For breakfast I eat rye bread (another reason to love Finland) with cucumber, tomatoes, margarine and tofu. All found from a dumpster behind the local grocery store. I also take some fruits with me as snacks.
We set off to a nearby village where Tero is studying glass blowing. In such a hot day feels absurd to step into the big hall full of open fires, the sweaty air burns your cheeks and bring tears into your eyes. The glasses are beautiful, though. They have made an installation out of "melted" glass bottles (that actually remind me of Dali's watches) and an old vacuum cleaner. Sadly I have no picture of it.
From Toijala we start hitchhiking towards Tampere, holding the good old "forward" sign. People are smiling at us. I am smiling even more, for it just feels so great to be on the road with Tittis again (even though it's only a short way this time), remembering all the crazy penniless worry-less summer days with tiny bags, old cassette player, broken shoes or no shoes at all... She is the one I hitched with to Amsterdam and back, my first longer hitchhike trip. No plans at all, no equipment, no money. We started hitching in Tampere, Finland with a sign saying "Amsterdam". We got there in three rides.
This time we are lucky again. A nice black-haired man drives us close to highway leading to Tampere, from where we immediately get a lift in a truck. The driver takes us close to the center. We walk through the city streets in the summer heat without shoes on, Tittis is pointing at everything she sees with total exitement. After the time spent in the forest she is going slightly crazy from all the people, cars, cafés and roller skates.
We spend a nice day going around the city, meeting our friend Marja and sitting in a park watching the ants and the clouds and everything in between.
At four o'clock I start walking towards the hitching spot again; I want to get to Jyväskylä for the evening, my brother's band is playing and it's been a while since I've last seen their gig. I stand with my thumb out for maybe 15 minutes, when a foreign van pulls over. The driver is middle-aged, wears dark glasses and looks slightly suspicious. I'm pushing back my prejudgements (hmm, which I might actually want to have while hitching) and get in. He agrees to take me all the way to Jyväskylä even though it's not really his destination. At some point, based on his stories, I am sure he's a drug dealer. But he isn't. It turns out that he's actually dealing diamonds with the Russian mafia. Or something like that. I don't ask about the details. He is making some questions about a possible boyfriend, but this time I am clever and start chatting about how we are actually planning to have a family soon and move into the countryside, and how much I'm looking forward becoming a mother... I hope this will distract him enough to forget any dirty thoughts he might have had about me. It works, and we spend the rest of the journey talking about our future plans. He tells me he would like to live in a wooden hut next to a lake one day. I tell him to go for it.
When we reach Jyväskylä, he says I shouldn't be hitching alone, and that I should be more careful with guys like himself. I agree, but I say that I'm really glad he was worth trusting. We say goodbye.
With mixed feelings and slightly shaky legs ( I did get a bit worried at the russian mafia part), I climb up a little hill in Jyväskylä to meet an old friend of mine. He is hanging out with some circus people who are practicing trapeze outside in the trees.
I realize it's time to go to the gig already, and to my pleasant surprise a stranger offers to lend me his bicycle. Gratefully I cycle to the youth center right on time to see the last three bands playing. My brother's band is the last one. It's strange to see my little brother on the stage banging the drums all sweaty and tattooed, still remembering so clearly the days when we shared a room, and how he used to dream about becoming a rockstar, practiced drumming with cardboard boxes before he got a real drum kit.
After the gig I realize how hungry I am. Where could I get food? It's already really late, not many shops are open (especially ones with some vegan food). But then it turns out that there's still some pasta left at the backstage, and the musicians have already left. I'm saving the rest of the food from going into the bin. New home in my empty stomach, there you go.
I go back to the park, where we make human pyramids, get to see a spontanoeus one-minute jane austen play, and talk about the world. People around us are drinking beer and throwing up on their shoes, this is the part of Finland I haven't missed.
When I get hungry again, I tell myself I will surely find some food sooner or later. No need to go shopping, as there is so much food waste in the world already. And just ten minutes later I'm eating a slice of a massive lovely Finnish sweet bun which was cruelly abandoned on a park lawn.
The walk home is long but lovely. I have shoes that I found on the streets in Barcelona; perfect size, perfect look.
Recently I read an article about food not bombs and dumpster diving. Why would anyone want to eat stuff that was in a dumpster, they asked.
Why would anyone want to buy, buy, buy, more, more and more stuff when the dumpsters are already full of edible goods still in their own packages?
I read 30% of all the food produced in the UK is going to waste. In the US it's even worse : 40-50%. I don't know what's the magic number in Scandinavia, but based on the dumpsters I have seen in Finland, and especially in Denmark, I would guess we are not much better.
And still we are talking about "a depression", finance crisis, threat of poverty, in our own country. There is not enough food in the world to feed all the population, it is being said. But it's not true - there is enough food, it is just being thrown away.
So now I have lived yet another day completely without money in an expensive welfare country. The idea does not come from wanting to save up, or because I couldn't afford to buy food or ride a car. This society is producing so much waste it could feed not only me but thousands of others. Most of the cars I see have three or four empty seats. I'm dumpster-diving fucking wine and roses and expensive cheese.
It simply doesn't make any sense to want everything new and shiny for as long as this kind of waste production keeps on going. So, until I find a better solution -
YOU SLEEP - I EAT YOUR RUBBISH!
