Jedną ze specyficznych rzeczy, które można powiedzieć o imigrantach na Islandii jest to, że rzadko kto z pełnym przekonaniem deklaruje, że chce zostać w tym kraju na stałe. Ludzie mogą mieszkać na wyspie przez wiele lat i wciąż mówić, że są tam tymczasowo, że tak w sumie, to nie wiedzą czy w końcu nie wyjadą i w ogóle to ciężko powiedzieć.
Monday, February 27, 2023
jak to się stało, że nie chciałam zostać na stałe
Sunday, February 26, 2023
sześć lat
22.02.2023
Dokładnie 6 lat temu wsiadłam w Warszawie do różowego samolotu linii wizzair i po 4 godzinach wylądowałam na innej planecie, gdzie mogłam rozpocząć zupełnie nowy etap. I można powiedzieć, że z jednej strony było to bardzo proste - wystarczyło kupić bilet lotniczy i pokazać na lotnisku dowód osobisty, żeby stać się migrantką ekonomiczną z wyboru, która wyjeżdża z Polski do owianej dobrą sławą Islandii w poszukiwaniu przygód, poszerzenia horyzontów, refleksji, spokoju i lepszych zarobków. Na miejscu miałam załatwioną pracę z zakwaterowaniem i jako obywatelka kraju UE bez problemów mogłam zalegalizować swój pobyt.
Nie musiałam w celach migracyjnych, tak jak musi rosnąca liczba osób na świecie, zapożyczać się, ani wydawać oszczędności całego życia, nie musiałam nawet zbyt wiele ryzykować, a na pewno nie musiałam bać się tego, że po drodze mogę umrzeć, utonąć w morzu albo w rzece, przemieszczać się przez wiele godzin transportem w nieludzkich warunkach, przedzierać się przez las, być przepychana, ani zostać zamknięta w ośrodku detencyjnym na którejkolwiek z granic twierdzy Europa.
Nie musiałam uciekać też przed wojną, a jedyną kolejką, w której musiałam wtedy chwilę postać, to ta do check-inu na lotnisku.
Mogłam też w dowolnym momencie i bez żadnych konsekwencji wrócić do swojego kraju pochodzenia, a nawet znaleźć jeszcze inną opcję, czyli zacząć żyć i tu, i tu, pomiędzy Polską, a Islandią, w międzyczasie spełniać marzenia podróżowania po świecie, zacząć kolejne studia.
I z tej perspektywy jestem mega wdzięczna za to, że urodziłam się w Polsce i jakie dzięki temu mam możliwości. I trudno jest w sobie pomieścić tę świadomość, że systemy, które my-ludzie sami sobie stworzyliśmy są tak, kurwa, niesprawiedliwe. Że coś, na co nie mamy żadnego wpływu (jak miejsce urodzenia, czy kolor skóry) otwiera lub zamyka różne drzwi, definiuje trudności, z którymi będziemy musieli się mierzyć, nasze być albo nie-być. I że wciąż te kwestie nie są wiedzą powszechną.
A to zdjęcie przedstawia mnie patrzącą z nadzieją w przyszłość, na parę dni przed opuszczeniem mojego pierwszego islandzkiego przystanku w Snæfellsnes i przeprowadzką do Reykjaviku, czyli po 3 miesiącach ambiwalentnej przygody z pracą w guesthousie na odludziu, pomiędzy górami, a oceanem, prowadzonym przez rodzinę, która tworzyła swoisty mikro-system autorytarny z emerytowanym policjantem na czele. Psychologiczne manipulacje, jakie ci ludzie stosowali wobec swoich pracowników (i siebie nawzajem) podbite były jeszcze tym, że to naprawdę było po środku niczego i nie było takiej opcji, żeby sobie gdzieś pójść, czy pojechać, szczególnie że dostęp do samochodu (który był rozpadającym się gruchotem) był mocno regulowany, a najbliższe miasteczko było oddalone o jakieś 50 km. I tak wyglądał początek mojej migracji w jednym z najpiękniejszych i najspokojniejszych miejsc na świecie, bo oczywiście Islandia okazała się dużo bardziej skomplikowanym miejscem, niż pastelowa, mlekiem i miodem płynąca kraina, której obraz można zobaczyć w mediach. I fajnie, że mogłam tego wszystkiego doświadczyć na własnej skórze i jeszcze po tych wszystkich latach pisać o tym pracę magisterską.
Sunday, January 13, 2019
jungle dreams, surreal structures
Xilitla is still a bit urban, but you can feel the rawness of nature surrounding you from all around. It was very humid, hot during the day, freezing at night, the soundscape occupied by birds singing songs I have never heard before and the hum of the nearby waterfall. I went there with three people I met at the hostel back in Mexico City and we stayed in a teepee at a property decorated in the style of "Alice in Wonderland".
It was so beautiful and, as what tends to happen to me, I got overwhelmed. After the New Year I got sick with a fever, felt dizzy, as though something was boiling inside of me. The hot lava of my own private volcano which I'm carrying inside, coming close to the surface of my consciousness. I quickly got better physically, but this mindset didn't go away after I left the area and I'm still feeling it where I'm at right now, in the city of Oaxaca. I was supposed to stay here for three weeks helping out a chef with cooking classes, something I was excited about and looking forward to. From Xilitla I went down south to Mexico City for one day and then took the night bus to Oaxaca. Upon my arrival at the chef's place, I started having anxiety, a feeling that something is not right. I spent there couple of days, thinking that maybe it's just taking me a bit longer than usual to adapt to a new situation, but it wasn't the case. I was having flashbacks from my previous jobs in Iceland working in the service industry and got into a weird passive-resistant mood, walking around like a ghost with an invisible "I would prefer not to" written on my forehead. I couldn't control it, found it really hard to explain to the guy what's going on, even though I tried to make it work. Although he had this "chill vibe" around him, the job seemed to me much more demanding than the other workaways I did, there was a lot of chaos and it didn't feel like volunteering, but like normal work. I think I had to look very depressed as I started noticing him being angry at me for "looking absent" and I finally decided to leave. In situations like this I never know if it's me who's being over-sensitive or is there really something wrong going on. I'm glad I left.
I have a lot of thoughts and feelings oscillating wildly in my head. Leaving the city is going to be for the best, I'm heading to Mazunte now, a village on the coast of the state, known as a place where people go to and never want to leave. I'm going to treat myself this time, renting a private room of my own there, so I can have some space.
Will the ocean lull me into oblivion, the humidity in the air will naturally turn my hair into dreadlocks and I'm going to become a yoga-obsessed hippie? Or maybe the volcano inside of me will finally start erupting with consistence and I will manage to channel this energy into something substantial, the music I would love to record, the book I'm thinking would be a good idea to write. Or maybe I'll just learn to be in the present moment and simply enjoy myself. Or maybe none of those things. I'm ready for whatever this next destination might bring. It's also been 2 months and, once I arrive in Mazunte, it's going to be 2000km that I made travelling here in Mexico so far.
Wednesday, December 26, 2018
sleep paralysis and black holes
I went into the kitchen and frantically started to make some food for the Christmas dinner in order to forget about this experience, but the whole evening I couldn't help, but think about all the horrible tricks your mind can play on you.
I might be a bit over-dramatic here, but it also got me thinking about my worst moments while living in Iceland. Sometimes I truly felt as though I was on the verge of being stuck forever in a black hole and the weird presence pushing me down in that case would be depression. I have been struggling with this particular mental health issue my whole life, but in Iceland it adopted a form I couldn't quite understand. On the one hand, I managed to operate in a more or less functional manner, I connected with people and made friends, I was able to play music live, to organise gigs and to write for a magazine, I earned money working in different jobs and I lived in a nice, warm house. On the other hand, my mind started wandering into really dark places and I felt haunted by the things it was coming up with. It all escalated in the summer months which felt very unnatural - not only during this time the island is graced with nearly never-ending daylight which is difficult enough to adjust to, but this year the summer actually never came and it was cold, rainy and windy almost every day (unlike the previous summer I spent in Iceland which had a much more positive vibe to it). I started crying a lot, mostly in private, but also in front of people, sometimes at work. I was constantly thinking about the end of the world and how humanity is working for it, about the Holocaust and the banality of evil, about the small things people do which have the most fucked up consequences, how we are all constantly hurting ourselves and everyone else. I was basically feeling sorry for myself, the people around me and the world in general. Fortunately, there was always someone or something that managed to snap me out of it, but nonetheless, the feeling of impending doom was always there, somewhere in the background.
I think I got myself into a place where I had nothing to look forward to. Before, when I started to have glimpses of this miserable state at my first job in Iceland at a guesthouse in the middle of nowhere, I could just quit, pack my bags and move to Reykjavik in hope of changing my situation for the better. After spending so much time in Reykjavik, a metaphor of a person as a strange flower or a plant which is only allowed to grow a little, but never to fully blossom, came to my mind, cause this is how I felt like - stunted and pointless.
Was it my fault that I was feeling this way or was it the place that was the culprit? Was I indulging in some masochistic drive or was it the alien/familiar surrounding that made me feel somehow imprisoned? I have no idea and I'm thinking that in order to describe it well would be to say that my relationship with Iceland became toxic and that it just stopped serving me well. I remember thinking that even the money I'm earning seems worthless, as I have no struggling family I could send it to (as many immigrants do), nor any elaborate plan what to do with it, and that it was unfair that I could earn so much more than a person doing the same job in my home country. This is an extremely privileged position to find yourself in and the awareness of it only made it feel worse.
On a lighter note, I remember that at some point I started laughing at myself and at the absurdity of the whole situation and maybe this was also the time I thought that I have to leave the island and go traveling. I'm counting my blessings, as I'm having a great and eye-opening time here in Mexico and maybe I wouldn't have appreciated it so much if I haven't been through all of this. Iceland made me feel a lot of bad things, but I learned a lot as well, had many amazing moments, and all in all, I think it changed my life for the better. It also gave me the courage and the financial means to do what I want right now, at least for some time. I still think that the place has a lot of potential and I'm keeping fingers crossed that with time, it's going to become a better version of itself. I'm glad I know people who are there and who are putting a lot of effort and energy into making it happen.
Thursday, December 20, 2018
shadowplay
I started writing this post after dozing off cocooned in the hammock at the terrace of the guesthouse. As I mentioned, the owner is an astronomer and the whole place is quite quirky. The rooms are named after planets and there is a dog here called Milky Way, a lively being obsessed with her own shadow, being very attentive to it as though she is trying to communicate or play with it. The view from the terrace is magnificent and the town is certainly one of the most beautiful I have ever been to, but of course there is a dark undertone lurking from beneath. It’s a colonial town, a very influential one during that period, with a tumultuous history of greed and abuse. As the area abounded in minerals, the Spanish colonisers took advantage of that. I’m reading in the guidebook that "Silver barons in Guanajuato city enjoyed opulent lives at the expense of indigenous people who worked the mines, first as slaves and then later as wage slaves. Eventually, resenting the dominance of Spanish-born colonists, the well-heeled criollo class of Guanajuato and Querétaro states contributed to plans for rebellion. (..) This anger was focused in the War of Independence. In 1810 rebel leader Miguel Hidalgo set off the independence movement with his Grito de Independencia (Cry for Independence) in nearby Dolores. Guanajuato citizens joined the independence fighters and defeated the Spanish and loyalists, seizing the city in the rebellion’s first military victory. When the Spaniards retook the city they retaliated by conducting the infamous ‘lottery of death,’ in which names of Guanajuato citizens were drawn at random and the ‘winners’ were tortured and hanged. Independence was eventually won, freeing the silver barons to amass further wealth. From this wealth arose many of the mansions, churches and theaters.”