The Earth Sighs

R-A-I-N. Finally. Finally, rain.

Six weeks and there had been nothing. One morning as I was pumping water from our well (we have no running water at the cottage), nothing left but air. My aunt Liisa tells me that the well has never run dry but that was before this summer and the seemingly endless dryness.

Chris and I stood on the porch of the cottage and the heavy air changed and the heavens were wrung. Down it came. How good the forest smelled and I swear I could hear the ground sigh at last. The water level in the lake was down so low I swear we could almost walk across the lake, no Jesus miracles necessary. Now it's already coming up again. Praise be.

Some weeks ago I decided to check out the local social work office in the small town where we're living. I wanted to find out something about Finnish social work and how it differs from that in Canada. In particular, in a country with such a strong social security system, what is the role of social work (and where are all the activists?). I'm also always interested in what the deal is with immigrants to Finland since our last visit to Helsinski seemed more multicultural than in past years and maybe Finland is changing! The social worker I met with barely looked up from the paperwork on her desk, curtly told me she had no time to talk to me about anything, and in response to my inquiries as to where I might find some relevant literature, she said simply, "You can find whatever on the internet." No websites, mind you. Just that great magical mystery of google and the world wide web. Sigh.

I felt a bit despondent but was just about to get back on my horse when my 'little cousin' (Finnish for second cousin) called me up. We've never met but she'd been in touch with my dad and decided to call. One will find this hard to believe but this woman who has lived her entire life separate from mine, is Jaana Suokonautio, social worker with immigrants and refugees. It's true. We decided we should meet so Chris and I hopped in our Ferrari (read late 90s Ford Fiesta) and here we are. We met with Jaana and a colleague Kati who is the director of Jyväskylä Immigrant Services. We talked for two and a half hours about immigration in Finland and Canada, role of NGOs, roles of different levels of government, service provision, and the rest. Chris and I were impressed and surprised by what we learned. For anyone interested in more details, send me an email at missmiia@yahoo.ca. The rest of you, I'll spare you a long discussion on immigration policy that though I find not only interesting but compelling.

We spent the night at Jaana's and met her two teenage daughters who are both really fantastic. The family is tight and you can tell the girls and Jaana are very close. I liked being here and dinner lasted a long time as we sat, drank red wine, left comfortable silences pepper our talk, and then resumed stories, laughter, and a chance to discover the other. What makes two women whose grandfathers were brothers but who have never met and who have lived in two different countries interested in the same field of work? And do they have other things in common too then?

A small side note here on the name Suokonautio. I recognize that my last name has been the tongue twister to end tongue twisters in Canada and abroad. What most people don't know, however, that it is rare in Finland too. It must have been Jaana's grandfather (if memory serves) who made the initial change from Autio to Suokonautio since it was customary at the time to take the name of the place where you lived and the Suokonautio homestead is on Suokonmäki in the town of Lehtimäki. As such and as the name invention is relatively recent, there are only 60 or so Suokonautios in the world. It does not take a family historian to realize that anyone with the name Suokonautio, then, is probably a relative of mine, most probably a little cousin or something of that order. So it is that Jaana, with a lastname like Suokonautio, is automatically a family member of mine.

Back to our story, then, our plan today is to visit the Immigrant Services office and then head out to the town of Tampere where we're meeting a Ghanaian man whose website we'd found online and it turns out he lives in Finland. We will be picking his brain about Ghana and what to expect, where to work, etc. Then the evening will be at my cousin Kirsi's place with her husband Jussi and their boys Joona and Ville. Then we keep driving South.

Sunday is Chris and my one year anniversary. We are planning to do what we would do every now and again in Toronto - randomly pick a place on the map and go discover it, stay in a cheap hotel, and enjoy the privacy and change of scenery and that someone else will make the bed. A great way to spend our first anniversary. Our paper anniversary.

A big hello out to everyone out there and hugs from this end. The rain is awesome and the cottage is terrific. We owe Reijo and Liisa a lifetime of back massages for this sweet summer of forest, lakes, moonlight saunas, and afternoons on the rocks reading and washing laundry in the lake.

Much love, Miia