Friday, July 15, 2016
My first hero: The knight on a bike
My first experience of racial violence that I can remember was also accompanied by my first experience of justice and heroism. I want to tell you that story.
Just to give you some background, I grew up in a multinational bubble. I've moved around the world from pretty much day one of my life. My first kindergarten was international, even though we lived in Finland at that time. After that, I went to first grade at an international school in Ethiopia, and then one in Zambia, and so on and so forth.
At some stage - I was between 7 - 9 years old at the time - my family came to spend a few months in Finland. My dad stuck me in a local school for a while. We either lived in Zambia at the time, or were about to move there, and my skin was nut brown from the sun. When I am darker, people can't see the European half in me.
I was bullied a lot. But that's not the main focus here.
At some stage when the school closed for the summer, or maybe just the weekend, a few boys from my class came to ask me to go biking with them. When we got to the school yard, they pushed me off my bike, to the ground, and pulled out water guns and shot water at me, taunting me and calling me a refugee (as if that were an insult!).
And that's when something happened, something that has really shaped who I am. A bigger boy swooped in, told them off, helped me to my feet, and lifted my bike off the ground. He asked if I was OK.
The incident taught me something important. It doesn't matter if it's not 'your battle'. That's not an excuse. I wasn't a refugee, so it wasn't technically my battle. But it still affected me, and thus turned it into my fight, whether I wanted it or not. It wasn't my hero's battle either. He had the position of privilege that comes from belonging to the powerful majority. He could have ignored it. He had a choice, and he chose to make it his battle. That's what made him a hero.
And that's the kind of society we should be building. One where people like that little boy step in and stop bullies, because what we are fighting for isn't about us or them: it is about human dignity.
After all these years, I want to find him, and I want to thank him. He was last seen between 1991-93 on the yard of Kirstin Koulu, Suvela, in Espoon Keskus. I guess he was around 10 - 13, so he would be around 34 - 37 now. So please, share this, and help me find my knight on a bike!
Labels: bullying, Finland, hero, justice, rasicm, reward, TCK, thanks
fon @ 5:41 PM link to post * *
Friday, April 17, 2015
Couchsurfing - That sense of goodbye.
My life has mostly been about goodbyes. That'll happen when one hasn't lived anywhere longer than four years at a time. Ever. Maybe 4 and a half. I'm at the verge of something huge now. I am about to do a completely new thing. Namely, if I don't leave Finland by Autumn, it will be the longest time I have ever lived in one place. Nothing will change. And it will be the biggest change in my life.
Although this post is ostensibly about couchsurfing, I suppose what it really is about is finding that elusive sense of home.
See, this big change in my life has brought a lot of anxiety with it, on top of my general anxiety about living in Finland. And my response, without me realizing it, has been to start searching for that familiar sense of 'goodbye'. Thus, the sudden deluge of couchsurfers.
One may argue that what I am really doing is meeting new people - people from around the world - because that's what I'm used to, growing up as an international school kid. But I can meet new people in Finland every day, which is why I say what I am looking for is goodbye.
It is essentially disconcerting for me to wake up and find that nothing drastic has changed. That is something many have difficulty understanding. Many people associate home with a place. I have never had that opportunity. I used to think it was about specific people. My parents, perhaps? But then, they were not ever really a constant in my life. When I had kids and started seeing them more often is when I realized how little at home I felt around them. No, home for me is not even a certain set of people. It is about a state of catharsis. I love you. Goodbye.
But one thing is missing. My own family.
Let's rewind a little bit. Mikko is the first person in my life that questioned the one thing I had never questioned. I used to take pride in the fact that I had been left alone in an unfamiliar country at the age of 14. I had been told it was normal. I didn't question it. Not for a moment. He is what set the ball rolling, and allowed me to look into myself, and find out who I am, and not who I had been told I was. In other words, I finally got to be a teenager ten years after I should have been.
And that's why Mikko became my most important family. He gave me the opportunity to grow into myself, and he loved me for who I became, not who he thought I should be. He is always on my side. By my side. And that is how I want to be with my own kids.
That said, I can't change what I've grown into: a person in need of constant and grand flux. Having people in and out has made me feel more at home. It is also what has inspired this introspection. It has made me examine my sense of family. Thanks for the past couple of months, couchsurfers. I provided you with a bed, but you did so much more for me.
Labels: couchsurfing, goodbye, home, TCK
fon @ 12:27 PM link to post * *