Penkkarit is being celebrated these days. Final year students of upper secondary schools hail their last day of school by coming to school in fancy dress, arranging all sorts of merriment and parading through town piled onto lorries, shouting and throwing sweets at everyone.
I remember my own penkkarit decades ago, dressed as a stereotypical Native American woman (or as such a one was imagined in Finland in the 90s), with clothing mostly assembled from presents my brother had brought home from Saudi-Arabia. It was so crowded on that lorry that I hardly felt the piercing February coldness. Twelve years of school were over and the future beckoned.
I was rather incongruously carrying a serious camel whip. It impressed everyone.
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