Turku Archipelago and the Fields
Turku Achipelago
Terzani
Perché le parole di Terzani colpiscono così a fondo? Perché parlano al cuore, vengono dal cuore. Affrontano le nostre incertezze, le nostre debolezze, la nostra paura atavica della morte, ridimensionano la civiltà occidentale e la confrontano con un Oriente con la O maiuscola. Un’ Asia che, nonostante progresso e sviluppo economico, riesce a mantenere una dimensione spirituale. In alcuni paesi più che il altri.
Home and World Cup
This is how it feels. These are the moments when I miss home, Italy. I am writing from Finland, nice summer evening, sun falling slowly at the horizon, families in these block houses where we live that are having dinner. In few minutes will start the final of the World Cup, Italy-France. I know I will miss the Italian summer, the voice of TVs coming from neighbouring flats where the open windows make fresh air to flow in the rooms. TV getting louder the closer the match, friends gathering together to watch and shout and curse. This is what I miss now. While living abroad often it is easy to compare and write about what works here and what does not work back home. But these are the moments when I feel I pay the price. I miss the friends, the possibility to go to a bar to watch and exchagerate every comment, the glass of wine, the talks, everybody transforming himself in the Italian trainer. I do not know how it will go, in the end it does not matter so much. But if Italy scores, I will have the same feeling as in the semi-final: two minutes to go before the end of the second extra time, Grosso on the right end side of the penalty area. Converge to the centre; kick the ball with his left foot. A smooth shot that goes right in the goal, too far for the goalkeeper, the net that moves as wind. I stand up, got o the balcony, wanted to shout and what I can hear is the great silence of the night, a distant silence. Though inside, I heard the shouts from home.
Home and the World Cup Final
This is how it feels. These are the moments when I miss home, Italy. I am writing from Finland, nice summer evening, sun falling slowly at the horizon, families in these block houses where we live that are having dinner. In few minutes will start the final of the World Cup, Italy-France.
I know I will miss the Italian summer, the voice of TVs coming from neighbouring flats where the open windows make fresh air to flow in the rooms. TV getting louder the closer the match, friends gathering together to watch and shout and curse. This is what I miss now. While living abroad often it is easy to compare and write about what works here and what does not work back home. But these are the moments when I feel I pay the price. I miss the friends, the possibility to go to a bar to watch and exchagerate every comment, the glass of wine, the talks, everybody transforming himself in the Italian trainer.
I do not know how it will go, in the end it does not matter so much. But if Italy scores, I will have the same feeling as in the semi-final: two minutes to go before the end of the second extra time, Grosso on the right end side of the penalty area. Converge to the centre; kick the ball with his left foot. A smooth shot that goes right in the goal, too far for the goalkeeper, the net that moves as wind. I stand up, got o the balcony, wanted to shout and what I can hear is the great silence of the night, a distant silence. Though inside, I heard the shouts from home.
Mountaineering or Editing
I am working on my PhD dissertation. The last stage. Putting things together, trying to fit into a readable text experiences, books, articles, and data collected during the last four years in Cambodia. I have met many people who have gone successfully through this stage and they all described it as a difficult, challenging, intense, lonely, frustrating time. However all agree that it is worth it.
I have been thinking which metaphor better describes this period. I am divided between two: the mountaineering or the movie editor. I have not yet decided which one is the most suited.
Let’s start with the mountaineering one. The whole research process is like going uphill; however the climbing gets really steep only in the end. At time sit is possible to see the top, but the come the clouds to cover it. Then again, another sunny day, the top still there. Solid, not to far, but still a steep climb. Then again clouds and sun. I started the last stage with a heavy rucksack on my shoulder. Too heavy, in fact. I brought too many clothes, tent, trangia, shoes, etc. While climbing I decide to leave things on the way that I may or may not recover when and if I will come back the same way. Day after day I have the feeling that I have the right amount of stuff in the rucksack, but you can never be sure with those clouds coming and going.
I am not a movie maker and neither and editor, but I certainly like movies. I imagine the making of a movie. Kilometres and kilometres of film that is recorded: lines with actors, landscapes, details of a house, the skyline of an American town, the sun and clouds, the wind moving tree tops. All this to be the moved around in the editing room to make the story. Find into all these kilometres of film the right shots, images, lines, actors’ expressions to make the final story. This is more or less what I am doing now: search in all the papers, books, articles, digital data, hardcopies, and choose the quotes, the references that will support my ideas and make the story about Cambodia and their people that I am writing.
Yet I ma not sure what is the most appropriate metaphor. I have the feeling that once I reach the top of the mountain, I will see many more mountains all around me, until the horizon. All the things that, through this research, I leaned I do not know and would like to know. In the editing room, the kilometres of film can get entangled and something useful and interesting that I once noted down, may slip away in the pile of the material I will not use.
What to do? I do not have an answer, yet.
Civility
Oggi sono rimasto senza parole a pranzo. Ero la Ministero degli Affari Esteri per un meeting con la perosona che segue i progetti di Werde. Mi ha invitato a pranzo alla mensa del Ministero. Un altro collega viene con noi. Una bella mensa, self-service, funzionale, pulita. Ci sediamo. Parliamo di sviluppo, progetti, Cambogia. Dopo qualche minuto, mi accorgo che Erkki Tuomoja, Ministro degli Affari Esteri, si avvicina vassoio in mano, la tavolo del pane e si prende un paio di fette di pane nero. Si siede ad un tavolo qualunque e scambia qualche parola con un commensale. Termina il suo pranzo e porta il vassoio al nastro che serve per trasportare le stoviglie usate in cucina. E se ne va. Io guardo i miei commensali: tutto normale. Normale? Da noi sarebbe possibile?
Altra sopresa questa sera a casa. Accendo la televisione. Danno un servizio nel quale una telecamera ed una giornalista seguono la giornata di lavoro del Primo Ministro. Ha un auto blu e autista, ma noente altro: niente codazzo kilometrico di auto la seguito. Il servizio segue una serie di appuntamenti, meeting, fino a quando alle 17:40 il Primo Ministro va a casa. Una volta arrivato, scende, entra in casa: Esce con abiti sportivi e va con suo figlio al supermercato a fare la spesa! Esce con due sporte in mano e parte con la sua auto per tornare a casa. Adesso, é vero che era un documentario, nal quale ha magari voluto fare vedere che si in casa aiuto, ma dopo il pranzo la ministero penso cha a fare la spesa ci vada davvero. Magari non tutti i giorni, ma abbastanza spesso.
Io mi chiedo:perché da noi questo senso civico (civility), di semplicitá legata al proprio dovere e alla propria funzione sono cosí diversi? Magari qui non sanno che cosa é il prosciutto, magari mangiano male, ma forse hanno altre lezioni piú importanti da dare.
Ciao
Sunny Days
We came back from Italy. Just one week outside Finland. We came back and the snow was gone. Roads are now clean. The park nearby our falt is now cleared and soon it will become green again. Olga can play in the sand and run. She has to wear less clothes and this makes things easier for her. I like this time of the year in this country. Everything is like weaking up after a long sleep. We meet young parents in the yard playing with their kids and it is easy to talk with them. The sun sets already at around 10 in the night. It is possible to go for a run in the forest after dinner when Olga is asleep. I will go also tonight and explore the longer path that is without snow. I will let you now later on.
Civility and a Stapler
I told already about the reserved character of the Finnish people and my impressions after jumping from Asia and being back here. But what about civility? Here I believe this country can give lessons to many others. Here’s a small example. Every morning I go to the University to work on my dissertation. I arrive at the main entrance. Lock my bicycle. Enter the main lobby. Get to the right to take the stairs to the lower floor. Next to these stairs there are several PCs used by students to check emails, few photocopy machines and a round black table with a stapler. A simple office stapler, on the table for the students to staple photocopies or PC print outs. The weirs thing to me is that the staple is there and is not attached to a chain or a lock or anything to prevent it to be stolen. It is just there, on the table. In the lobby where hundreds of students walk in and out every day. I cannot prove it, but I believe that the same stapler would not last more than five or ten minutes is this would be an Italian University. This is just a small example, but I thinks it tells a lot about the sense of civility that Finnish people feel and have. A sense of civility and also of responsibility that makes the stapler to stay there where it is, up to the efficiency in public offices and of the national administration. Some may say this is a small country with few people. But I think there is more than that and more importantly there is a lot to learn.
Have a Chat!
So what to say? It now three months we are back in Finland after so many years in Cambodia and the real impact of change starts to become more vivid just now. One main difference which is very easy to spot is the silence in public places, the soft noise in the streets where cars run modern engines that are almost noiseless. Then there is the silent and reserved character of the people. This is not so easy to take after years in a country where all these noises create a daily background that is part of life. Here (meaning Europe) is different and people keep things more to themselves. That is why it is not so easy to start a conversation with a stranger or also assist to conversation between people who speak the same language. This is the also enhanced by the fact that, for example, in the train many people now listen to mp3s that cut them out from the surroundings.
Three daisy ago I went to the laundry room of our blockhouse. It was 8 o’clock and met there a guy from Tanzania who was doing the morning cleaning. “Good morning”. “How are you?”. “Where are you from?” ” How long have you been here?” The usual questions with the usual answers about the long winter and the cold. The usual chat between foreigners. And being foreigners makes us foreigners all equal over here and therefore easy to start a small conversation. It helps to break the ice.
I left the laundry and on the way up to our flat I though about my conversation. It was good and reminded me of how easy was to talk with foreigner strangers in Cambodia. Over there the usual topic where the heat, development projects, Cambodian people. Easy because we were all in the same boat. Here the same. We foreigners in this country are all in the same boat. But at the same time I felt that there was something more.
Maybe it is me who does not make enough effort. Maybe it is me who should not assume that a Finnish person does not want to talk to a stranger. It is probably me who has to change a bit the attitude and see what happens.