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In Which I Find Out Who Loves Porgy (But Not Bess)
October 8, 2006 by Mike
Umeå
Route: Gävle - Umeå
Sometimes it's about the travelling: how the bike feels beneath me; the moment you crest a hill and find out just what the world has been hiding from me all these years, what new and wonderful sight awaits; the rush of finding the perfect line through a long or twisty bend in the road; the moments when it feels the bike is rising ever-so-slightly off the road and I have to stop myself from laughing out loud... or I just let the laughter come out in a great burbling rush.
But sometimes it's about arriving: as I park the bike and get a sense, not quite deja vu but perhaps not so far removed, that I fit in to a place I've never seen before; or the way architecture and faces and sky and air and sounds and smells and the natural world blend together in a way I hadn't considered before. By definition a trip like this is about newness a lot of the time.)
Anyway, I digress. Today was about arriving.
Not because the travelling was bad -- though inevitably I saw next to nothing of the coast, even when I found and travelled the Höga Kusten road. A UNESCO World Heritage site -- I'm chalking up a fair few -- with no indication either to the naked eye or via tourist information (signs, offices.. nothing) as to why. [Edit: I've subsequently seen pictures of hikers enjoying walks in the Höga Kusten. Perhaps that's it?]
(I also rode the Jomfru Kusten road north from Gävle. There were no virgins.. and no seaside.)
And it was about arriving despite Uleå being an unremittingly bleak place. I'm not having a pop, Umeå and Umeåns. I understand how things are and must be at this latitude. Warmth and survival come first. The temperature has started to plummet. Concrete is secure and will keep the cold out. Why paint it? Why walk the streets when you can drive -- or better still, stay indoors?
Why smile at strangers (or anywhere near them)? - they'll be gone again soon enough.
No, today was about arriving because of my fellow-guests in the Umeå Youth Hostel. I lucked in. Half the company of the Cape Town Opera's travelling production of Porgy & Bess were holed up in the hostel, hiding from cold Sweden. And, they admitted, cold Swedes.
"Coooooo-wheeeeeeee! We've never SEEN such a GLOOMY town! Ha ha HA!"
"WHY don't they SMILE?"
"WHERE'S the LAUGHTER? It's tough, man. TOUGH!"
"Hee hee ha ha HEE HEE yesssssss!"
"And we're here for a MONTH! Ha ha HA! What we gonna DO?!"
It came tumbling out. Their experiences mirroring some of my own, although there are differences. Rather than moving on every day or two, they'll be in Umeå for a month, except for a week deep inland and farther north at Kautokeino - which will be considerably colder.. in terms of temperature, at least. So they have started to see the same faces regularly, without making any kind of breakthrough. I start from scratch in every new town.
The other difference is that while I look at least half-Scandinavian (and speak some Norwegian) the men and women, artists and crew, of the Cape Town Opera look.. South African. Everyone I met was black. There are few black faces in Umeå. Nobody I met had experienced direct racism here... but they were conscious, shall we say, of an underlying tone in the air.
It's a long time since I found such friendly, open group of people.
I had arrived after the shops were closed (6-ish...) but their bottle of Famous Grouse was shared without hesitation.
As for the openness, the discussion ranged wide -- from the alleged bed-partners of assorted members of the opera company to the history of black-on-black tribal violence in 19th century southern Africa to shopping expeditions to union recognition to buses to the likely next President of South Africa to language as politics to the nature of my trip. And back to sex again. No names... but some of them were channelling all that icy Scandinavian atmosphere in one direction and one direction only. And I thought I had a one-track mind!
Anyway -- and don't assume that any of the following were necessarily obsessed with sex just because their pictures follow so quickly! -- I managed to grab some woeful photographs. I blame the half-light for confusing the automatic flash; and the Famous Grouse for confusing the photographer:
No pictures of, but equally friendly and fun and good-looking: Unathi, Nomasande and Luanda.
--
Earlier I met another good-looking chap, having taken a detour into the small, town of his birth just to see him. Gunnar Nordahl was Sweden's first professional footballer. He travelled all the way from Hörnefors to Italy in the late 1940s where he became a huge star first with Milan, then with Roma. An icon in Italy and in Sweden, where he will long be celebrated as one of the great goalscorers. And he came from a rain-grey town, full of nothing, hidden between the woods and the bitter Baltic Sea, where today's kids chase skateboards or stay indoors watching MTV instead of kicking an old goat bladder around day after day after day; high on the Swedish coast and a long way from the rest of the world.
He was a colossus in every sense (I'm on tip-toes here):
Comments
By QUINTIN BOOYSEN | October 27, 2006 10:54 AM
yea mike......still braving the cold are you? well i am finally leaving for home.
where the sun never fails to rise. sweden, i finally discovered, is not too bad at all. i love this place and will work very hard at it to come back here some time.
but right now africa is calling. and as porgy would say...*oh Lord, i'm on my way*
i don't know about you, but there is no place like home. with your family around you, you're never alone.
i salute your bravery and pray it would lead you to new discoveries. physical and spiritual. you're a great man. always remember that.
Godspeed,
Quintin.
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By QUINTIN BOOYSEN | October 25, 2006 2:13 PM
wow brother mike.....you never fail to amuse. just the usual pompous, prissy you. ha ha ha. back in umeå after a week in kiruna. what a cold place. minus eleven it was last friday. a first for this crazy, camp capetonian. no sex of course, but who needs that if there is a famouse grouse lurking in every corridor of the scandic ferrum hotel. yea, had some great fun in kiruna. porgy and bess was a big success of course and the cast even managed to visit jukkasjärvi...the place of the ice hotel. only there was no bloody hotel there, since building only starts in november. but just visiting the site was equally satisfying.
had a stiff wolfe's paw (absolut vodka and something) to celebrate the moment, and out of an ice glass on top of it. love from us all, Quintin.