FAR16.1: Family Fun in the Faroes

So this weekend my parents and my brother came out to visit me. My parents have been here before (see here and here), but this was Paul’s first time on the Faroes. And I think they made a good impression! (The Faroes, I mean, I don’t know what sort of impression my family make).

The weather leading up to their visit had been fantastic for about three/four days. Good weather doesn’t usually last that long here, so when a guy from the Army said ‘I fear this weather won’t hold out’, he just confirmed what I’d been thinking. Although rain is all part of the Faroese experience, when you only have three days in which to show someone as much as you can, it does make things difficult.

But the weather did hold out – in fact, as you’ll see from the photos, it was excellent!

After making everyone walk a lot on Thursday, on Friday we set off to the metropolis of Klaksvík (the Faroese second town with a population of just under 5,000) and the village of Viðareiði. My mum fell in love with the village last time she was here, and we now have a big picture of the church in our dining room at home, so she really wanted Paul to see it:

Back in Klaksvík, my mum was rather taken (read ‘confused’) by this statue: Actually, if you look between the rocks, you’ll see the Logos Hope, which stopped in Klaksvík for two days before setting off to Belfast.

We were having a great time, but I was very conscious that although this was the first time for everything for Paul, my parents were getting pretty much the exact same trip they had last time they came. Consequently, we decided to hire a car and check out the island of Eysturoy on the third day. Driving round the north of the island, we passed Risin and Kellingin. According to legend, these two rocks were a giant and giantess who were trying to pull the islands over to Iceland. The giantess tried to climb up the mountain to attach a rope, but the mountain cracked (see it?). When the sun came up, the two of them turned to stone...

Our main destination was the village of Gjógv, often called the most beautiful village in the Faroes, and I think you’ll see why from these two pictures: Whilst in Gjógv, we ate at a fantastic guesthouse, where we were presented with all kinds of Faroese speciality. We were a bit taken aback when we went in and the guy said ‘So what would you like?’ No menus, no specials, nothing, just whatever we wanted. You don’t get that too often at home! Come to think of it, I should have asked for a Big Mac.

Back in Tórshavn, we caught the procession marking Flag Day (the day when the Faroese flag was officially recognised by the British in 1940, as the flag of occupied Denmark could no longer be used): It was a really nice weekend – although very tiring – and hopefully they enjoyed themselves as much as I did!

FAR15.2: Back on the Hope

The leaders of the Logos Hope boat ( see here) decided to invite leaders and representatives of various churches in Tórshavn and the surrounding islands to meet together one evening while the boat was docked here. Somehow – I don’t know how I get into these things – I was one of the representatives of The Salvation Army. Five of us from the Army were there, and it was a really good night. The ship’s galley provided food for us (and man, if the meals are always like that, then the crew certainly aren’t slumming it), and then we went to the church area of the ship for the evening’s meeting.

This is a guy from Malaysia who hosted the evening – he was good – and the interpreters did a sterling job, particularly when a guy from Australia, the speaker for the night, got going (the poor Faroese guy having to translate ‘tall poppy syndrome’ on the spot)...

Various people spoke, and then a band from the Faroes played and we got to have a sing along (this was ‘How Great Thou Art’, but you knew that): There was a slight moment of panic as the Australian decided we should get into groups of three with people we didn’t know, which isn’t actually that easy in the Faroes. As it was, the other two people in my group of three were related. As soon as he said ‘Ok, get into your groups’, various people made a beeline for me, saying ‘I don’t know you!’ but I got through it.*

Anyway, it was a great evening and I got to meet some really nice people – the guys in my group were both very nice (and complimentary about my Faroese, which pretty much makes me like anyone). After travelling to Belfast and Dublin, Logos Hope is on its way to London for the second half of June. If you get the chance, go and have a look at it and find out a little more about what they do (although they’re going to be a little disappointed if they’re expecting a band to play, crowds and a welcome from the Prime Minister when they arrive...).

*I should just clarify this: obviously not everyone knows everyone in the Faroes, but it is remarkable how quickly you get to recognise people’s faces – that man works in the library, she works in the tourist office, etc. And when a group of church leaders get together, they’re going to recognise each other. I’m sure people here know me as ‘the English weirdo who hangs around in bookshops’.

FAR15.1: Suðuroy

Back in November I made my first trip down to the South Island, Suðuroy, to stay with some friends and visit the second Salvation Army corps in the Faroe Islands (see here). This last weekend saw me go back to Suðuroy, together with the band from the Salvation Army in Tórshavn, to lead a music festival down there. I didn’t actually take too many photos there this time (I hear a sigh of relief), but I’ll just write a little bit about what we got up to.

After arriving very early Saturday morning (the journey only takes 2 hours, but when you had to get up at 5am, it feels quite an ordeal), we travelled around the island putting up a few posters advertising the concert. Unfortunately it turned out there was another concert in the north of the island the same night, but I’m sure they felt just as threatened as we did.

As the rehearsal wasn’t until late afternoon, a couple of guys from the band very kindly offered to take me sightseeing – I’d seen quite a lot of the island on my first visit, but I had been hoping to get to the village of Fámjin, on the west coast of the island, to see the original Faroese flag, which is displayed in the church there. A student from Fámjin designed the flag in Copenhagen in 1919 – you can’t say you don’t learn stuff here. The guys from the band very kindly said they’d take me there. After a little drive, we arrived in the very picturesque village, and found the church. I say ‘found’ the church, but that wasn’t particularly difficult when the village had about twenty houses, which were centred around the church:

Another group of home-grown tourists arrived just before we did (the village is something of a Mecca to Faroese living further north) who discovered for us that the church was locked. But all was not lost, as there was a perfectly good view of the flag from outside: (As nice as the flag is, I can’t help but think they rejected one of the earlier designs a little too quickly...)

From Fámjin we travelled down to Akraberg, which is the southernmost point on the islands:

This is me wearing the jeans that I’m using as a half-way point to skinny jeans...

Before heading back to the corps, one of the guys, Ole, wanted to track down a geocache. Now this was a word I’d never heard before, but it’s a kind of cool idea. All over the world people hide these geocaches, a kind of box, and record their co-ordinates on a website. Others then have to try to find these geocaches using GPS. Upon finding one, you write something, or leave something, etc. (there’s a range of options). Ole had heard that there was a geocache on Suðuroy, and as something of a keen geocacher, he wanted to find it – and find it he did (after a fairly dangerous stretch over the side of a mountain):

And he got the certificate for being the first person ever to find this geocache. I don’t think it’s a hobby I’ll get involved in, but trekking over the hills, looking for this thing with the GPS system on Ole’s phone was actually kind of exciting.Anyway, the concert went well – I was asked to sing, and I sang ‘Because He Lives’ (that song has fantastic words) – and we ate a LOT of pizza afterwards. Next morning we caught the ferry at 7am, and still made it back for the morning meeting at the Salvation Army in Tórshavn. How good are we?!

FAR14.3: Logos Hope and A Nice Surprise

Do you ever get that happen, where you have to go to some kind of event, and you’re not particularly excited or thrilled about it, but then it turns out that you have an absolutely excellent time and are probably a little better for having been there?

Yes? Well, that’s what happened to me.

Our bandmaster asked us whether we were able to play at the arrival of a boat in Tórshavn. We would have to stand at the side of the quay and play a few tunes as the boat came into dock. Yes, I was available, but it didn’t sound particularly exciting. Apparently the old Norröna that used to sail between the Faroes and Denmark/Norway (there’s a new one now) had become a ship which was used by Christians and it was coming home to the Faroes before continuing on its travels. That was all I knew.

This is me walking from the car to the quay, not really knowing what the point of this whole event was. I think I capture that look well:

The quay had been nicely decorated with Faroese flags. We started playing a few tunes, and rather a lot of people started to turn up. Including the Prime Minister, and I began to realise that this might be a slightly more important event than I’d thought.

After about twenty minutes, this huge boat came into sight and into the harbour (clearly, these next two pictures were not taken by me): On board, I could see hundreds of people, with flags from all over the world. They were cheering and screaming and waving and it all got pretty exciting: As the boat pulled in, the Prime Minister (there’s something about that guy that makes you want to be his friend... And he used to play in the national football team, but that’s not particularly relevant here) and Mayor of Tórshavn gave a speech, the Faroese sang their national anthem (very nice) and the Captain and someone else from the boat gave speeches, made presentations, etc.

The Prime Minister welcoming the ship to the Faroe Islands: After a little bit of waiting, we were invited on board, and I had an excellent time. As it turns out, the Logos Hope, as it’s now called, is owned and run by an organisation named OM (I want to say that stands for Operation Ministries...) and Christians can volunteer to spend anything between two months and two years serving on board in some capacity. The boat sails around the world aiming to spread hope (the Christian message, the sense that people aren’t alone), help (in whatever way they can) and information (by providing books from ‘How Things Work’ to religious books to dictionaries) to the people in the harbours it docks at. We saw pictures of them helping in the Philippines, India, Indonesia, everywhere. The crew of 400 represents a whopping 45 countries, and – as anyone who knows me will know – meeting people, Christians, from all over the world was a bit of a highlight for me. The ship does a fantastic job and it was very hard to leave that boat and not feel inspired. The fact that the boat continues to sail under the Faroese flag was a real source of pride for the people here. The fact that their tiny country is the home of a ship that they know so well and yet does such fantastic work has really caught local imagination, and I reckon you’d be hard pressed to find many people in Tórshavn that didn’t visit Logos Hope during the week that it was docked here.

This is three of us from the Army with a really nice girl from Siberia:The fact that I was in my uniform was also pretty cool, as I had a fair few people ask me about, mostly from countries where the Army is little known, and I was able to speak with them about it (I knew me knowing the name of The Salvation Army in a load of obscure languages would come in handy one day!) and it also meant that people who knew The Salvation Army already were able to come and chat with me about it. Excellent!

It just shows how you have no idea how some things are going to turn out.

PS. I have to say I was a little disappointed with the effort from the UK flag waving team...

FAR14.2: Happy Faroeaster! (Part Two)

As at home, Easter Sunday here begins with breakfast at The Salvation Army. It’s one of my favourite things about Easter at home, and I was actually really looking forward to it, although slightly concerned about whether or not I’d wake up in time (as the libraries and shops, etc. open at 10am, I’m not generally used to being at places really early*). As it turned out, I needn’t have worried, as another church near where I live – whose members are evidently holier than us – were up and about (loudly) at 5.21am. I’m sure that’s not the time they were actually meeting – who arranges things at 5.21am? Who arranges things at 5.anything.am? But that’s the time I jumped out of bed and looked at my clock, panicking that I’d missed Easter breakfast.

The Easter Bunny didn’t seem to know I was in the Faroes, so he didn’t leave any eggs here for me, but I had spent my entire month’s food allowance on this little chocolate egg, so I didn’t miss out:

Easter breakfast was really hugnaligt. That’s a word we don’t really have in English, but it translates at cosy/pleasant/lovely, etc. Actually, I’d enjoy any event where someone gave me a hard-boiled egg, but it was really good. We sang the classics (‘Up from the Grave He Arose’, etc. but in Faroese, something we very rarely do at home...) and ate ourselves full – I’d already had two Cadbury’s Cream Eggs by that point anyway.

After the breakfast, the band went to play outside the hospital: I really love doing this sort of thing. We should be seen on Easter Sunday.

Some friends invited me round for Sunday dinner (I’ve been very lucky in that respect ever since I arrived in the Faroes), and after dinner we went for a little drive north of Tórshavn. Beautiful, isn’t it?

After Easter Monday’s morning meeting (hardcore, aren’t they?) I went for a stroll around Tórshavn with Henrietta and Sámal – the weather was great. We were looking for somewhere to get lunch, but were a little put off by the £25 price of the buffet at one restaurant near the corps. Everywhere else was shut, so we raided the fridge at Sámal’s parents’ house.

Later on, some of the young people from the corps got together for pizza and to play the Faroese board game ‘Manna’ – and it was a great end to what became a really hugnaligt Easter-time.Hope you had a great Easter too!

*In my defence, I do generally stay at the libraries until 8pm, so I do work fairly long days!

FAR14.1: Happy Faroeaster! (Part One)

Firstly, I hope you had a great Easter!

I knew that a week after arriving, I would have the chance to see how the Faroese celebrate Easter. Well, evidently, they celebrate it behind closed doors with their families. As I mentioned in the last video, the entire country shut down for five days, from Maundy Thursday to Easter Monday, and the people seemed to disappear. The streets were empty, the shops were shut, as were the libraries and the university, bus services were either irregular or non-existent, I had no internet access, and although there was a meeting every day at The Salvation Army (apart from Easter Saturday), I was a little concerned about how I was going to fill my days...

But it actually worked out rather nicely in the end. I managed to get lots of reading done (so I’m doing particularly well on my new year’s resolution to read more books) and it was nice to go out walking and see places I hadn’t been to before.

So, on Maundy Thursday, I set off on one of these walks, and the results of that were in the last video. Here I am half-way up the hill, and I think I’m doing a pretty good job of not looking absolutely knackered.

Back home, Good Friday always starts with hot cross buns, but they don’t have those here, so I assumed that was a tradition I was going to have to skip this year – but little did I know. My parents had actually sent me a little envelope with the writing ‘Not to be opened until Good Friday’ on the front. I’d had no idea what was in the envelope and opened it first thing Good Friday morning, and there were these little marzipan hot cross buns: I was mega-impressed!

Good Friday evening was actually really good – after the meeting, I went to a friend’s house with loads of people from the corps to celebrate someone’s birthday, and then four of us went to a Christian concert at a huge church on the island of Eysturoy. There were various Faroese Christian artists – all very good – and the words were there for us to sing along. And sing along we did.

Easter Saturday saw me take another big walk, and I went to have a look at the Vesturkirkja (Western Church) in Tórshavn. It’s a pretty weird building you can see from pretty much everywhere in Tórshavn, but it has a certain charm...:

Part Two to follow...

FAR13.2: Greetings from that Day Before Good Friday

The sound of the wind blocks out my voice for a few sentences, but they’re not particularly important ones, so that’s OK. Well, actually, in the grand scheme of things, very few of the things I say on here are of particular importance, but I do it all the same. :)

FAR13.1: Can This Be Right?

Back to the Faroes

I should really be packing right now. I set the evening aside to pack, and have done nothing. D’oh. This weekend I’m flying back to the Faroes. The beginning of April has come around very quickly...

I absolutely love the Faroe Islands. It’s a beautiful place – wherever you are, you can almost always see stunning views of the sea or mountains. I love the laid-back life style, the people, the language. I love the capital, Tórshavn. But, if I’m really honest, I don’t quite feel like going back just yet.

Those of you that read this blog regularly, of have at least read some of my more recent posts, will know that I recently got a gospel choir going at my church, and it’s been going really well. At the first rehearsal I was hoping we’d get 15 singers, and now, just three months later, we’re almost up to 40. We did our first concert the other week, and there were nearly 180 people there, which was fantastic and much more than I could ever have hoped for. Things are taking off, and I don’t really want to leave it just now (although it will be carrying on, which is a GREAT relief – and I’m very grateful to those who are helping me!).

But there are some good sides too – the last few months have been majorly busy, and it will be good to get away for a little bit and concentrate on my work. I’m also going to use my time away as an opportunity to get fit – when I was last there, I was doing sixty press-ups a morning. Sixty?! Can you believe it? I did one the other day and nearly flatlined. Since coming home I’ve put on a whopping stone and a half or something like that, so it’ll be good to get that sorted out – it’s a great place to go walking, or maybe even running... we’ll see how that goes.

Me eating my last pain au chocolat from Whistlestop. Seriously, you have to try one of those – the chocolate is proper hard :) None of this soft chocolate rubbish...

It’ll also be very cool to catch up with my Faroese friends again – so many people were really good to me when I was there before, so it’ll be great to see them. I’m interested to know how I’ll get on with the language once more. Plus it’s always fun to be the weird outsider who doesn’t really get the jokes and says stupid things. Maybe other people who have lived abroad will confirm that for me: sometimes you just say really ridiculous things, because they’re things you CAN say, and then you think ‘Man, these people must think I’m an absolute moron.’

For example, I once had this conversation while walking along:

Man: Do you have pavements as wide as this at home in London?
Me: I love Tórshavn.

And at least going back to the Faroes means that Liz won’t have to change my name on her list of friends who blog (‘Faroe John’).

And I left my favourite jumper there.

So keep checking back for the updates, videos, etc. And feel free to drop me a line and let me know how life’s going for YOU!

All the best,

John

PS. Sometimes I like to write blogposts a bit like letters... This was one of those times.