having tea with the Africans

Fifteen African students in a city flat. Outside, snow is falling but inside tea is being poured and cake is consumed at an alarming speed. I'm one of the handful of white people present. The Africans are cheerfully complaining of the cold outside. They have met up for a Bible study and express their surprise at the fact that Finnish people live in a Christian country and have all the Christian values but are not remotely interested in God. A song is taken up and echoes throughout the apartment building - I try to push my Finnish "what will the neighbours think?"-reaction out of my mind. Everybody listens quietly and with no visible reaction to the speaker explaining a passage from the Bible, but afterwards, the discussion is intense. Good-natured smiles all around even when opinions differ.

Our host whispers to me that some of the newer students had never seen a white person before they came to this country. Some of the women shyly avoid even looking at the men, much less talk to them. In the beginning, I find it difficult to tell these people apart - somehow all black people look the same - but after a while, I notice significant differences. After all, a Kenyan probably has less in common with a Nigerian than I have with a Portuguese.

I can never really understand why Africans choose to come to Finland to study when they could go to, say, the UK. Finland is cold and dark for a large portion of the year. Nobody knows where Finland is. In Finland, you have to study not only Finnish but also Swedish - two minor languages, completely different. Finnish people are reserved. Finland is expensive.

I get no sensible answers to this question from any of them. Maybe I grasp an understanding anyway: Finland, from everybody's point of view except 5 million Finns, is... kind of... exotic. Precisely because nobody really knows where it is.