeminen. Katselin juuri eilen siellä otettuja valokuvia ja kauhistuin, miten pahalta alue näyttikään. Ulkoiset olosuhteet saattoivat vaikuttaa siihen, että keikat tuntuivat lähes poikkeuksetta erinomaisilta. Tai ehkä oli vain mukavaa päästä kuivaan ja lämpimään (muita ihmisiä ympäröimässä ja tuomassa lämpöä) ympäristöön pariksi tunniksi, pois inhottavasta ulkoisesta todellisuudesta. Pätee muuten ehkä osittain keikkoihin yleensä.

Loppuhuomiona vain, että onnea löytyy erilaisten kulttuurikokemusten lisäksi opiskeluelämästäkin. Sain Suomen Kulttuurirahastolta gradu-apurahaa kuukausi sitten, ja kesäkuuksi olen menossa Uppsalan Nordiska Afrikainstitutetiin kirjastoon opiskelemaan, taas sitä gradua varten. Niin, ja toukokuussa Berliiniin lomailemaan, käymään muuten vain viideksi päiväksi. Kaiken lisäksi kesä tulee, ainakin heti kun hanget sulavat - johan siinä on aihetta iloita!

PS. Tsemppiä kaikille graduntekijöille!

Africa works!

2008-03-14T21:51:00.008+02:00

Last week I bought something strange: my first ever Benetton clothing, and the first yellow clothing during the last 10 years or so. I just couldn't resist the T-shirts for the global communication campaign of Benetton for this year: Africa Works. Funnily enough, the first place where I read about it was Iltalehti, the second best-selling tabloid newspaper in Finland! It stated briefly that the campaign is hosted by Youssou N'Dour and that Benetton supports a micro-credit project called Birima in Senegal. My Benetton T-shirt cost 17 euros, which is not much for Benetton clothes in general, but a lot for a T-shirt. The money goes probably to the huge advertising budget...

Still, I have to say that I quite like the Benetton campaign - as always, they are skillful at advertising and gaining attention from people. The photos for Africa Works are supposed to present Senegalese workers from various fields who have used micro loans, offered by the NGO Birima, to start small, productive businesses. When I look at the people in the photos, they seem to me both joyous and dignified at the same time: they are proud of what they do, but they don't take themselves too seriously.

Basically the idea of Africa works is "to promote the new face of Africa" (Alessandro Benetton in the press kit for Africa Works, in the photo on the left) and to show that "Africa doesn't want charity, it wants repayable subsidised loans" (Youssou N'Dour in the same press kit, on the right in photo, wearing 'my' T-shirt). 'Birima' represents now three different things: besides being the name of the project, it is also one of Youssou N'Dours hit songs (video in YouTube) originally from year 2000 and re-versioned last February together with Patti Smith and others. But most of all, this whole Birima thing comes from a 19th century king in Senegal, who symbolizes ethics and keeping of promises for the Kajoor people in Senegal. Birima was famous of his carefulness of words: he only spoke once a year to his subjects, hated lying and deceiving.

Micro-credits are not certainly a brand new idea in development work, but one of the most growing branches during last few years, at least. Since I'm not an expert on that area (yet :)), I can't really tell what the actual results of micro-loan projects are. But they seem like a plausible plan: most often the biggest obstacle for ordinary people is the lack of money. You can't really start investing into anything before saving some money, which means that you are trapped. No money, no business - no business, no money. But a loan, instead of just giving money straight away, means that you actually have to work to pay it back eventually. I have been hearing too many times stories about the passivating effects of development aid: why repair a bicycle if you can get a new one anyway from some other organization or government for free?

So, these projects seem to benefit the ordinary, little people. However, as long as the larger economic and political structures stay the same, micro-credits are not going to make Africa work as a whole. Starting a small enterprise does not bring in any money if no-one can afford your products or services. It was already painstakingly notable during my visits in Africa: everybody wants to sell something, nobody wants to buy it. Not even "for a very special price for you, my friend"! For a growing economy you need indigenous middle-class or a very profitable export industry - most African countries have neither.

Nevertheless, Benetton vows to believe in Africa. It is actually amazing how far-reaching this acting as a 'responsible company' is. Ten years ago hardly anyone would have guessed that even the largest multi-national companies are talking about social responsibilities, greenhouse effect and nature protection. The altermondialist pressure groups have succeeded in their efforts, raising consciousness at least. Now what? We just need action, to make the world work as it should. (Come on, join my optimist enthusiasm!)

Photos: © Benetton Group, James Mollison

Harmattan, jihad and ebony curves

2008-03-03T14:58:00.008+02:00

On the airport of Dar es Salaam, on way to Finland from Tanzania I realized that I had packed all my books (which would've all been on Zanzibar / Tanzania anyway, being books for my thesis) in the airplane cargo. Thus I browsed the bookshelves of several gift shops at the airport, wanting to find something new to read for my long journey. I picked up this book because of its unusual cover with a pink mud mosque, men with Kalashnikoves, a tank and the title: "The Lost Kingdoms of Africa - through Muslim Africa by truck, bus, boat and camel". It sounded interesting enough, and I purchased the over-priced book for 20 $.

The title of the book refers to the old, pre-colonial kingdoms especially in West Africa: Ghana, Songhai, Mali, Hausa...all those names we had to learn during the course on the History of Africa on my first year in the university. The author, Jeffrey Tayler, succeeds well enough in capturing the mood and mentality of the people while travelling from Chad through Nigeria, Niger and Mali to Senegal. A citation from the prologue: "Chad, Niger, Mali...lands of famine and drought, Islam and guerilla warfare; in short, sun-bleached, barbarous realms, where, for centuries, exotic kingdoms had flourished and eventually fallen to the sabers of invading Arabs and the guns of colonizing Europeans. (p.1)"

Luckily the whole book is not filled with such clichés, but also with hard facts, impressions, and discussions with local people (mostly men). He is traveling during the season of harmattan, a weird, dusty and hot wind (cold during the night) coming from Sahara. In southern Benin (photo below) it was not that strong, but I could already get a grasp what it can be at its worst: skin dries and turns white (on black people, too); dry, sandy air irritates the lungs and people are constantly sick & sneezing; the visibility is sometimes near zero, and sun is being obscurely shrouded by the harmattan wind. This season, typical only to West Africa, has therefore influenced heavily the grim picture Tayler paints on the Sahelian landscape -another edition of the book is actually called 'Angry Wind'. However, I have to admit that I recollect the same feeling as he does when reaching the Atlantic Ocean again on the Senegalese coast: finally air, humidity, sea breeze!

Tayler highlights on several occasions the damage Americans have done to themselves through politics and war, and he finishes the book with dark predictions on the rise of extreme Islamism in these poor, dry, famished regions. The journey situates in post 9/11 time, and the USA has declared a war against Isl...err, terrorism. Nevertheless, the people used to living under dictatorial regimes sympathise with the author: they understand that most of the time the citizens do not make the decisions, but the government does. One of the most touching dialogues is one between the author and a Chadian, Ahmad, who explains how they have lost their faith in America because of the undemocratic presidential elections: "But think of what it did to us, to those of us who cherished America as an ideal, as the hope for humanity...(p. 53)". Although the beginning and the end of the book are rather gloomy, he marvels at several occasions the warmth and hospitability of West Africans, despite his American-ness.

Besides wondering the welcoming manners of people, there is something Tayler does not leave un-noticed: topless women. Maybe it has something to do with my gender, but I began to feel increasingly irritated while reading recurrent comments on rounded breasts and hips, of sculpture-like shapes, as here while describing the view on the river Niger: "...two naked teenage girls, facing the river for privacy, stood knee-deep in the shallows, chattering and soaping their sculpted ebony shoulders and petite apple breasts..." (p. 206). Or a wondering comment on the beauty of the Songhai girls in Timbuktu: "How many exuberant teenage Songhai girls, unveiled, willow-waisted and swan-necked in sleek cotton gowns, had I seen since arrival? They proudly displayed their beauty. Their hair was straightened and long, or braided into cornrows and long, falling in robust, henna-tinted shocks over their often bare shoulders. (p. 222)" And so on and so on...basically the appearence of young women is in one way or another included in every chapter of the book. Then again, who am I to complain, having loads of photos of people I don't know personally, but which I felt like taking just because of their beauty, such as the lovely hair-dressings below.
Before opening the book I expected it to include plenty of stuff on the fundamentalist Islam, whereas in the actual text Tayler describes the ambivalence and humanity of the people and the travelling in general. Maybe the catchy cover texts are meant to lure people, who are interested in Islamism and terrorism, into reading this book. I for myself would prescribe it as an obligatory reading for all American high-schools, this "voyage into the hinterlands of the human soul" (as described in the back-cover text!). All in all, I found the book entertaining - I read one third on the way from Dar es Salaam to Helsinki and the rest bit by bit, in the evening before going to sleep. Some of the places I had visited and could compare my own memories with those of the author, some were still un-known to me. There are not that many travel books on West Africa, especially on the Sahelian region, and not that many people dare to venture there. It is arguably true that travelling in those regions requires time, money and most of all patience, but that it can be truly a unique experience. Because of these reasons, as much as I enjoyed my travels in West Africa, I would not do it again in the same length. This is why I prefer to grab a book and drown in nostalgia in my warm bed...

Tayler, Jeffrey (2006). The Lost Kingdoms of Africa. London: Abacus. 271 pages. Another review by a Peace Corps volunteer here.

"how much food does 1 person in africa eat" - so who are you anyway?

2008-02-25T21:39:00.006+02:00

What follows is a very unscientific analysis of YOU people! I suppose almost everyone who has a counter on their homepage checks the information acquired of visitors every now and then. I remember some bloggers that have similarly been wondering who are you? (for example here)

Well, according to my counter (the little box on the lower left corner) most of the visitors who end up reading this blog seem to find here through Google, and to stay only for 5 seconds or less (75 % of visitors). Such quick glances could mean that the visitors are either regular readers who are just checking if there are any updates, or alternatively that the googlers didn’t find what they were looking for. But then again, almost every 7^th person spends more than an hour on this blog – I’m impressed! Although two thirds of visitors come from Finland, it seems that I should still continue writing English now and then: the visitor map is filled with red dots from all over the world (see statistics from 100 latest entries below).

Based on the Google search phrases (again, the log for 100 last entries) I could categorize the new visitors into a couple of classes. My last post was about a Finnish, multi-ethnic (a terrible word, isn’t it?) play called Zambezi, sand so it happened that every tenth visitor through Google was looking information on that. Especially from last year my posts on migration and immigration in Finnish, and about black men and white women in English produced a lot of interesting search phrases that I rather not repeat here. Then there are my posts from last winter, during Benin months that still draw people: roughly every seventh googler wanted to know something about Villa Karo or Grand-Popo. I’m pleased that Africa in general was quite well represented: at least half of these last log entries were related somehow to Africa. It looks like often people have been looking for information on travelling: hotels, concerts, buses and other practical information. Hopefully they have also found something appealing, although I’m not even exactly focusing on this very intensive travel diary writing as most blogs on Africa seem to do.

It is also very surprising to put the phrases used by visitors in Google and notice how high in search results this page is with phrases such as “eating meals in Africa” or “bui buis”…apparently people are either very curious or worried about eating in Africa: one of the most common prejudices after "Africa being so dangerous" is that people eat barely nothing there. Or maybe I've just been writing a lot about eating and dressing...very superficial, I'm afraid! At least there are some posts focusing on history and culture, movies & music and stuff like that. I still have some unwritten ideas in my head, on what I would like to write. But it takes some time, being busy with other things (such as my thesis) here in Finland.

Thank you for visiting anyway, and welcome again!

This is Africa on the sand in Pemba, Tanzania.

Visitor search phrases, mostly in Google:

3 7.69% kassandra zambezi
2 5.13% grand popo hotellit
2 5.13% kontakti teoria
2 5.13% kaj öhrnberg
1 2.56% popossa
1 2.56% thomas sankara motorbikes
1 2.56% villa karon ensimmäiset taiteilijat
1 2.56% piraattilääkkeet
1 2.56% erik nygård viulu
1 2.56% is there communism in tanzania ?
1 2.56% mossi music
1 2.56% zambezi näytelmä
1 2.56% docpoint karpo
1 2.56% le tavern hotel pemba
1 2.56% riikka dance
1 2.56% buibui zanzibar
1 2.56% how much food does 1 person in africa eat
1 2.56% riikka fasting
1 2.56% origin of food in zanzibar
1 2.56% sansibar eija ahvo
1 2.56% tanga tanzania german club
1 2.56% zambezi fi
1 2.56% amerikan valloitus ja alkuperäisasukkaat
1 2.56% tavaran tilaus lot for lot
1 2.56% astrid thors
1 2.56% abdul sheriff bergen
1 2.56% villa karo
1 2.56% eating meals in africa
1 2.56% dar - lushoto buses
1 2.56% tapama djenepo
1 2.56% bui buis
1 2.56% niger hotellit
1 2.56% samuli roskilde
1 2.56% vodou practice

Visitors by countries:

67 69.07% Finland
10 10.31% United Kingdom
4 4.12% United States
3 3.09% Sweden
2 2.06% Australia
2 2.06% Tanzania, United Republic Of
2 2.06% Luxembourg
1 1.03% Hong Kong
1 1.03% Mexico
1 1.03% Ghana
1 1.03% Unknown
1 1.03% Canada
1 1.03% Poland
1 1.03% Netherlands

Erilainen on samanlainen

2008-02-17T16:32:00.012+02:00

http://www.kassandra.fi/zambezi/

Eilen näkemästäni Zambezi-näytelmästä jäi jotenkin ristiriitainen olo. Se oli ehkä liian yksioikoisesti hyväätarkoittava ja multikulti-propagandistinen näytelmä siitä, miltä tuntuu olla pakolainen vieraassa maassa. Kulttuurikeskus Stoassa esitetty, Aleksanterin teatteriin siirtyvä näytelmä kertoo ajasta tulevaisuudessa, jolloin Eurooppa on sekasorron vallassa ja suomalaisperhe pakenee huonoja oloja päätyen lopulta lautalla Afrikkaan, kuvitteelliseen Zambezi-maahan. Esityksen vahvimpia hetkiä olivat musiikkikohtaukset (etenkin mainio Satumaa, tulkittuna ensin sekakielellä, josta erotin ainakin muutaman swahilin sanan), lisäksi mieleen jäi pikakurssi suomalaiseen kulttuuriin: "perusperiaate suomalaisten tervehtimisessä on se, ettei tervehditä ellei ole aivan pakko". Kyseisessä kohtauksessa näyttelijät peittivät kasvonsa yksinkertaisilla naamareilla, ilmeisesti esittääkseen geneerisiä 'suomalaisia' - naamareita käytettiin esityksen aikana useampaankin kertaan kuvastamaan mustia ja valkoisia, nimettömyyttä ja erilaisuutta.

Päällimmäisenä Zambezista jäi mieleen maahanmuuttajan identiteetti, joka on ulkopuolisille, ja sitä kautta myös maahanmuuttajille itselleen aina vain maahanmuuttaja. Eija Ahvo aneli ihmisyytensä tunnustamista pelkän maahanmuuttajuuden sijaan, mutta sitä hänelle ei suotu - lopussa suomalaisperhe päätyikin perustamaan "Zambezin ensimmäisen etnisen ravintolan", kun muita rooleja heille ei yhteiskunnassa haluttu tai voitu (esimerkiksi kielitaidon puutteen vuoksi) antaa. Tämä yhteen rooliin - siihen toiseen, erilaiseen, alempaan - sijoittaminen tuo kaikuja 1800-luvulta, feminismin alkuajoilta. Tuolloin Yhdysvalloissa naistenasialiike ja yhteiskunnallinen asema rinnastettiin mustien miesorjien tilanteeseen. Nykyään 'orjan' voi melkein korvata 'maahanmuuttajalla'. Et voi olla pelkkä kansanedustaja, vaan olet MAAHANMUUTTAJAkansanedustaja. Et voi olla pelkkä näyttelijä, vaan olet MAAHANMUUTTAJAnäyttelijä. Samoin kuin et voi olla pelkkä kirjailija, vaan olet NAISkirjailija, tai pelkkä johtaja, vaan NAISjohtaja. Koska sillähän on edelleen merkitystä, eikö niin? Siksi Zambezikin joutuu edustamaan edelleen monikulttuurista näytelmää, ei pelkkää näytelmää. Kun siinä on sellaisia kivan värikkäitä afrikkalaisia vaatteita, erimaalaisia ihmisiä ja soittimia kanteleesta rumpuihin! Tosin itsekin pidin noista poikkeavista ominaisuuksista - todennäköisesti juuri siksi, että ne olivat poikkeavia. Erilaisuus on rikkautta silmille, eh?

Sopeutuminen, ulkomaalaisten vastaanottaminen ja kotouttaminen olivat myös Zambezin teemoissa mukana. Entinen sisäministerimme Kari Rajamäki lähti aina siitä oletuksesta, että jokainen ulkomaalainen on turvallisuusuhka, kun taas nykyistä maahanmuuttoministeriä Astrid Thorsia on syytetty liiasta lepsuilusta maahanmuuttajien suhteen. Missä sitten menee vastaanottopolitiikan raja? Tai mitä kaikkea Suomeen lopulta pääsevien pitää tehdä kotoutuakseen?

Olen itse kokenut valkoisen ihon taakan ollessani vähemmistönä niin Euroopassa kuin Afrikassakin - joskus se on ilmennyt suoranaisena halveksuntana, joskus peittelemättömänä kateutena ja katkeruutena, joskus olen tuntenut itseni ihmisen sijaan pankkiautomaatiksi. Kuitenkin noista kokemuksista huolimatta voisin väittää, että valkoiselle annetaan mahdollisuus sopeutua mihin tahansa (ainakin mustan) Afrikan maahan paljon välittömämmin kuin yhdellekään Suomeen tulevalle (ainakin eriväriselle) ulkomaalaiselle. Omakohtaisesti en tätä voi tietenkään Suomen osalta todistaa, mutta työllistymisen vaikeus tai rasististen rikosten ja sulkeutuneiden suomalaisten yleisyys ovat ainakin jonkinlaisia näyttöjä siitä, millaista on asua täällä ulkomaalaisena. Kuten Iivi Masson blogikirjoitus uusisuomi.fi -sivuilla osoittaa, ei edes suomea osaava ja suomalaiselta näyttävä maahanmuuttaja ole samassa asemassa 'oikeasti' suomalaisen kanssa. Erilaisena olemiseen voi tottua, sen voi jopa unohtaa, aina siihen asti kunnes joku kohtelee sinua eri tavalla siksi, että OLET erilainen. Tai oikeastaan siksi, että näytät erilaiselta.

Yksi olennaisimmista sopeutumissäännöistä lienee kuitenkin se, että tottelee uuden 'kotimaan' lakia. Ehkä tästä suomalaisiakin puhuttaneesta asiasta jatkan ensi kerralla, jottei pituutta tule tekstille aivan liikaa...

Producing Prejudice

2008-02-02T07:04:00.000+02:00

I have lately encountered presumptions about what I am supposed to be like. Funnily enough, they are often correct. For example: we started the Academic English study group by guessing what the other students in the class are studying. As everyone else, I was being examined by other 3 members of my small group solely based on my appearance. Everybody answered something such as: "I'd say you're a humanist, from the Faculty of Arts - maybe folklore studies or something?". Not single one of them guessed even the Faculty of Social Sciences, not to mention Biosciences or anything like that...I suppose I'm that obvious, then.

Another occasion when I was being judged was one Tuesday evening at the Theatre Academy. I went to see a dance performance by their students and being a bit early, I decided to sit a while at the school restaurant. I was just glancing through their menu when the bartender asked me: "Red or white?". (I chose red :)) Or when someone entered a room mostly filled by our students when we were having a party: "Are you like humanists or something?" ("Te olette varmaan jotain humanisteja?").

So it seems that we are easily defined by outsiders. I do it myself, too. If I see someone who doesn't 'look' like Finnish I often start conversation in English. When they answer me in perfect Finnish I feel a bit stupid, really. Perhaps most common false assumption of me is that I'm a vegetarian. I probably 'should' be but I'm not. On a larger scale just as the French 'should' love wine and carry their baguettes in their armpit (some of them do), or as the Americans 'should' always smile and chat with people (some of them do). Stereotypes don't exist for nothing, but judging people only according to one's prejudice is not that fair either. Next time I'll try to write something about the ethnic minorities in Finland - I can admit already that for sure I have still prejudice against them...