It has been so long that catching up will take quite some time, for me to share what has been going on and for you to go through it, so I hope you won't get bored on the way.
Enjoy the ride!
I am no longer at the farm in the North-West of the island, working with cows.
In early December I went to spend my free days in Reykjavik and fell sick in bed. Like in all the times that I was able to take my days off (when I was in Ártún I was entitled to only 4 days per month, which meant that I had to work nearly 4 weeks in a row, without any free day) I could not enjoy and relax, because I fell sick. That time in December, it turned out that I had to spend three days at the hospital. Nothing serious, but it gave me the chance to reconsider my life here and realize that I was pushing myself too hard, physically and mentally. Therefore, I have decided to leave that farm and search for a new path. So, by the end of December I moved to Reykjavik, where I spent three weeks, until I found a new job.
For those who have not been following my adventures by other means, it might sound surprising after reading only the news posted on the blog, but the fact is that enthusiasm and motivation are a huge part of a good experience. That is why, after a while, things started to be more clear to me and I have started understanding what I was living, in a more realistic way.
Now I'm living in the South-East of the island, and that illustrates well the big turn that my life in Iceland took. I came here around the 20th January and, as explained later on this post, I'll be around for quite a while.
I'm working on a potato farm and life has much more quality here. The area is beautiful - near the Vatnajökull, the biggest glacier in Europe -, the people are friendly and caring, the work is good and the salary is also more friendly, I have some free time for myself that I can use however I wish, the small city nearby is really close and I can use the car to go there - to the supermarket, swimming-pool, the Icelandic language course that I started taking... All in all, everything changed, for the better, as it feels.
In one hand, I regret that it didn't work out at the first try. It was not easy to admit that I could no longer bare the isolation, the tiredness and the environment around me in the place that welcomed me at first in Iceland. But after meeting other realities of the country, I get more and more sure that I was oppressively being exploited in some naive way.
It was good while it lasted, but it couldn't last longer and it was the right time to understand and accept it.
At the same time, I am really glad to have met the chance to live such extreme experience and dive deeply into rural life in northern Iceland. That is something that will always be a part of me and only a few people know about it by experience.
Now I'm not working directly with animals, which I miss. The farm where I am, Seljavellir, combines dairy and potato farming. Three children - and their family (wife or husband and kids) of a couple from which only the wife is still alive, manage the farm together, but dividing by "speciality". I am working with the potatoes, with Birna and Hjalti. Next to the house where we live there's the stable with 70 milking cows that his brother is taking care of. I've not been working with them, but I know that it's all different from the place where I was, here most of the processes are automatic, using robots and tractors.
With the potatoes, everything is also mostly done with machines; we wash them, pack, pre-cook and are now preparing the seeds for planting. Last year they harvested 700 tons of potatoes! The farm is providing the whole country, selling them to transportation companies that distribute them all over the island. Although it's not the only big potato farm in Iceland, they say it's one of the best. I get along well with the tasks, although it's a little bit different from what I thought I would be doing in Iceland, I try to have fun with it and I know I'm working for good people, so I have reasons to feel satisfied with the work I'm doing.
Besides this, there's something else going on regarding work. My contract in the farm is until the end of May and they will not need my help in the Summer time. But because they appreciate my work so much and because they are such caring people, they helped me looking for a summer job.
I will be helping managing a Guest House where I will be starting full-time in June and it will go throughout the Summer, until September. For now, I have already started giving a hand to the owner. When he has to be away for some days, he leaves me the Guest House and I take care of it, welcoming the guests and managing the Reception and breakfast. It is really nice to combine these two jobs, the farm and the Guest House, I feel really involved and there's no chance to be bored!
I am really happy, glad and thankful for this new phase of my life in Iceland.
In this moment, I am starting to feel as an emigrant, and not only someone who is spending some time in a different country. It probably has also to do with the fact that I'm becoming aware of the real situation in Portugal and I reconsider the reasons why I'm here and not there now. The motivation for coming was different than what is making me go on in this direction. It gets quite scary to imagine trying to do something in Portugal at this point. People started missing food on their table... But hopefully the situation will change, some how, some day... Have you heard of the demonstrations of the 2nd March? In Lisbon they say there were 500 000 people on the streets, and in Portugal there were 40 other cities with demonstrations. There were also a couple of international cities where Portuguese also expressed their discontentment on the streets.
I know I don't want to get old in Iceland and that, one day, it will make me happy to go back to Portugal and create something worthy and valuable there. But I guess I shall be patient...
What is coming next is written in a form of a chronicle about Iceland. Bare in mind that these are personal observations and opinions, given in a certain period and under certain circumstances (sometimes I might be using a satirical tone, but it has by no means a judgemental purpose, neither it reflects a static opinion):
It is inevitable to mention the weather, so here it goes: to spend the winter here (at least for the first time, when everything is new) is almost a trip to another galaxy ... I never got along with the wind, it makes my head spin even before it manifests. Here I went through storms impossible to describe, but the fact is that here it always brought me a sense of excitement and adrenaline. Little wind is annoying, wind at 30 m/s is an adventure out of a good story book. But I believe it's that way because it is something different for me and it belongs to a place that is not where I originally belong. I've seen snow like never before, to a point where we don't see more than a foot ahead from the nose, as a consequence of the amount of cubic meters of snow that precipitates. Where I am now it almost doesn't snow, even in winter time (although we just went through a snow storm, to remind me that I'm in Iceland!). It's a rainy area, with warmer temperatures. Speaking of temperatures, in Iceland it doesn't get as cold as people not from around here usually imagine, it's far more friendly than we think. They are lucky enough that the Gulf Stream comes this way, which makes the thermometer not daring to go much under zero degrees Celsius. I think that since I'm here the temperature was never less than -6°c / -8ºc. Where I am now it's common to find 5ºc. As for the light ... I believe it is a privilege to spend a December without seeing the sun directly, from then on every December anywhere where there is a little more sun exposure becomes a paradise. It's really strange, but it's still fascinating. Now I feel my mind waking up as fast as it had to go numb. These light changes happen not gradually but quite sudden. From one week to the next you lose or win by 1 to 2 hours of light ... Now I know how it is in the winter, we'll see about summer... in a little while my eyes won't rest and I will have to cover every corner of my window to make-believe that is night time. I admit that I'm so reluctant about the consequences of a summer without night as I was about a winter without day. And to make the weather topic complete, I shall not leave out the beautiful Aurora Borealis, a magical dance of lights that hypnotize. Fortunately I had the opportunity to witness them several times in October, November, January and February. Now we stop seeing them because of the light, but after the summer comes another Northern Lights season.
Iceland is not the "political-economic superhero" portrayed by some "comic industries" that seek to tell the story in a way that bests suits them. With time to take a look at the situation from an internal perspective, I begin to realize the façade and what it's covering. With no intention to take the credits from the movement of citizens who took action on behalf of their nation, which is starting to be publicized in excess abroad for the wrong reasons, freedom is scarce here, as in most countries. There are the big and the small and the country's economy is far from healthy. Fortunately, they recently got the news, from the court of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), that they won't have to pay for the debts of individuals who gave the final touch to the fall of the economic situation of the country, at the expense of having the necessary power inside banks. But by the time the economy collapsed, many Icelanders (mostly young people) turned their back and said they would not be responsible for mistakes that they didn't do, and headed East to Scandinavia. Right now the country is crowded with foreigners (look who's talking) that do the work of Icelanders who left and of Icelanders who stayed but do not want to do the work that there is for the money that there is (the standard of living was much higher than the chances of the country and people, and they became spoilt, used to what they couldn't actually have, in real terms). The standard of living is high, and it's a mystery to me why so many foreigners live here. One possibility I consider is that they first come to see what they will find and eventually raise a family and build a steady base, that ends up competing with a less favourable scenario in the country where they came from and to where it may be difficult to find reasons to return. And moving here is relatively easy, all the paperwork is very simple and by the end of three months almost all people who require kennitala (Icelandic identification) can acquire it if they have an employment contract. However, it starts to become more complicated, as the volume of foreigners seeking for life and work in Iceland is exponentially raising.
At a social level, it is, from my perspective - and there I turn again to the same term - strange. There are two realities, Reykjavik and Iceland. I use to use the expression that says that Reykjavik is another country. A capital, with a third of the population of the island which blends Nordic habits with a large dose of American culture. This is because of the American presence, with the settlement of the NATO base in Keflavik, near Reykjavik, since the 40's until 2006, and that eventually infiltrated in the day-to-day of Icelanders. I have noticed some phenomena of acculturation and it revolts me, to see one culture being blended with another, vanishing and being partially replaced ... Christmas was an eye-opening in this sense, it was good to experience a different way of living Christmas, the first time that I didn't spend it in Portugal, but on the other hand, "Oh my...", such masquerade. And the issue here, as I understood, is that the masquerade is not part of the Icelandic roots, most of the traditions of the country fell into oblivion or were mixed with "american stuff", shuffling the whole history. December's protocol gave a taste of hypocrisy to my mouth during most of the time. But I cannot be sure about how much of this was due to the environment and circumstances in which I found myself.
Many farms are being abandoned. Young people leave to Reyjavik looking for the promised land, and their parents, by the age of 50 and 60, struggle to keep the farm until they can't take it any more. And then, there lays a piece of land that has seen so many things happen, ruins of houses and stables reminding us about Iceland of other times.
Tourism has turned this island into a kind of amusement park, with the main attractions at high prices and the tourists all glad to be shown what they want to see and told what they want to hear. And they come all at once, from June to September. The rest of the year the country is almost forgotten (except for the brave who want to really know the nature of the island and venture into "inhospitable areas", but those are the "adrenaline junkies"). It's not convenient to show the country at a time when the nation is depressed, forgetting the days, getting drunk until they collapse or filling up with steroids and vitamins in a desperate attempt to combat the wintry reality.
Anyway, it might sound too rough as a description of a nation... but regarding these topics, this is what I have seen so far. I am sure that Summer brings a whole new light to Iceland!
I have started reading
a book entitled "The Folk Stories of Iceland", not only with stories
but also with an extended introduction to Icelandic mythology and
folk-story background. Surely it will guide me to other dimensions of
this culture, and I'm looking forward to it.Soon some motion pictures of the surroundings of Höfn and Seljavellir!
I have also some footage from Christmas time that I want to edit as soon as possible. I was willing to write a post about the Christmas Season but with all the changes going on in my life it got lost on the way.
As always, your comments are very welcome! And if you would like to go deeper about any topic, it will be a pleasure, so write me.
Takk fyrir tímann!
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