The Finnish Passion for Cross Country Skiing

It seems strange to be posting about cross-country skiing now when it is May and almost 20 C outside. But I have been so busy this past year that I have not had time to blog. Where I live there is a lot of green space and nature paths. The Finnish winter is great for cross-country skiing as there is always so much snow. In the winter, when there is enough snow and it's cold long enough, the city plows tracks in the snow along the walking paths for cross country skiing. I can literally leave my house and step onto the ski trail and I love it! My first winter in Finland my husband taught me cross-country skiing and I fell in love with it. I sometimes joke with my friends that one day I will train to be the first person to represent Trinidad and Tobago in cross-country skiing in the winter Olympics. Lol! I enjoy the feeling of freedom and being part of the nature. It is a total body workout that is easy on the knees. Every winter after my first ski session I ache all over.

When the city makes the tracks it seems everyone comes out to ski. It's especially crowed on sunny winter days. I guess Finnish people find it strange to see a black woman cross-country skiing because other skiers always stare at me. Many times people even stop to talk to me and offer me skiing tips. It seems cross-country skiing is part of the Finnish fabric somewhere next to sauna. Children are taught to ski from an early age at school. I have seen first and second graders in groups, skiing down the tracks with their PE teachers. Cross-country skiing, or maastohiihto as it's called in Finnish, is not just a sport but a means of transport. My mother-in-law tells me stories of how she skied to school as a child. There was no school bus back in the days. When Trini grandparents talk of walking to school for miles, Finnish grandparents talk of skiing to school for miles. The Finnish history books even tell of Finnish soldiers silently sneaking up behind the enemy on skies during the winter war with Russia in 1939-1940.

Alas now it seems summer is here, and while I am enjoying the warmth and the sunlight, I can't help but miss cross country skiing.

Ski trails in my neighbourhood. Sorry for the poor picture quality but my phone camera is crap.

Me skiing.

Day of National Jealousy

Every year a list of the nation's highest earners is published in the daily newspapers. The list also discloses the amount of income they made and how much taxes they paid. Last week Monday the Finnish tax authorities published taxpayers earnings and the newspapers promptly summed up the top earners.

This is something very Finnish, for I have not heard of this phenomena in any other country. Usually one's income is considered a private matter so data on income and taxes are not publicly disclosed in most countries. I myself don't really care how much someone else earns and I don't understand the need to post it in the newspapers.

The discussion for many people for weeks after will be why and how can one person make so much money. The implication being, that it is wrong and sinful to make more money than everyone else and that person must somehow be exploiting the system and others. One co-worker summed it up perfectly when she called it the day of "national jealousy". I guess that's basically what most people feel when they read the list of top earners. In a country where most people are middle class and where everyone should be equal, the fact that someone is earning much more than everyone else really sticks in the craw.

Here is a link to a news article about the list of Finland's top earners in English. According to this article publishing people's salaries may become a thing of the past, if new EU regulations limiting the dissemination of tax data come into play.
Finland's Top Earners

And here is a more extensive list and breakdown.
Big Tax Data Reveal

There's no corruption in Finland.

Finns say there is no corruption in Finland, and while the levels of corruption are definitely much lower than in the rest of the world and Trinidad, today I read proof that there is corruption in Finland.

I came across an article in the Helsinki Times about the former head of the Drug Task Force Jari Aarnio. He has been charged with several drug related crimes and misuse of his position. The article reported that a cell phone used to make drug deals was recently found in his garage. The phone was found some time ago at a site of investigation and later disappeared from the police's evidence room. Sound familiar Trinis? It has now been found in Aarnio's parking garage. In addition to aiding drug dealers in smuggling hashish to Finland from the Netherlands, he also supposedly obstructed justice by tipping off his collaborators to prevent them from being caught, and by threatening a witness. He sent criminal gang members to visit the witness and they threatened to kill the witness's family. He also placed a gang member in the cell next to the witness while he was in jail. The article reported that he even hired a prostitute who said she was taken to his office during work hours. He reportedly had sex with her while working and taking care of his official duties at the same time. Talk about multitasking! This article sounded like something I would read about in a Trinidadian Newspapers! This must be why Finland has slipped from number one in the corruption index to number three.

Finland slips in corruption index

So don't believe the hype, it's not true. There is corruption in Finland. It's just less and well hidden. Trinis are just more brazen with their corruption.

Here are the only two articles I could find about Jari Aarnio in English. They are a year old and don't mention the new evidence and witness statements I read about today.

 Prosecutors demand a 13 year sentence for Aarnio

Cash stash found at home of Jari Aarnio

Roti in Helsinki

I've been so busy I haven't blogged in months. So many ideas so little time! However, I thought I should find the time to briefly let you know about a little venture I undertook over the weekend.

On Saturday I hosted a pop-up restaurant on Restaurant Day here in Helsinki. With lots of help from friends, I made fifty bite-size rotis to sell. I kept it simple since I sold them in a park, and made basic plain rotis (dahlpuri roti is too much work!) with curry chicken, potato and chick peas inside. So just a one-pot filling. I am happy to report they all sold out in approximately two and a half hours and everyone said it was fantastic. Even the Trinis said it was good, so that is high praise.

If you don't know what Restaurant Day is, it's a food carnival started in Finland a few years ago where anyone can have a pop-up restaurant and sell food. It is now held four times a year and has spread to many other countries and cities around the world.

For those of you who are wondering what roti is. It is traditionally an Indian dish consisting of a flat bread (called roti). Wrapped inside could be any curried vegetables or meat of your choice. Trinidadian cuisine is heavily influence by our large Indian population and roti is one of our most popular street foods. Indians were brought to Trinidad in 1839 by the English as a cheap labour force to replace the recently freed slaves on their sugar plantations.

Restaurant Day was a very positive experience. We were happy to represent Trinidad and Tobago and we were gratified that the public loved it. I even met a new Trini who said she came all the way from Porvo to taste my roti!

In Finland they spare the rod without spoiling the child.

"Spare not the rod and spoil the child" is a biblical saying that’s very popular in Trinidad. Corporal punishment in the home is now illegal in forty countries. Trinidad is not one of them. However, this practice is tabu in Finland and has long since been discontinued. In contrast, every now and then some Trini Facebook friend will post a video of some child doing something wrong and will ask if that child shouldn’t be spanked. One video was of a teenager being spanked with a belt for posting semi-nude pictures on FB. Almost all the Trinidadians commenting are usually in favour of spanking. When I argued against spanking I have gotten replies like: "We were spanked and we turned out OK" or "Spanking is the only thing that works". My mother-in-law was horrified when I told her these stories. In fact physical punishment already began to lose favour in Finland in the previous generation. Only one of my friends reports being spanked by his father and he is still angry about it. When I comment on my friends’ posts I cite current research findings explaining that physical punishment actually does the opposite of what parents are trying to achieve and may even lead to mental problems and delinquency. http://edition.cnn.com/2014/07/23/health/effects-spanking-brain/ . Still, Trinis will argue that spanking is good for the child.

I have never liked being spanked and already as a child I knew that there must be a better way to teach children to behave. I remember wondering how a spanking would help me to learn anything else other than how not to be caught next time. I don't understand how anyone who has been spanked can do the same to their children. But I do understand that if you have been given no other example to follow you will probably fall back on the same methods your parents used. The fact is, spanking in the moment is easy. But long-term, strategic, non-violent parenting is more difficult and takes more work and patience. When my Finnish friends talk about ways to get their children to behave, it seems that using non-violent methods comes naturally. One of my friends was asked where she came up with all these parenting tricks and she says she doesn't really know. “Probably my parents did the same with me” she replied. But for someone like me who grew up being spanked and hearing things like "children should be seen and not heard", "children don't have feelings", and my all time favorite, "because I said so!" non-physical child rearing methods do not come naturally. That’s why I read countless parenting books. Because of all the research I do on parenting, people probably think that I am a “helicopter parent”. But the truth is 1) the scientist in me has to research every topic of interest and 2) I don't have non-physical disciplining examples from my own childhood. So basically most of my ideas on child rearing have come from books.

What I really like about Finnish child rearing is that parents believe it is possible to teach correct behaviour without spanking. In Trinidad people seem to see child rearing as a power struggle where parents are the master and children are subservient. Here, child rehearing is about building trust and teaching children correct behaviour, not forcing them to do what you say through fear of violence. Finns think the point is to teach the child so that later they can make the right decision on their own when the parent is not around. That way the parent does not always need to be looking over a child’s shoulder with a big stick for them to behave.

Of course one and two year olds are not at the developmental stage to understand and be reasoned with. But there are methods and tricks like distraction etc. which can be used until the age at which you can reason and teach consequences. The point is that there are other methods besides spanking that work. And if you really want to find a non-physical method of child rearing, you can. There are many resources out there, TV (Supper nanny), websites and blogs, and parenting books. I found that many of these methods work and I haven’t needed to spank my child to get her to act appropriately. Of course it’s not easy and children will not always behave like angels even with all your best efforts. But that’s life.

Contrary to popular belief sparing the rod has not made Finnish children spoilt. In fact, at one of our “family birthday parties” where there were eight children of various ages, my Brazilian friend remarked on how well behaved Finnish children were in comparison to Brazilian children. I had to agree that I had not experienced such well behaved children in Trinidad either. Finland also has low rates of delinquency and crime. So maybe there is something to be said for not spanking your child. And maybe children will act better with gentle treatment and positive reinforcement.

The Talkative Finns

This week I saw a video of Jimmy Kimmel talking to a couple of his audience members who were from Helsinki, Finland. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvidoBBJSRA
In the tradition of great Finnish men like Mika Häkkinen and Kimi Räikkönen these guys were brief and to the point with their one syllable answers.


Finns are not known for the art of small talk like Americans or the English. In fact the idea of speaking uselessly is anathema to them. They really encompass the idea of "If you have nothing useful to say, then say nothing". For instance there is a classic joke about the taciturn Finns which goes like this:

Two Finnish men, Jukka and Pekka, go ice fishing. They fish in silence for a long while and eventually Jukka asks "So how are things?"  Pekka doesn't answer and they continue fishing in silence for some more hours. Then Jukka asks, "So how is the family?" At this Pekka gets angry, stands, up and shouts "Did we come here to talk or to fish?!"

Of course this joke is an exaggeration and there are always exceptions to the rule. But it is true that Finns simply say what they mean and mean what they say. Finnish men especially follow this rule. This also means that Finnish men are not good at "sweet" talk. And many people especially men need a few drinks in order to open up to strangers and talk, or to approach a woman. That's why Latin men are very popular amongst Finnish women and Finnish men hate them. Haha!


For a Trini who likes to talk, in the beginning my interactions with Finns felt awkward at times. For instance, at one of my first work places in Finland we would regularly have lunch together. Quite often there were long silences during our lunch especially near the end. Everyone was content to sit there just staring at each other for long stretches of time which made me uncomfortably try to fill the silence with my chattering. Eventually I grew used to it and also began to be content to just sit there in silence for a few moments with my colleagues.


Trinidadians talk a lot and we are loud. Up until now, I have what is considered a bad and rude habit by Finns, of talking on top of others. This is actually a survival tactic because in Trinidad, especially in my family, you will never get to say your piece if you don't talk over everybody else and louder than them. The last time my husband and I visited Trinidad my family had a gathering. My husband thought it was insane how everyone spoke at once and so loudly. He thinks it is an incredibly inefficient mode of communication. Maybe he is right. Finns will wait patiently for their turn to speak and if you keep interrupting them, like I do, they stop speaking. When they do speak it will be concise and to the point.


 I remember a funny anecdote about a trip to Barcelona my husband and I once took. We stayed with a friend who was a native and she showed us around. The Spaniards are lively, talkative and loud people. I think they may be even more so than Trinis. We went to a house party with my friend. As we entered, the noise level was beyond that of any Finnish house party just from all the chattering. My husband spent quite a while in the hallway just inside the front door before he could acclimatize himself to the noise level and start interacting with these incessantly chattering and gesticulating people. And let me tell you my husband is not the stereotypical quiet Finnish man but, even to him this was too much.


After living here for almost twelve years I must say I have grown accustomed to the "silence is golden"  mantra. I no longer always feel like I have to fill in the silence when I am in a group of Finns. And my brain gets tired when I am with my relatives for long periods of time because of all the noise and endless talking.

Christmas Culture

So an old school friend of mine on facebook recently posted "Culture is really something yuh know. Who remembers seeing their neighbour still painting their front wall at 4.30 Christmas morning with a torch light for illumination?" And it started me thinking of the Christmas cultural differences between Finland and Trinidad.

I so do not miss Trinidad in that respect. When I look at my Finnish mother-in-law slaving away in the kitchen for two weeks before Christmas preparing ginger bread cookies, plum pastries, Christmas casseroles and all those goodies it makes me tired. I could not imagine how it would be if she also had to clean the whole house top to bottom, mop floors, polish them, clean windows and shine them, change and wash all the curtains, dust everywhere including under the bed, and paint the whole house inside and out like we did in Trinidad?

Wherever did this tradition come from in the first place? This is just another tradition created to kill wives and mothers and harass little children. Because in the old days maybe the husband would paint but you think he would do any of the household cleaning? No! Not men's work. So it was the women who did all the cleaning and roped the children into helping. So our Christmas holidays away from school consisted of helping mommy mop, dust, polish, scrub and paint. As I am writing this I am having flash backs, like the remnants of a bad trip, of Christmases past when I sat outside in the hot sun on a stool painting the front gate. I ponder the uselessness of it all when children should be outside learning through play (I love that Finnish concept). Instead we re-paint the entire house even if we have to beg borrow or steal to afford it, just to keep up with every one else in the neighborhood.

Needless to say I am not doing that. And I especially love the fact that nobody here is expecting me to do that. I enjoy my freedom to just worry about the usual cleaning and the making of the Christmas foods which in and of itself is more than enough trouble in my mind. Especially when you have little children. I think it is more important to spend time with my child than worry about having a spick and span house for Christmas guests.  The only thing that I may be made to feel guilty about is not making all the Finnish casseroles and ginger bread cookies and plum pastries by hand. But I long ago stopped feeling guilty about that. I was recently told by an older work colleague that "You can't buy the Christmas casseroles, you have to make them yourself, it's just not as good". First of all, as an immigrant I have a built in excuse. I am not expected to know how to make Finnish Christmas food. But as I said earlier, it is more important to be rested and happy so that I can spend quality time with my family, rather than being a tired and cranky mess. I learned from my mother-in-law, who is quite the homemaker and enjoys it, not to do the same. As she is always tired and complaining of an aching back after Christmas and spends most of her time in the kitchen instead of with the children who fly across the globe to spend Christmas with her. To her it makes sense, but to me it doesn't. And I have noticed that nowadays a lot of younger Finns feel the same as I do. So I am not alone in my freakish foreign ideas. 

But the Trini habit of totally redoing your home and making all the Christmas foods, foods too many to count, is just too much. What with all the black fruit cake which must be prepared in advance as the prunes have to be pitted and soaked in liqueur with raisins, currants and cherries weeks before the actual baking of the cake. Then there is pastels where the meat filling has to be cooked, then corn meal based dough has to be made, separated into balls, rolled out and the filling added. Then each is folded individually and wrapped in a banana leaf, and foil and steamed. This process takes all day! There is also the sorrel making, which requires pitting those horribly prickly seeds from the sorrel flower (I shudder at the memory of having my little hands pricked) and boiled with spices then strained, cooled and sweetened. The pigeon peas stew which needs to be shelled first before it can be cooked. Another labour intensive en-devour. Not to mention the macaroni pie, ham, bread, turkey, calalloo, rice and salads that have to made all to be inhaled in under an hour at the Christmas table. The preparation of this feast usually began weeks in advance and culminated after midnight on Christmas eve. How did our parents ever have the energy to deal with us children on Christmas day I don't know. We Trinis take this Christmas preparation thing to an extreme. An extreme I gladly enjoyed as a recipient when I was growing up but refuse to bother with as an adult on the other side of the fence.

Here once again I have a wonderful built in excuse. I live abroad so I can't get calalloo, pigeon peas or sorrel. No one here knows about pastels and black cake so no one is the wiser that I have not bothered to make them. When I remember how my parents used to criticise the neighbour's "blender" calalloo (as opposed to using a swizzle stick, Google swizzle stick if you are not a Trini) and pastels with a press (as opposed to using a rolling pin and folding), implying that their cooking was inferior. I laugh at the stupidity. As we grow older we realize the adults are not as clever as we thought. I think this whole Christmas mania that adults put themselves through for Christmas around the world is silly and the Trini Christmas mania is the silliest of all. I can say this because I am a Trini!

P.S. I made fish sticks for lunch today on a Sunday not the whole "Sunday lunch" (macaroni pie, peas, rice, salad, meat roast or stew for those of you who don't know). In fact I rarely do except for on the occasional nostalgic Sunday. Another Trini slave-driver tradition that no one here cares about and won't judge me for. Ha!

How Finnish do you have to be to be considered Finnish?

A Somali who grew up in Finland was on a television talk show panel this week talking about Islam. No I am not about to blog on Islam or any religion for that matter. But she made an off topic comment that got me thinking. She said although she was originally from Somalia she had moved here at the age of two. Consequently she spent all her life in Finland, grew up in Finland, speaks Finnish and identifies with Finland. She also said she and her family had adapted and assimilated to the Finnish lifestyle and culture yet she was always considered an immigrant. She said it seems that if you don't look like the stereotypical "ethnic Finn", white with blond hair and blue eyes, you are not considered Finnish. Her comment made me ask "How Finnish do you have to be, to be considered Finnish?" Will my daughter ever be considered Finnish?

There is a sort of mindset in Europe, but especially in mono-cultural Finland, that if your forefathers aren't from here and you don't look ethnically Finnish then you are not Finnish. It is a mindset foreign to us from the western hemisphere. A Brazilian friend and I once had this discussion. In our countries it didn't matter what someone looked like or where their ancestors were from, they were seen first and foremost as a Trinidadian or a Brazilian. It comes from being from a country where everyone's heritage is from somewhere else. We naturally assume someone is a Trinidadian or Brazilian until they say otherwise. Here it is the opposite.

Even my husband who is white with dirty blond hair, but his father is Hungarian, is sometimes introduced as "Robert who is half Hungarian". Or "This is Robert, his father is from Hungary". The first time I heard someone introduce him like this I was bewildered. I didn't understand the need for the explanation/qualification of where his father was from. To me he looks Finnish, sounds Finnish, thinks Finnish acts Finnish therefore he is Finnish and should just be introduced as Robert.

And these stories of Finns assumed to be immigrants because they look Latino or Asian or Middle Eastern are quite common. I was on the bus one day and a lady I had met at the local perhetalo came on the bus with her child and the stroller. Her child didn't want to sit in the stroller so they both sat on a bus seat while the stroller stood in it's designated space. When they were getting off the bus an elderly woman said " You foreigners should do like everyone else and ride the bus with your child sitting in the stroller!" She assumed my friend was a foreigner because she looks Latina as her mother is Colombian and she has dark hair and brown eyes. But the lady was born and grown in Finland! At work I have a co-worker who was adopted from Vietnam and she said she gets the assumption that she is a mamu (Finnish slang/derogatory word for immigrant) all the time. Even my open minded husband has made the mistaken assumption that someone is foreign based on how they look and I have to correct him. I guess this way of thinking is the consequence of still being such a mono-cultural country with very little immigration.

So my question is how Finnish will my daughter need to be to be considered Finnish? If she is born here, raised here, speaks Finnish without an accent, thinks like a Finn and acts like a Finn will that be enough for her to ever be considered Finnish? Or will Finns always assume she is an immigrant based on how she looks? Hopefully in the future mindsets will have changed.

Summer In Finland

So it's the middle of October and though summer has long come and gone in Finland I am finally writing this post which I meant to do since June! The summers in Finland are very short, basically only two months. That may be why Finns seem to worship the sun in the summer and are always outside. People walk around half naked already at 19 degrees centigrade! You will sometimes spot young women in pum pum shorts with a little of their butt cheek on view.

Finns who are usually quiet and somber during the summer are a bit more outgoing and smiling. I am sure it has to do with the sun. 

In the summer, on good-weather days, the parks are all full. There is always some happening in the city. There are many concerts and festivals and many of them are free. Everyone is always grilling, at home or in the park. It's the only time of year my husband cooks regularly because that's when he can grill. People try to find activities to do which would require going outdoors. Going to the beach, drinking in the park, fishing, sailing or biking. Any excuse to be outside really. I guess because the sun is so seldom available you have to take it when you can. When I first came to Finland in the summer of 2002 my husband begged me to go do something outside everyday. I didn't understand why he felt the need to go out every day. Now I do. In Trinidad we try to stay out of the sun as much as possible. You tend to change that Trini mindset once you experience one winter here.

Many people spend their summer vacation at the family summer cottage. Traditionally it's some ancestor's humble house on the lake, handed down through the generations while everyone migrated to the cities. The basic cottage has no running water or electricity but water can be had from a well or nearby lake. But many have been "pimped" or "tricked out" to contain all the modern luxuries. Nowadays many people buy a cottage of their own. Other people choose to go abroad during the summer. While most of Europe takes their summer holidays in August, Finns take theirs in July, as July is most likely to be the warmest month of the summer. However, his year the warmest month was June with a couple weeks of close to 30 degrees centigrade weather. At the same time it was rainy in Central Europe and cool in the southern countries such as Spain. This was highly unusual for June.

This year we went to the Taste of Helsinki food festival where you can try food from some of the best restaurants in Helsinki. It was a beautiful warm day and I really enjoyed our "date". I think this is the day I enjoyed most this summer. Here are some photos of that beautiful Helsinki summer's day.

The University of Helsinki's main building at Senate Square

                                                               Thai cultural festival

                                                   Street performers

                                               The Lutheran Cathedral at Senate Square

                                                                  Orthodox Cathedral

                                                   We had a beer at this boat bar

                                                            View from boat bar

Will the Royal Babies of Europe Start Sleeping in Cardboard Boxes?

My first ever blog talked about strange Finnish parenting habits like putting our babies to sleep in cardboard boxes. Recently BBC ran an article about the Finnish maternity package titled "Why Finnish Babies sleep in Cardboard Boxes"  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22751415. The Finnish welfare department said that after this article they got many calls from around the world asking to buy the maternity package. Here is what's in this year's maternity package: http://www.kela.fi/web/en/maternitypackage.

Now it seems the royal babies of Europe may start sleeping in cardboard boxes because the Finnish state has recently given the soon-to-be parents, Prince William of Britain and his wife Kate, a maternity package and its associated mattress and linens as a present. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-23138306. Finland reportedly also sent the crown Princess of Sweden and her husband a package when they had their baby last year.

According to the BBC article, the idea behind offering a mattress in the box so that it could be used as a cot, came about to encourage people to put their babies to sleep in it's own bed and to stop the "unsafe" practice of co-sleeping. The article goes on to chronicle the history of the box and it's origins and how it evolved as a means to encourage healthy parenting habits such as seeing a doctor for prenatal care (you don't get the package unless you see the state doctor), breast feeding (they do not include bottles or pacifiers) and care for the environment (they include reusable diapers).

So maybe this trend of the maternity package may catch on around the world with a few governments starting a similar program. Maybe in addition to seeing other Finnish babies in the same clothes as mine and knowing what year they were born, I may see the royal babies of Europe sporting the same Finnish baby clothes as mine. Or maybe I should start a business buying and selling the same products in the box to people abroad ; )

Difficulties of the Finnish language.

I have always thought that my moving to Finland where I have had to learn Finnish is divine retribution for all the pain I caused my French and Spanish teachers in school. At that time I never saw the need to learn a foreign language and so I never really studied or paid much attention in the classes. Consequently, I barely passed these subjects in school.

Cue six years latter and I move to Finland where I have had to learn Finnish. One of the most difficult foreign languages for English speakers to try to learn according to the Language Difficulty Ranking put together by the US State Department’s Foreign Service Institute, FSI. 
http://www.effectivelanguagelearning.com/language-guide/language-difficulty. 
Local news channel YLE has written a short article about how difficult it is to learn Finnish.  
http://yle.fi/uutiset/finnish_among_most_difficult_languages_for_english_speakers/6690499 
I didn't need to learn Finnish to live in Finland because most Finns speak very good or fluent English. It is mostly the older generation who do not speak any English. As a small country Finns think it important to learn a foreign language in order to manage in the wider world. And since the lingua franca of the twenty-first century is English everyone speaks it. Also luckily for me I work in such an international field (scientific research) that English is widely used at work and it was not necessary for me to learn Finnish in order to find employment. But my mother and father-in-law do not speak much English and if you live in a foreign country it is wise to learn the local language. And so I did. I took approximately three years of Finnish courses and learned even the most complicated grammar construction of literature and poetry. But for the life of me, I couldn't express myself, because I never used the language. When I decided to apply for Finnish citizenship I was forced to practice the use of the language in order to pass the test for the language requirement. That's when my Finnish language ability really developed. Finnish is very difficult for English speakers to learn because the grammar and structure is totally different to English. There are no articles. There is no gender and hän is used to mean both he and she. There is no future tense. Tulen can mean both, I am coming right now, or I will come tomorrow. The language uses double letters a lot which can change the meaning of a word if you pronounce it wrongly. For instance Tuuli means wind but tuli means fire. Words can become extremely long because the tenses and cases are expressed by adding various suffixes (of which there are fifteen) instead of prefixes. You can read about the fifteen cases and suffixes here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_noun_cases.

Consider the longest word in Finnish: lentokonesuihkuturbiinimoottoriapumekaanikkoaliupseerioppilas. Which means technical warrant officer trainee specialized in aircraft jet engines, and is supposedly actually used by the Finnish Air Force. It consists of sixty-one letters! Now try saying that word while drunk. It's a skill even few Finns can master. On the other hand Finnish is very easy to pronounce or spell once you get the hang of it because the words are pronounced exactly the way they are written. There are no silent letters or endings like in French. Finnish people have a hard time learning French for this reason. There are no same sounding words with different spellings like, meat and meet. Is it any wonder J.R.R. Tolkien was fascinated by the language and used it as his inspiration for Elvish? Though my Finnish has vastly improved over the last five years, I would still not consider myself fluent in the language. I come across new words I don't know on a daily basis and I make grammatical mistakes. On a bad day when I am tired or my brain stops working I have a hard time stringing two words together in Finnish. So nowadays I can shop, order, watch TV, listen to the news or radio, read simple news articles, have conversations with friends and write e-mails and simple notes in Finnish. Because most Finnish people realize theirs is a complicated language they are usually pleasantly surprised and happy when a foreigner can speak their language. Knowing that their language is only used by Finns in Finland and is therefore not a particularly useful language to learn they are happy that you even bothered to try. I am praised all the time for my faulty Finnish skills because there are many English speakers who never bothered to learn Finnish even though they have lived in Finland many years. My parents-in-law on the other hand are of the opposite opinion and always criticize me for not speaking better Finnish after living here for almost eleven years. But it is really hard to improve when it is so easy to be lazy and speak English and when everyone usually switches to Finnish if they notice you are having trouble. Many times people answer me in English even when I have started the conversation in Finnish! 

I have made colourful gaffs like saying pakolainen (refugee) when I meant pakollinen (mandatory), or lihavia (obese) instead of lihaksia (muscles). It's a complicated language which I doubt I will ever truly master, but after my near failing grades in French in school, I am never the less proud of my Finnish skills. 

Daycare in Helsinki

So I started working again so my daughter is now in daycare. Most of the day care centres here are state run and operated. So the standard of care is pretty uniform. There are some private day care centres but they are mostly specialized in that they use a special method or philosophy in child rearing, like Steiner or Montessori. Or they teach the children a foreign language or about ecology and nature. Because the day care centres are state run they are subsidized and cost a maximum of 263 euros a month. Depending on your salary you may pay less or nothing at all. And some mothers who do not work also put their children in daycare. The private day care centres cost more. But you can get some financial support from the state to pay for the private daycare. So many of the English language centres I called cost between four hundred to seven hundred euros after state subsidies. 

None of the English speaking daycare centres are close to our home and they are a bit expensive in my opinion so we opted for regular public day care. It has been almost three months since our daughter started day care and it has been great. I was worried that I was not doing the right thing by sending her to day care at one and a half years old. Because all the child development experts say it is best for small children to be at home with their care giver until up to two or three years old. And for the first two weeks it really tore my heart to see her cry when we left her. But it has been the best decision we could have made. She loves it there and she is learning so many new things. Her Finnish vocabulary is growing very rapidly and she can now count from two to ten in Finnish (not that she understands what she is saying). She has also learned to drink from a mug by herself.

She is so active and social that it is the best place for her to be as there are lots of people around and lots of things to do. They sometimes take trips to the library or the marketplace square or nature areas. And last month the entire day care centre put on a circus performance for the parents.

The daycare centre opens at 6:15. We drop our daughter off at 8:00 at which time they feed them breakfast. After breakfast they read, sing nursery rhymes, count, talk about the weather, the day's schedule and play games. Then they play outside from 9:30 to 11:30. 11:00 is lunch tim and then the children nap from 12:00 to 2:00. They have a snack when they wake up and then go outside to play again until we pick her up. There are also 24 hour day care centres for parents who do shift work. All the meals are provided by the day care. They have a cook onsite who cooks all the day's meals. The meals are regular home cooked Finnish food like fish soup and berry fool. The personnel all seem very nice and Emilia sometimes cries to see them leave in the afternoon or when she leaves to come home with us. But she always has a big smile and happy greeting shouting "moi!" when we arrive to pick her up. I think that the day care is worth every penny and I am very satisfied with it thus far.

How to dress a Finnish child for all types of weather

The Finnish daycare centres let the children play outside for much of the day. If they are not eating or sleeping they are outside. So a Finnish parent has to have a variety of clothing to suit the four seasons of weather which sometimes all occur in one day. Though the calendar says it is officially spring in reality it is still the dead of winter here and although it was +5 degrees Celcius one day a couple weeks ago now it is snowing and -18 degrees again! So we still have to wear our winter clothing. To give you an idea of what outdoor clothing a little child in daycare needs I have taken pictures. These are the clothes I put on over her regular clothing.

So basically her outdoor clothes consists of: one pair of 100% woolen mittens worn underneath proper insulated winter mittens, two pairs of 100% woolen socks, 100% woolen jumper, a woolen balaclava hat (it negates the need for a scarf), a winter jumper which is made of windproof, slightly waterproof material with an inner insulating layer and of course insulated winter boots two sizes bigger in order to accommodate all the socks!

Then when spring really comes it will be rainy and wet. So I will have the added challenge of dressing her for cold/chilly and wet weather. I will dress her in something like this: a rain jumper lined with fleece, a fleece jumper underneath when it is cold, rain gloves, maybe the woolen under mittens from above if cold, rain boots with warm socks inside, and a hat. It may be that on a really cold spring day these rubber boats may not be warm enough so I am thinking of buying these:
http://www.reima.fi/en/collectioneng/footwear/boots They are very warm and water proof.

Then there are the wind breaker jumpers for when it is chilly and or windy and maybe slightly wet but not rainy. These are useful also in the summer as the summer can sometimes be disappointingly cool and or wet.

The day care center asked that we leave a spare pair of rain boats and outerwear in case they are not dressed for rain and it rains. So I left some plastic rain pants and coat in her cupboard at day care. She should be ready for anything now. Some of these pieces of outdoor clothing are not cheap but luckily I got many pieces from my friends. She has already outgrown some of her outdoor clothes. So this could be an expensive proposition to buy two of these winter jumpers and under jumpers each year. You Trinis don't know how lucky you have it!

Alas life for my little girl will never be as simple as her mother's was. There will be no running outside, clad only in a diaper, to play. But fortunately she is an active child and loves being outside no matter the temperature, rain or shine.

Could human warmth and interaction be worth more than gold?

Recently the results of a gallup poll listed Trinidad and Tobago as the fifth happiest nation in the world based on feelings of well-being. In the poll people were asked questions such as if they smiled a lot yesterday, if they felt respected and well-rested and if they had learned or accomplished something interesting that day. Our Latin American neighbours Panama, Paraguay, El Salvador and Venezuela were in the top four. http://www.gallup.com/poll/159254/latin-americans-positive-world.aspx These results are opposed to some previous studies which measured happiness based mostly on one's standard of living. In that poll relatively wealthy Scandinavian nations like Denmark and Norway, and other "first world" countries like Switzerland, Netherlands and Austria were in the top five. Finland, where I live was number nine on this list. http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/topics/life-satisfaction/

It makes you wonder. Could it be possible that people from so-called "third world" countries are actually happier than those from "first world" countries? If so why? Well some friends and I were discussing this new gallup poll on Facebook. And we all agreed that regardless of Trinidad and Tobago's economic and social problems such as crime, faltering education and health systems and a large class divide, Trinbagonians are still very happy people.  We noted that despite the hardships people are more friendly with each other than in many other countries in the north. People can count on their neighbour, family or friends to help them out and are more optimistic. In addition, your dollar or euro can stretch further in many ways in Trinidad and Tobago than in Finland for instance. With our gas and oil subsidies and incredibly low property taxes, and cheaper labour the cost of living is not as high as in many developed nations. For instance my old school friends in Trinidad who have comparable levels of education and professions can afford household help because labour is cheaper. That might not seem like a big deal but consider how hiring a housekeeper can prevent bickering over who's turn it is to vacuum or prevent resentment towards your spouse for doing less housework. Or how being able to hire a nanny means that mummy can have a nap during the day if the baby has kept her up all night and still have time to exercise or go run errands and not feel rushed and stressed every day. Or think of how having someone cut your front lawn and trim your hedges every week means you don't have to nag your husband to do it. It definitely makes for a happier life.

On the other hand the more money you make in Finland the more tax you pay. In addition to which labour is very expensive so to hire a nanny or housekeeper would mean paying a salary of at least 1400 euros a month. The strong Finnish work ethic means that people work hard trying to show that they are independent and industrious and it is almost a sign of weakness to ask for help. Add to that the cold interpersonal relations and you can see that this society can be harsh.  People tend to internalize their stresses and problems rather than talk about them. Hence, depression and suicide is much higher than in Latin America and the Caribbean for instance. Sure my life here is easier in many ways. The health care system is much better than in Trinidad, though still not perfect. Everything runs well and on time so it is not much of a hassle to go to the authorities to deal with things like social security or passport renewal etc. If I am laid off tomorrow and in dire financial straights there is a wide array of financial support I can access from the state. There is very little crime and even the supposed bad (low income) areas are very safe. And of course Finland is economically more prosperous than Trinidad and Tobago. But the quality of everyday life is sometimes a struggle. Being a stay at home mom I realize now how very little human warmth and interaction there is here in Finland. If you don't see any friends and family you will not get it from strangers. Most people walk around looking miserable even when they are supposedly having fun. For instance my husband complains about the middle aged Finnish women who, in the summer time, love to dress in their bright summer dresses and go to the market square with their shopping basket, the whole while with a big frown on their faces. No one talks to or even looks at or smiles at strangers. For people living alone it can be a life saver just to get out of the house and have someone smile at them and have a mini chat. In Trinidad and Tobago you can't take public transport or go to the store without someone starting a conversation. And many times those are the funniest and most interesting conversations you will ever have. People smile a lot more and there is a more relaxed and happy atmosphere which in and of itself can lift your spirits. Of course the lovely sunny weather year round helps a lot too.

A former colleague at the University of Helsinki has echoed similar sentiments many times on his Facebook page. He has noticed that there are a lot of colleagues who complain of burn out at work and a lot of depression in Finland. He says that the Finnish society can be easy but the interpersonal relations are cold. He believes that if more Finns would start being more friendly and warm to each other they would probably feel better and have less burn out at their jobs and less depression in their lives. This phenomenon of depression and suicide seems to be a common thing in cultures which stress hard work, achievement and independence above all. Japan and Singapore for instance have many stressed people and high suicide rates. Singapore also has wonderful tropical weather like Trinidad but people reported being unhappy in the gallup poll. Singapore was 46 on the list. But the Japanese and Singaporeans work too much and don't play hard enough and so are much more stressed than Trinis who probably play harder than they work. See the eighth paragraph in the following link. http://www.livescience.com/25713-happiest-countries-happiness-gallup.html

Many people from developed nations would wonder how could anyone from a "third world " country be happy? People like the Finnish politician who's statement has become Finnish lexicon "To be born in Finland is like winning the lottery". Or people like my in-laws who cannot understand the dream to one day go back to the Caribbean. "Your life is much better here of course" or "Who would want to move to Trinidad?" are just a couple of statements they have uttered. First it shows that many "first worlders" do not understand that many so called "third world" countries like Trinidad are actually thriving economies in their own right and are not all squalid slums of poverty. According to the OECD Trinidad and Tobago actually achieved developed nation status in October 2011. 
http://blogs.fco.gov.uk/arthursnell/2011/11/07/an-historic-month-for-trinidad-tobago/
Secondly it shows that many people forget that there is more to life and happiness than just economic well being. They do not understand that human beings, being social animals, are happiest when they can have human warmth, support and interaction regardless of their wealth or lack thereof.

The old Finnish work ethic

In September we had an au-pair for six weeks. It didn’t work out so she left, which was unfortunate as it was a big help. But the reaction, from my in-laws and the older neighbour, to my getting an au pair was, “why do you need an au-pair? Emilia is an easy child”. In all honesty in a lot of ways they are right. Emilia is an easy child. She has never been a baby who cries a lot, is usually good tempered and smiling and laughing and does not seem to be too willful. But on the other hand she is a handful. She is a very active and social child. Before she was able to play by herself you needed to be with her all the time entertaining her or she would cry. That meant I couldn’t shower or eat or cook or clean or do much of anything during the day while she was awake. And when she didn’t sleep well (which as all parents of babies know is often) I was usually tired and just trying to get through each day. So I felt we needed some help and since both me and my husband’s family live outside of Finland I thought we should get an au-pair so I could have some help and we could have some free time together.

But in Finland hiring household help is very rare. One reason is that labour is too expensive in Finland, even with kotivähennys (a tax-back incentive that gives you back 40% of the money you spent on household help at the end of the year), for the average Finn to afford. But another big reason is the old Finnish work ethic that you must always be industrious, work hard and be self sufficient. That means that you shouldn’t rely on other people to help you and you should always be busy. If you are ever relaxing you must at least have some knitting or be doing something useful at the same time. You should never be idle. If you hire others to clean your house or yard or look after your children you must be a lazy person who likes to take advantage of poor people. Such is the mindset of the Finns.

Coming from a culture where anyone who can afford to will hire someone to help clean, cook and iron at least one or two days a week this thinking is a bit extreme to me. Some of my relatives have had maids and my grandmother said she had one when her children where very young. In fact her reaction to us getting an au-pair was “Good. You need the help!” I see nothing wrong with hiring someone to help you at home. All mothers know how hard it is to try to do all the housework and take care of children, especially if they also have a job outside the home. At the same time isn’t it a good thing to provide a job to someone? It is not advantageous if you pay them a fair wage and treat them like human beings. I guess the last time hired help was the norm in Finland was when the ruling Swedish speaking class hired servants and of course in that era we know how well the upper classes and aristocrats in Europe treated their servants. But now we are in the twenty first century where we have to pay taxes and pension contributions for such employees. They have unionized rights and regulated salary norms and working hours. It is not the same as two hundred years ago.

I really don’t understand the logic of working yourself to the bone if you can afford not to. It’s better for children if their parents are rested, happy and have more time and energy to spend quality time with them. When the au-pair was here I was well rested and got all the housework done. When I was with Emilia I had energy and time to concentrate on her alone and spend quality time with her. I actually enjoyed spending time with her and wasn’t just trying to get through another day. My mother-in-law will not see it this way but I really think it was better for Emilia. My father-in-law told me that we are young enough to have the energy to “kestää” (endure) like they did with three children while he worked a lot and my mother-in-law was home alone with the children. Like us all their family lived too far away to be of any help to them. But my husband remembers them being stressed all the time when he was a child. Children are intuitive and can pick up on the stress and tension in a house and it affects them. 

The younger Finnish generation's attitude towards hired household help is different to their parents. I know a couple who, after constantly arguing over who’s turn it was to clean, decided to hire a cleaner. They both work long hours and found it too stressful to worry about cleaning when they were hardly ever home. The husband of this couple told me that he has not mentioned to his father that they recently hired a cleaner. He says it is easier not to mention it than to argue with his father about it being a waste of money and having to explain why he and his wife can’t just clean the house themselves. Another friend was telling me that his father doesn’t understand him. His father thinks he should always be working hard. That it doesn’t matter so much whether you are a labourer or a high powered executive but the point is that he should always be working hard. 

Why does the older Finnish generation want us to go through things the hard way like they did? Shouldn’t you want better for your children? And does it make sense to work yourself to death at the expense of your health and quality time with your family if you can afford not to? Is it not better for your marriage and the family to be rested so that you can be in a good mood and have time and energy for your husband and children? Why should I prove to society that I can be supper-mom but be tired and unhappy?

Latin American/Caribbean Men vs Finnish Men

I have been meaning to write about this topic for a long time because I think this is a very interesting topic and highlights so well the differences between cultures. Also I have gotten a request from a fellow Trini who is also with a Finnish man to write about this. But I have been so preoccupied with other things lately that I just haven’t found the time.

Let me say up front that I do love my Trini men and that I am not trying to put down any one culture over another. It is what it is. But there is a definite culture in Latin America and the Caribbean for men to “play around” on their women. Many men, and some women too, think it is the norm and you will even hear people say “he is a dan” if a man has more than one woman. You will also hear people say stupid things like “every marriage have horn” meaning every marriage will involve some cheating. A man who is faithful, goes home early, and helps his woman around the house or with the children is a “mama man” or a “sissy”. And many men have “outside” women and children. On the other hand the wife is expected to endure this and understand that a man is a man and patiently wait at home taking care of the children and keeping house. I met a Venezuelan who said that he had half brothers and sisters by his father and that it was a common occurrence in Venezuela. When asked if his mother also had affairs he was shocked I would ask such a question. “Of course not!” was his reply, she was always a good mother and wife at home taking care of her children and the house. This Venezuelan man followed in his father’s footsteps when it came to cheating on his wife. I have also seen numerous examples of this amongst my own relatives. Many of my male relatives have cheated on their wives at some point. In some cases when the wives found out they confronted their husbands and saved their marriage and family. In other cases the wives knew and simply endured. Many of these relatives saw their own fathers do the same or were themselves outside children. And so the cycle repeated itself. I cannot understand why any man would do the same thing to his wife and children that he saw his mother and himself suffer through. Why perpetuate the pain and even leave children to be fatherless? Needless to say I don’t understand the women who would knowingly have affairs and children with married men. Then Trinidadians wonder why we have so many delinquent youths.

This idea of a man being a stud if he has many women is so entrenched that some men don’t seem to understand any other way of operating. For example, while in Trinidad for our wedding in 2005 some of our friends met some Trini youths at the guest house/hostel they were staying at. They were chatting about life and my friend said he asked them if they had a girlfriend. They replied yes they had girls. But my friend asked if they had one special girl whom they loved. He said they didn’t seem to understand the concept of just having one special girlfriend. I find it truly sad that running around is such a part of our culture that some young men can’t even understand the concept of having just one woman. They probably don’t understand what love is either. In addition to the acceptance of this sort of behaviour many women seem to stay with these cheating men out of desperation. Sometimes begging and pleading with them not to leave. I have heard of women sometimes even promising the man that he could “do what he want” if he would only stay. What causes this desperation I wonder? Is it so hard to get a man in Trinidad that we have to beg, plead and settle? Or do we women have so little self worth? And if so where does this sense of worthlessness come from?

On the other hand, in Finland, having a woman “on de side” is decidedly rare. And there is no euphemism for it. It is just called plain old cheating. Having “outside children” is also rare. And cheating is not considered a good thing for either the goose or the gander. Usually such cheating results in divorce. There doesn’t seem to be much tolerance by either female or male for cheating spouses. Don’t get me wrong, of course there are Finnish people who cheat. However, it doesn’t seem to be as prevalent or most importantly not acceptable as it is in Latin America and the Caribbean. From what I understand cheating is not culturally acceptable for men in all Scandinavian/Nordic countries. I only know of one of my Finnish friends being “an outside child” or one of many children by different women from one man. And when I tell people here that I am one such child and that I never really knew my father it sounds like something from a story or soap opera to them.

Unlike Latin and Caribbean men Finnish men are not good with sweet talk. And few of them swagger. Few of them will take you out and pay for the entire evening just so that they can get into your pants. Instead, if sex is all they want, they will ask you straight up “your place or mine?” Instead of saying they love you and pretending to try to get to know you a Finnish man will probably take a year or more before he says the words “I love you”. But when he does it will be because he means it. At first Finnish men are generally shy and unsure of themselves. They need a few drinks to get up the courage to speak to a woman and even more drinks to get up the courage to dance with one. Because most lack a flair for words, just agreeing to have a regular conversation with a strange man will give him the impression you might be interested in him. Agreeing to dance with him will give even more proof of your interest.

On the other hand Latin and Caribbean men are quick to tell you how “sweet” you look or are, how beautiful you are or how much they like you or even love you. I once met a Mexican who told me he loved me and wanted me to meet his mother after conversing and dancing with him once in a bar! They will express all this sentiment for you even if or especially if they only want to get laid. Not to mention with Latin and Caribbean men you usually never know where you really stand. Do they really love you? Does he have another woman? Does he want to marry me? These are questions constantly on a Trini woman’s mind. The day I hooked up with a Finn all those worries ceased because he was always so brutally honest about his intentions - or lack of intentions - that I knew exactly what I was getting into. If anything went wrong I knew it from the start and could blame no one but myself. The day he said I love you, many months after I had started saying it to him, I was so happy because I knew he meant it. And he has not stopped saying it since. I am so sure of my man that when we lived apart I never worried that he would stray. My grandmother told me “be careful” and to “watch him” because “some women will want to take your man even if he is married”. And I had a Ghanaian guy tell me I should leave my dog in a shelter and go with him “to know what my man is doing” rather than let him be abroad by himself where one only knows what he could be up to. But I didn’t panic I told them I was not worried about my man. And I know many other Finnish men I would say the same about.

Now as I said there are cheating Finnish men as well as cheating Finnish women. Also there are one-women men in Trinidad. My step father was one of these. And I have heard that nowadays women in Trinidad are not so docile and many are even giving as good as they get. But culture is hard to change in an instant and the general idea of unfaithfulness among men being acceptable or normal in Trinidad is still pervasive. It is simply interesting to note that what is the norm in one culture could be so alien in another.