april stuff

New Finnish people have arrived and many have already left. One of the greatest things with my work at Villa Karo is that I get to meet and work with so many different kinds of people. I meet all sorts of Finnish artist in various ages. I have made great friends that I hope I will stay in touch with in the future. Some of my good friends here have been men and women over 60 while others have been in their thirties. Excellent. Time just passes by so incredibly fast. People say “African time” when things go slower and there is no hurry but it seems like days, weeks and months pass by faster in Benin. Very strange. Well, one does say that time goes faster when one is enjoying oneself, it must be that then.

I made a terrible loss a few days ago. I threw myself in Auberge’s little swimming pool to cool off from the extreme heat. I was wearing the bikini I had in Asia in 2004, which I haven’t actually used a lot here. After my relaxing swimming session I took a shower but when I returned to work and was about to put my swimming stuff out to dry I realized the terrible loss. I had lost my bright blue bikini pants. I knew I had left them in the shower at the hotel. Kaisa asked after Marina’s pants the next day but the guys just smiled largely and said that they haven’t seem them. Now we are convinced that one of them are wearing them, which actually makes me giggle. Those bikini pants were not worth a fortune so if some guy in Grand Popo gets a kick out of wearing or selling them at the market I will give him that pleasure. I just hope that I will, one day, know what happened to the bikini pants and where they travelled. If someone meets them on their journey please send them my best wishes.

I have decided to return to Finland in July, work for a month in the archipelago and then see what the next step is. I have simply made the realization that it will be terribly difficult to find an ok-paid job here now and unfortunately I can’t afford to work at one of the women’s organisations a few months for free, which I would gladly do if I could afford it. Many of the very interesting jobs at various international organisations go anyhow through Europe so it might actually be easier to find a job in West African from there, which just feels absurd as one is used to the idea that it is easier to find a job at the spot. It is alright though, august in Finland is great and it will be nice to meet good old friends, family and of course my brother, who complains that I don’t specifically write that I miss him . It will definitely be nice to hang out before the next great adventure.