Eiköhän suomessa ole rasismia??

Am at work and counting the hours till the shift is over and i go home to sleep and enjoy my easter. I have nothing big in particular for the long weekend ahead but tomorrow evening my sister has invited me over for dinner, am looking forward to that. She is a good cook and by far much better than me(or so i think:yaani whatever she decides to put together in the kitchen..be it potatoes and cabbages(lol) or chicken, anything(apart from chapos)always comes out so nicely and leaves everyone licking their fingers. The only thing i have never given her credit for is her chapos...am the expert in that, yes, pls allow me to blow my own trumpet on this one..at least this once. To eat her chapos, one has to exercise their jaws a few hours beforehand if they plan to remain with a functioning jaw after the eating the chapos. Not forgetting that she makes various' countries maps using dough and serves them in the name of chapos. Woi, if she sees this she'll strangle me!!
I have mad love for my sister though and if there's anyone who deserves happiness and all good things in this life, its her. She has a big heart, she's very PATIENT, loving, kind, name it all. Am not just saying this because she is my sister but because i know it. I sometimes feel like the evil one compared to her, and at times i feel guilty because of the things she has to put up with from me. She's seven years my senior and sometimes am sure given a chance, she'd happily smack my backside coz of the things i do.

On a different note, i am tired of this country. We all say that regarding out jobs, locations etc but for real am tired of this country. Having lived in this godforsaken place for exactly 4yrs, 11 months and 5 days, one would think i am already used to living here lakini no, its completely the other way round. One never gets used to living in finland!You see, when you move to a new place, the first few years or months are full of mixed feelings:surprises, new things to discover, new friends, new work places..the list is endless. It was like that for me when i moved to finland, at first i hated it, then i started getting used to the way of life here so i kinda liked it then three years on i started asking myself critical questions like, is this the kind of place i'd want to live in for the rest of my life?get married in, bring my children up?The questions have remained unanswered until now and the answer is NO. If i get something better tomorrow i'd be off before the end of today. I believe i have good reasons for that answer and i know no one is forcing me to stay here but i am planning on my next move and before my plans materialize, i guess i just have to try and hang on in there.

why would i want so badly to get of this country?someone may ask. Of late, i have experienced a few cases of racism, the latest one being last weekend at a night club;i dont even want to start going into details about that, brings a nasty taste to my mouth but i felt humiliated, angry and i so badly wanted to give a piece of my mind to the person involved but i refrained, does no good and anyway, from past experiences, its their country, no matter who started 'it' am still on the wrong...am the black one!!At my work place i have been called by the n-word several times, and for no apparent reason..someone just didnt like the fact that am from africa and he so openly shared his feelings with me and with some of my work colleagues. Yaani i just dont get it at times, here i am minding my own business, offering my services to someone and instead of being grateful or just keeping quiet, they show disgust on their faces and go ahead to even call me names.
when i graduated last year i had to move out of students' apartments and because am employed by the government, i had the priviledge of getting one of our work places' apartments. when i got the key to go and view the apartment, i immediately fell in love with it and decided that am going to take it. its neither too big nor too small, in the right neighbourhood with supermarkets,public transport, library, etc within easy reach..lets just say the almost perfect apartment. To top it all off, on the same day i met with my next door neighbour and she was unbelievably friendly, she even volunteered to show me where the communal sauna is and everything she thot necessary for me to know..without me even asking!!!!Too bad that within a month after i'd moved in she moved out.
however, of late am starting to feel like it was the wrong place to live in after all, why?i have noticed several eyes staring at me from the balcony, peeping from the windows thinking i cant notice them and have received several cold stares at the parking lot. all of a sudden am this alien that everyone fears or hates..i dont know which... and so all they can do is watch from the safety of their houses and balconies. last week i met the owner of a red station wagon that's always parked next to my car at the parking lot. I was emptying the car boot when without even saying hi he asked me whats my parking lot/space number. and not in your usual friendly-trying to make conversation-manner but in a very rude manner, those ones of you are black, have you even been assigned parking space here to start with?me being me, gave him an answer thinking he'd go away but i was wrong..the guy asked if i pay my parking fee!at first i thought i'd heard the wrong thing so i asked him to repeat and he boldly asked if i pay my parking fee!!!!!the balls!!!i hesitated for a while and i told him that yes, i am a tenant there and so i have the right to parking space and have paid my parking monthly parking fee. the guy walked away.
Yesterday morning, i received a letter from the talonmies-janitor in english(sp) i guess, asking me if i'd paid my parking fee, and no, the parking lot guy is not the janitor so he must have called them and told them whatever he told them and so they had to contact me to enquire. And you tell me these are the kind of pple i should call neighbours?i thought neighbours are supposed to be friendly but i guess all this changes once you are black living among whites.
yes, i have paid my parking fees. Am disgusted with the kind of behaviour my neighbours have displayed, and am disgusted with the uncivilised manner in which some finns behave. am tired of pple looking at me like am some creature from space, am tired of being asked stupid questions that are my own business anyway and am tired of this country and everything about it. I have asked God to guide me out of here and i am positive that by the end of this year, i'll be out of here. No one chooses to be born black or white and sme pple need to get that into their heads. am not moving out of my apartment because of the haters, they can keep hating and can keep peeping out of their windows whenever i pass by and am not chaning my parking spot. hell, i pay for it every month so usiniletee!

'Eiköhän suomessa ole rasismia' is a sentence i saw years ago when i had just moved into this country. It was used on posters on a campaign to eradicate racism in finland: on the poster was a gal(judging from the looks, probably of ethiopian origin) sitting all alone in a seat meant for two in a tram and with finns around her standing-and none bothering to occupy the seat next to this black girl. And in bold letters was the question 'eiköhän suomessa ole rasismia'? loosely translated as 'isn't there racism in finland'?I remember by then my finnish language skills were next to nil and out of curiosity i asked the guy who i was with(a former classmate from Gambia who's lived in finland for over 6 years) what the words meant. He explained it to me so i gitched what the poster was all about. For some reason that picture remains very clear in my mind upto this day and following the recent incidents in my life, it all came back to me so i decided to borrow and use this as my title for this post.

Thanking the Lord Daily

I have thought of many title's for this blog but i settled for this particular one. First of all because there's so much i am and have to be thankful to God for.
Toward's the end of last year, a few things, both good and bad happened in my life that got me closer to God. I remember i had a small problem and a lady friend of mine in Kenya suggested that i get serious in talking to God, she even offered to pray with me daily about what was bothering me. I started praying daily, at first i found it hard because i felt a lot of guilt within me. I was thinking, aki what will i start telling God after being so unprayerful and then wanting to talk to him just coz i had this problem. With time i picked up momentum and i got comfortable praying..and praying real hard. Within a few days i started taking joy in talking to God, i started feeling much at ease and i even started looking forward to the next time i'd be praying-i had particular times for my prayers and during those times i'd even switch off my phone and just pray. Even i was surprised at how pleasant and comforting it turned out to be and with time i felt my burdens slowly lift off my shoulders, i started feeling at peace and i enjoyed every moment of it.
From then on i learnt that there truly is God, he cares, he listens, is willing to help and with him nothing is impossible.
I decided to keep praying and asking for help and guidance from above and i still do that upto today and i also decided that even when i dont have problems to pray about, i have to make it a habit to thank God for everything in my life. That's how i ended my 2006 and started my 2007.

I feel that there's so much to be thankful to God for that at times i get overwhelmed. Am not driving the biggest or the best car, i dont own a multi million mansion, i dont dine like a queen and i dont have the best paying job i could ever find but i still have a lot of things to be thankful to God for. Like my lovely family who are simply the bomb, my tiny car, my tiny apartment, my simple job that i sometimes hate but which pays my bills, feeds and clothes me and a lot of other things. God is great and he surely is Lord in my life and am not ashamed to say that. I have seen him work in mysterious ways and i've seen him answer my prayers, i have felt his warm comforting hands around me during the trying times and i know he has great things in store for me and for these and so much more am thanking him daily.

Of infidelity

Am just from watching 'cheaters' and there's a lot going on in my mind right now after the things i've seen. I always make sure i watch it when i have the chance to. No offence but i especially love when there are black pple involved coz there's always a lot more drama, a lot more cursing and u know most blacks have a biiiiig ego and they try to get defensive when they jua they are national television. Anyway so i watched today's episode, i dont jua how old it is as we (pple in Finland) always get to view programmes/movies/tv shows much later..i dont know if they just take long to get here ama its coz they have to add the finnish subtitle before the presentation..i just dont know.
Today there was this african american gal who was suspecting her boyfriend and of course it turned out to be true, the confrontation was quite hot, the gals almost faught with the 'other woman' calling the official woman a whole lot of dirty names including whore and i found myself talking to myself saying 'look who's talking'!!Yaani i just dont get it, you are going out with my man and you know very well he's taken and when i catch you two red handed you have the guts to call me a whore?!!oh c'mon!!! Sometimes when i get to critically think about it i think that us women are our worst enemies. Why so?Because we dont like being cheated on, yet we go ahead and sleep/go out with married men or men who are commited to other women and we expect the other woman not to say anything to us or even dare to confront us! Is that fair, really??

Well, i know this world is not fair at all but surely sometimes i think some things can be avoided if only we'd all be willing to take that one extra step. I once was involved with a man who had another person in his life. I dont intend to go into detail about what happened but he convinced me that he had no one.Turned out that he still had someone in his life and when i came to learn about it, it was too late. Yaani it was real bad, real dirty situation that i still get goose bumps when i remember those days.I dont need to explain the rest but needless to say, from that time i learnt my lessons. And i vowed to never ever ever go out with a married/commited man-this particular one was not married or engaged but still, it was a bad situation for all of us. It's now been years and am over that and moving on with ma life but i always feel so much pain for women who get cheated on and i get disgusted with the women who allow taken men into their lives and their beds. Ok, i've been in a similar situation before so i dont want to sound judgemental but at times i think in a situation where a man is cheating on his woman, the other woman is at times to blame as much as the guy is. To some it may not make sense but well, to me it does. Its really upto us to investigate a man as much as possible so as to avoid unpleasant surprises later in the relationship. And i think its only us women who can help stop men from cheating!!Yes, i strongly believe that by discouraging commited men not only do we get rid of any unwanted dramas in life but you get to save another woman from the heartache. I know that probably that will never happen kwanza when some women have an addiction for married and commited men but aki its just sooo painful to have your man cheating on you and its even more painful when you think deeply about it and imagine that its a member of your own species causing you the pain-partly.

In my part of the world, there is a lot of cheating going among the kenyan community. Many have blamed it on the ever growing number of new chics and less jamaas,hmm...could someone please tell the finnish consulate in nairobi to be more generous with visas to the guys!that there's a crisis here!!??;-).I DO NOT even for one minute agree that less jamaas and more chics justifies anything;infact, i think its just a lame excuse for people to be immoral. Its true though that the ratio of kenyan jamaas to chics is 1:4(no proof that this is the official ratio but am sure its close to that), but i also think that many chics here have absolutely no respect for other people's relationships..ZERO, NONE,NOLA, NOTI!!!!! I have never and i dont think i'll ever find out why but its just soo sad. And of course guys just sit back and enjoy the best of both world's and watch mamas fighting over them. Its gross, eeeeewww!!Most kenyan chics here need to STYLE UP!simple. And as i always say and will keep saying, woe unto people here when someone lands with the big bad virus and decides to teach people here a lesson. God forbid but people here need to start behaving like civilised people!

I am targeting no one in particular but to my knowledge this is what happens;When there's a new chic in town almost every man tries to hit on her and even before here life has began she's slept with one or a few of them and the chain goes on and on and on.At the end of the day its like we are all sleeping with each other indirectly.Women here esp. the newer ones, change hands from one man to the next...like money. It's kinda interesting though to watch all the drama but on the other hand its a sad case and at times you just pity the girls kwanza later on when the men are done with her and their girlfriends gang up to hate on her so she has no girlfriends and she's been branded the town slut. It's......i dont even know what's the best word to describe it but its a f***** up situation.
I choose from the beginning to have nothing to do with women here. I arrived in Finland, was told what goes on, saw it for myself and decided ei kiitos(finnish for 'no thanks'). The fewer friend i have, be it men or women, the better for me, and it works out perfectly for me as i hate having to carry unwanted baggage and i enjoy my space.

My comeback!

After about seven months of not writing anything on my space i have finally decided to write something..at least before the year ends. I guess i just lost my mojo sometime during the summer, at times i felt i had a lot to write but didnt know exactly how to start writing. But am back and i hope i can manage to be writing something here often. It's been a busy but a good year. I have cried, laughed, lost, gained, learnt a lot, taught others something and am ready to start the new year. I finally graduated after a long struggle and its the best feeling ever. I thought i deserve a holiday and am going home in two days time to celebrate my graduation and to enjoy christmas with my family and friends and am excited!excited!excited!excited!!!!!!Just cant wait for the day to fika!!!

Spring!

It feels like ages since i wrote something on my blog. I havent updated it in quite a while and since jana i've wanted to log in and write something. Part of the reason why i havent written anything is because i have been too lazy, the other part is because i have been busy with work and the other reason is because i have been busy trying to rediscover myself. Yea thats right, trying to rediscover myself. April is said to be a cruel month and for me it was a living hell, so much went wrong and i felt like that was not the way my life should have been going, i let loose of the things i had promised myself that i'd accomplish and everything was just crazy and out of control.

Come May and things seem to be going smoothly, the sun is shining in helsinki, we can walk comfortably with less clothing on!, the birds are singing, everything looks so lush and green, there are beatiful flowers all over and the place is simply amazing apart from the morning and evening bouts of sneezing due to pollen. Other than that, my life feels normal again, i have found out simple little ways of making myself happy once again, i have a more positive outlook to my life, my job, the place am living in and simply to life, i have managed to shed some 'extra baggage' that i sooo dont need in my life and have been carrying;now i carry only what my shoulders can stand and oh yeah, i have discovered a new hobby that i absolutely love and more so, i get to share it with my close friends and they seem to be loving it just as much as i do.

I got to apologize to someone for a wrong i did to them sometime ago and for a very very long time i haven't been able to say sorry to them, probably because i was too proud to say it and also because i didn't know where to start or when would be the right moment do to it. But i decided not to wait any longer, i was tired of living with the guilt and i realized that the only way i'll be at peace is by saying am sorry. Even though she still hasn't told me whether she's forgiven me or not, i feel much better and deep down i know i have done the right thing, now the rest is upto her.
Lets just say, life seems much more brighter for me and am happi about it. Am praying that the summer will turn out to be a warm happy one and i know God will grant my wish.
Here's to a lovely warm summer, full of laughter and all other good things that come with this wonderful time of the year!!!!

Where do we go from here?

DEBORAH COX

"Where Do We Go From Here"

When you're in love
Some things you take for granted until someone
Pulls it apart and leaves you with half of your heart
How do I trade the best I have for less
Without giving up
Should I slowly accept that we'll be no more than just friends
How do I know
When to let go?
I know what I'm feeling inside
But part of me still wants to try
So tell me

[Chorus:]
Where do we go from here?
Why's my heart filled with so much fear?
When all that you are is all I need and more
There's no winning this
The battle's just begun
I know it's over, but I still feel the same
You'll always remain number one
'Cause letting go
Warrants so much
I know what I'm feeling inside
But part of me still wants to try So tell me

[Chorus x 2]

Letting go, warrants so much
I know what I'm feeling inside
But part of me still wants to try

Sleepless in helsinki!

Its 02.20 in the morning and since i woke up in the morning i haven't gone back to bed. It sounds crazy as only thieves and witches[lol] are supposed to be awake at this time but i just can't get any sleep. It was a big problem in november and december last year when i didn't have a job, part of the reason for sleeplessness, i guess, was because i wasn't doing much so my body was never tired at the end of the day, and part of the reason was the worrying about where to get a job coz there were bills to be paid. Then i got the job and the problem has been gone for three months now but it seems like sleepness is showing its ugly face AGAIN!!I really dont know what could be the reason, yesterday i went to bed at around 2300 but by 1.00 i had not slept even for one minute so i got up and started chatting with a friend upto 4.00 in the morning, crazy!!!Again today, i got into bed at around 0000 but i couldnt get any sleep so here i am.
I dont like it at all coz i know in the morning i will have difficulties getting up and am really wondering what could be the problem with me. Could it be that am stressed up and i dont jua about it ama what the heck is wrong with me??!!!