FAR19.2: Mentunarnáttin (Part Two)

At 7.30, the coolest event of the night took place, as far as I was concerned. I’ve been in the Faroes now for five months, but never seen the traditional Faroese chain dance. I’ve heard so much about it, but our paths have never crossed. It’s performed at cultural events, weddings, parties, and is particularly special to the Faroese as it was their way of maintaining the Faroese language during the years when Danish seriously threatened its survival. But you can see all about that in this video:

Later on, I went to see one of my friends sing as a backing singer at a mini-concert at the home of the Faroese record label, TUTL, which was very cool, and they sang really well.
From there it was on to a Christian concert featuring the band T.O.S. (I can’t remember what it stands for, but when read out it means ‘speech’) who were excellent. Every time I looked at the main singer he was playing a different instrument. After that, the ‘godfather’ of Faroese gospel music, Heine Lützen, played a set finishing around 1am. That was really good too.Shattered, but mega-happy, I headed off home after having had a great time. I know this blog post read a little like a diary, and was perhaps not particularly interesting for anyone other than me, but I need a way of remembering the experience this has become.

FAR19.1: Mentunarnáttin (Part One)

Week 19 of my time in the Faroes was, without a doubt, the most physically exhausting time I think I’ve ever had. Two days running I was working until 2am and getting up at 4am (yes, just two hours later). And I had to do a lot of walking (ruining three pairs of socks). I haven’t known a physical or mental tiredness like it, but thankfully, it has also been an unbelievably productive week. All the same, Friday came and I needed to relax somehow. And coincidence of coincidences, Friday also happened to be Mentunarnáttin in Tórshavn – ultimately not relaxing in the least, but really, really good fun.
I could be mistaken, but I’m guessing that the Faroese Mentunarnátt (‘Culture Night’) is taken from the Kulturnatt in Copenhagen, something I’ve never been to, but apparently it’s quite an event. Here, all the shops in the centre of town were open until 11pm, various shows and displays were put on, entry to museums and galleries was free, there was live music at various venues across the town, and gardens, etc. that are usually not open to the public were free to walk around.

I picked up my Mentunarnátt leaflet with all the events displayed, and worked out what I was going to check out. Most events weren’t until the evening, but I decided to be REALLY cultural and go to the Faroese National Art Gallery, Listasavn Føroya. I have never been to an art gallery in my life, not even the TATE or anything like that, and I felt mighty proud of myself as I strolled through the park to the gallery, not entirely sure I would know how to appreciate the art when I got there.
I had to make it look like I wasn’t only there because it was free: ‘Really? It’s free today? That’s a nice surprise!’ I don’t know why I had to do that, but I just needed the guy behind the counter to know that I’m very into culture and art and all things cultural and arty. I wasn’t allowed to take any photos in there, so I can’t show you anything, but it was actually pretty interesting. Some of it I didn’t get and some I could have done better myself, but there are/were certainly some very talented artists in the Faroes. Are you impressed with me? I think you should be.

From the National Gallery I headed to downtown Tórshavn, armed with my list of things to do and the times to do them.
An unusual sight: the open gate of the Danish Representative’s Residence, enabling us all to look around the gardens – an experience which took all of ten seconds, but all the same, if a gate’s nearly always closed, you’re going to go in there and have a look when it’s open.

Sitting down by the quayside, Tórshavn Town Band (Havnar Hornorkestur) came marching down the road, followed by a mass of people. I met up with some friends and we walked further along the quay to a pretty weird, but somewhat cool, event.
The Faroese population is (from what I understand, but it’s a topic I avoid, because it's none of my business) roughly divided in half as far as calls for independence are concerned. The Faroese rock band 200 is well-known for being very pro-independence, but on this night, they decided they were going to award their own ‘Knight’s Cross’ to two unionists who they considered cool – even though they didn’t agree with them, it should be acknowledged that these particular unionists had destroyed all the stereotypes of unionists, and should be recognised accordingly as ‘coolir sambandsmenn’ (‘cool unionists’). A bit of a bizarre event, but there were loads of people there.
One of my friends happens to be related to one of the cool unionists, so I was able to get this picture of the ‘Knight’s Cross’ itself:

But the best part of the night was still to come...

FAR18.1: OK!

I’ve mentioned on this blog before that now and again I stop and think: ‘How did I ever end up here?’

I had another one of those moments this week, as I was standing on a hill holding a Danish-English dictionary, with one hand on my chin and a man taking a good twenty photos of me. Surreal.

One of the two big Faroese newspapers, Sosialurin, decided to write an article about me and about what I’m doing in the Faroes. The fact I’m from England, have come to the Faroes, have learned Faroese and am now writing about their language situation is apparently a little unusual. Pretty nervous, I walked down to the Sosialurin office in downtown Tórshavn. The guy who interviewed me was really nice and we were talking for a good hour or so. At the end he told me ‘We’ll need to get a picture of you’. That had come as a slight surprise, as I had assumed what he was going to write was just going to be a side column somewhere in the paper. But fair enough, I guessed a little picture would add a nice touch (I can’t say I was completely surprised. One of my friends had warned me that might be the case, and I’d worn my Faroese jumper specially).

What was a surprise was when I walked into the local supermarket on the day the paper came out, to see myself, my dictionary and my chin on the front page, accompanied by the words ‘pages 28-29’ – two pages?! I opened the paper up and saw that my article had indeed taken up two pages, including a huge photograph of me almost covering one entire side. OK! I have to say I was pretty chuffed with the whole thing – the article was really good, and made everything sound quite interesting, which is cool, because often when doing a PhD there are moments when you stop and think: ‘Why?’

That evening I went to a party, as one of my friends had completed his apprenticeship, and another friend said to me, ‘We heard about you on the radio!’ I smiled and said ‘You mean in the newspaper?’ ‘No, they were advertising the newspaper on the radio and mentioned you and the article’. OK!

The next day I checked online to find that, not only was the article also there, I was currently second in their ‘Most read’ column. Two places above ‘Deaths and Funerals’. OK!

Home (and Eurovision!)

London, baby! (Even got a black cab in there!)

I’ve just been home for ten days, and it was great – and unbelievably tiring. In those ten days I managed to fit in five choir rehearsals (three different choirs), a trip to the cinema (the new Star Trek film is really good), a visit to my godson, a meeting with my supervisors, the most productive week I have EVER had in terms of my PhD (with several very late nights up studying, but well worth it) and the Eurovision Song Contest (viewing, not taking part yet). I came back to the Faroes absolutely shattered.

It was nice to be home again for a little bit – although I kept accidentally referring to the Faroes as ‘home’ (‘When I get back home, I can...’) which didn’t go down too well with my mum... But then she did it too (‘We can post that when you get home...’) so we’re even.

Now it wouldn’t be mitchenstein if I didn’t say something about Eurovision, although I would just like to point out that not being able to vote in the Faroes wasn’t my reason for coming home.

So let me just say that I thought it was the best Eurovision yet – the songs were much better and the staging was jaw-dropping. It was great to see the ol’ United Kingdom doing so well!

But the night belonged to Norway, and in particular, Alexander Rybak:
The dancer closest to Rybak looks like he’s been dropped.

So I’ll finish with a few comments:

1. The French entry made me feel sick. Wouldn’t you clear your throat out before singing?

2. The Russian entry was the worst thing ever. And not just on TV (hat-tip Chandler).

3. I thought Iceland were really good – but I reckon quite a few Icelanders were glad the Norwegians were there...

4. No Terry Wogan! Finally that moron’s out of the picture. Graham Norton was so much better. The funniest line of the night was when the woman from Montenegro was giving her country’s points (‘That’s either a national dress... Or a horrible dress’). But you had to be there.

On my way home, I had a few hours to spend in Copenhagen – unfortunately it was really hot (not usually a problem, but I was dressed for the Faroes), and all the shops were shut as it was some public holiday (Ascension Day, I think). But it was nice to have a look around:

And somebody has obviously spent a lot of time and effort on these trees by the Danish Parliament (unless they grow like that), so I thought they deserved a photo:

FAR17.3: Driving in My Car (Part Three)

FAR17.2: Driving in My Car (Part Two)

PS. It's 7,000 (You'll see what I mean).

FAR17.1: Driving in My Car (Part One)

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?