India - Africa!

I am going as a volunteer to India and Kenya in January. We are 9 Icelanders that are going on this trip which will be 1 month in each country.  We will be working at orphanages, kindergartens and schools. At the moment we are organizing fundraisers for the trip. The proceeds will all be going to the schools and homes that we visit. We're going to try and buy what ever each home or school needs the most like bunk beds, desks or school books and so on. 

            The past few days I've been freaking out a little, wondering what the hell I've gotten my self into. The rest of the group seems pretty chilled out about the whole trip which is the only thing that's calming me down these days. But our fundraising is going pretty good.

            A few minor hiccups have occurred though, like a small problem with my visa and also Hreggi (one of the guy's that's going with us) has managed to damage a nerve in his right eye by spraying water from some sort of high pressure pump into his eye. I think you have to be pretty talented to manage something like that so I do hope it gets better and can come with us! 

            Otherwise I'm pretty excited! We will be sleeping on sandy floors and pooping in holes in the ground, what more can you ask for? (I am not being sarcastic). One of my main concerns about the trip is the traffic in India. It is the cause of the most deaths among tourists in India. I have been consistently trying to psych the other guy's out. I haven't yet succeeded but the more I think about it the more I come to the conclusion that it might not be such a good idea after all. I can just imagine 9 terrified Icelanders about to step in to a car... or one of those buggie thingies with three wheels which Indians seem to prefer to regular, safe cars with airbags and seat belts.

            Well, I'm going to try and put blogs in every now and then so you can read about the trip.

44 days till lift off!

Superstitionists

I work at an old folks home in Reykjavík called Hrafnista. It had been a very quiet morning so I sat down with an elderly woman and had a cup of coffee with her. Like most conversations with elderly people we talked about the weather and she told me about the old days when there were only gravel roads in Iceland and so on. When I had finished my coffee I stood up to go and put the cup in the dishwasher but just as I was standing up she grabbed my arm and asked if I didn't want her to look at my cup and do a fortunetelling. Of course I sat right back down and handed over my empty coffee cup. She laid it upside down on the radiator and waited till the coffee had dried and then the fortunetelling began.

She told me that I would have three kids and I was about to climb a mountain but it wouldn't be as hard as I thought. She also told me that there were many people gathering together soon, maybe a dance of some sort. I listened with intent as she told me about a trip I was about to take and talked about how very handsome the father of my unborn children was. When she had finished her reading she looked at me and said

,,It's weird isn't it? It's just a cup with some coffee in it but when I look at it I see things. But then again I'm just an old lady, I can't see into the future.''

I couldn't stop thinking about the reading she had given me so at lunch I started talking about it with my coworkers. They all knew who I was talking about and nodded as I explained my experience. When I had finished they told me that she was very good at this stuff and that her readings just about always came true.  It turned out as the conversation went on... for too long actually,  that every single person at the table hat either been to a psychic or had there fortune told by someone, except one girl. As the conversation seemed to be coming to a close this girl blurted out that she had never been to a psychic or anything in that field. Everyone was quite shocked. This amused me because I am born in England and I know that if this conversation had arisen there I would be the weird one for having gone to a psychic not the other way around.

I have always known that most Icelanders are a little peculiar but I like to blame that on the darkness all year long (except the three wonderful summer months when the sun never sets), I think this messes with are biological clocks and makes us a little wacky. But we're hardly all crazy? or are we?

If so many of us believe in these so called superstitions isn't it then a kind of religion? And if so why is it so hard for people that are not superstitious to accept people who are.

One of my close friends is an atheist and if anyone ever mentions to him that they went to a psychic he will go out of his way to try and refute psychics or fortunetellers or what ever the topic is.  If a Muslim came up to him and told my friend that he had prayed to Allah five times today for 10 minutes each time, I can say with some certainty that he would not tell the poor man that it was a complete waist of time.

Is it so hard to respect superstitionists (yes I am going to call them superstitionists). Why do superstitionists annoy others so much? Especially atheists it seems.

All I know is that if any of my three future children want to be superstitionists or Muslims or atheists for that matter, that's fine by me. As long as there not harming themselves or others of course.
I guess what I'm saying is doesn't everyone deserve the same amount of respect? To finish I found the perfect quote

,,r-e-s-t-e-c-p''

                     -Ali G

In to the wild - Þakgil

Having driven the 186 km from Reykjavík to Vík on highway one in my little, very old VW Golf, I was feeling quite happy about myself. My friend and I, accompanied by her very large dog, arrived at my great grandmothers house and were rather delighted to see that it was not covered in ash from the recent volcanic eruption.  It is a very old house and as I was catching my breath inside I thought about how it smelled like a turf house witch for some reason reminded me of museums.
We sat down with a map and some lemonade on the porch to search for our first expedition rout. My friend, Rakel, pointed to a spot on the map named Þakgil which was located a little inland from where we were. I dismissed it straight away as I know from experience that Icelandic country roads can get quite ridiculous and hard to drive. Seeing as we only had my rusty little golf this was out of the question.
About an hour later I was turning up a road marked Þakgil. My curiosity seemed to have gotten the best of me.

The view on our way to Þakgil

The road didn't seem at all bad, though it was a little rough in places. As we started to climb a small mountain we realized that turning the car around would not be an option as the road was just wide enough for a single car. It wasn't too threadbare so we decided to push on and see how far we got. We reached the top of this small mountain and the view was absolutely spectacular. On one side there was something that seemed to be a huge riverbed which was now just black sand and reminded me of this old Icelandic folklore song called Á Sprengisandi which is about a man going through an Icelandic desert by horse in a hurry so he doesn't get caught by evil elves or fairies of some sort. This deserted riverbed ran between to grassy mountains. But on the other side of us, and where the road seemed to be leading us, was a mountainous area colored with silhouette blues and greens. Starry eyed from all the beauty our road trip continued. 

Rakel and Æsa the dog outside one of the huts

The road started to get quite a bit hairyer from there on. Blind hills with very sharp bends on the other side were just the beginning.  We had climbed to a considerable altitude and the wind was starting to shake the car which was not helping my nerves on the rocky, winding road. I tried not to look at where the road was heading where as Rakel kept on telling me it was just going straight in to some weird mountaintop. When we reached this mountain top we turned a corner and as we turned this corner a very peculiar sight appeared before us. Some kind of huts had been built in to the rocks. As I pulled over and got out of the car I was almost swept off my feet, quite literally. The wind was so strong that even the dog looked a little nervous. We explored these huts and when I had come to the conclusion that the Icelandic elfes from the folk stories were not only living in rocks any more but had started to expand there living quarters and were building villages we decided to head off in to the wilde again.

            Now the road started to descend in to a kind of ravine or canyon of some sort. We seemed to have travelled further up the riverbed that we had seen earlier. As the road was descending it started to get very hairy. On one side of us was a cliff rolling down in to the canyon and on the other side there was a wall made entirely of gravel and sand.  The road didn't seem very sturdy and the edges where crumbling slightly away and rolling down in to the canyon. To make matters worse the road was shaped like a Z going down and at each turn it seemed like the car was going to role off down the mountain. Between the whimpers coming from the dog in the back seat and Rakel's gasping I tried not to think of how we were going to get back up the mountain.

            When we finally reach the bottom we found ourselves driving on the riverbed which now just looked like a desert of black sand that went on for what seemed like miles.  We had driven for a little while when we came across a sign that said Þakigl. Had we seriously reached our destination point? A sandy riverbed and not even a pick nick bench for us to eat our lunch on. We go out of the car and looked around. The road wasn't really much of a road any more, it was more like tracks in the sand. Feeling quite disappointed we got back in to the car but in stead of turning around I decided to keep going and see what was around this cliff in front of us that was jutting out of the mountain.

The huts in Þakgil

 
As we turned the corner our disappointment  melted  away. Before us was a beautiful valley with little huts, a river and to our delight, pick nick tables! We parked the car and got out. A few meters away stood a woman juggling and behind her there were 2 tents all set up with two guys outside sunbathing. Otherwise there was not a soul in sight.  Behind us was a cave full of pick nick tables and barbecues I guess for when it's raining. In the mountains that surrounded us there where hundreds even thousands of caves to be seen. We sat down and had our lunch, we felt like we were at the root of a volcano and that it could irrupt at any time, although it was unlikely seeing as it had just irrupted a few weeks earlier. We found out later that even though we weren't quite at the roots of the volcano we weren't that far off.

As we drove back to my great grandmothers little house by the sea we felt pretty happy of our selves and pretty happy of my little golf. When we finally got back and stumbled in to the bedroom to take a nap we realize that being a tourist in your own country can be quite exotic.