A boyband from Pahaniemi*

on By

In this photo my friend is playing flute and I am plucking balalaika, wearing a tatar hat. Judging from my facial expression, we never excelled as a band. But I did like to perform. My grandmother taught me vulgar folklore songs with double meanings and I would entertain the adult audience without really understanding what I was singing. I remember that in the summer my uncles would provoke me to sing some of those songs at the beach just to embarrass young women. #Metoo had not yet been invented. I would also climb up on our rooftop, particularly on Saturday mornings, and sing popular hits to anybody who would come to the grocery shop next to our flat.

*My childhood home was located in a neighbourhood called Pahaniemi. It would perhaps translate into Wicked Peninsula, or Evil Cape.

Open air gym

on By
My Grandfather, one of my uncles and me.

In summers our courtyard was a training ground. My uncles were semi-professionals in boxing, which resulted in a bookshelf filled with trophies rather than books. It fell into my responsibility to polish them twice a year with toothpaste and a rag.

Once my cousin and I were taken to a boxing club (perhaps we had asked for it) and very unsurprisingly, and contrary to my cousin, I did not have it in me. I was more interested in animals and preferred to research for example the community of small Egyptian ants. Our apartment was in a house which had a grocery shop at the other end of the building and the tiny red ants had arrived in a shipment of oranges and nearly invaded the entire house. 

The owner of the grocery shop had a boy of my age and sometimes we would sneak into the storage room of the shop from our boiler room and eat toothpaste. But most of the time I would behave. I was a very easy child, and definitely not a boxer type.

الكالفالا

on By 1 Comment

Akseli Gallen-Kallela :لوحات

 تُرجم شعرنا الملحمي الوطني إلى العديد من اللغات ، وكذلك العربية. أتذكر من المدرسة ، حيث قرأنا أجزاء من كاليفالا، أنني لم أفهم دائمًا كل شيء بسبب لغتها القديمة. نشأت القصص من الفولكلور الشفهي والأساطير التي جمعها إلياس لونروت في الجزء الشرقي في فنلندا. تم نشره لأول مرة في عام 1835

مبروك للمترجم العربي سحبان احمد مروة! تلقيت نسخة من هذا الكتاب في عام 2007 واستغرق الأمر سنوات عديدة قبل أن أكون مستعدًا لدخول عالم

كاليفالا باللغة العربية

هذه مقدمة صغيرة لبعض الشخصيات من الكتاب

أوككو

رب السماء و الرعد

فيناموينن

بطل الرسمي مع قوة سحرية

يعزف آلة موسيقية تقليدية ويستخدمه كسلاح

يذهب إلى بطن العملاق لاستعادة الأغاني لبناء القوارب

البحث عن الزوجة العنصر الرئيسي

إلمارينين

بنى قبةالسماء

بنى زوجة وماكينة النقود “سامبو” من ذهب

ليمينكينن

رجل وسيم وقح ومتهور

يوكاهاينن

شاب يتحدى بطل الرسمي فاينمينين في مسابقة غنائية ويخسر

يعد أخته بالمقايضة لإنقاذ حياته

لوهي

عذراء الشمال، أم شامانية. تسبب الكثير من الانزعاج لأهالي كاليفالا

كولرفو

يبيعه إلمرينين كعبد

كولرفو هو شاب مضطرب يقتل زوجة إلمارين وينتحر

مارجاتا

عذراءكاليفالا الشابة التي تحمل عندما تأكل اللينغونبيري

فيناموينن يحكم على ابن مارجاتا بالإعدام لأنه ولد خارج إطار الزواج

ابن مارياتا سيتوج ملكا للكاليفالا وفيناموينن يغضب. يترك كاليفالا ويترك أغنيته و آلته موسيقية كإرث

Frozen laundry

on By
My Grandmother, our dog and me

This photo was taken in the late 60’s on our courtyard. It’s a very familiar view in which we are standing in front of some frozen laundry. My grandmother has dyed her hair blond and I am patting our German shepherd. I remember how the frozen bed sheets were like large pieces of cardboard when they were taken in. 

Further at the back is a river and an airport for small aircraft (not really seen here) that was closed decades ago. We are looking in the direction of our home that has since been turned into a Kebab restaurant by a Kurdish immigrant.

Turo

on By
Turo & me

I have only very few photographs left from my childhood. I remember we had a metal box full of miscellaneous photographs but I don’t know what happened to them when my grandparents passed away. The box had the image of Mona Lisa on the lid. 

In this photo I am sitting with our German shepherd called Turo. He did not live for many years and I remember my Grandmother say that someone poisoned him with rat poison, out of envy. I have a vague memory of the day when he died, everyone cried. I was also told that he protected me against strangers, and particularly on one of my solitary walking trips with the destination of  “Egypt”. It was just a couple of kilometers away from home, an area in which I had seen pyramid shaped enormous piles of stones right next to a steel factory.