Swedes in Africa, first installment

   Karin, the Imire volunteer with whom I shared a ride back to Harare, is an adventurous Swede.  She travelled alone to Imire and had a wonderful time.  She is a Swedish worker, outside of the "norm" for volunteers abroad.  She is neither a college kid on a "gap year" or a footloose retiree like me.  She is, in fact, a forklift driver.  You probably wouldn't conjure up her image when you think "forklift driver," but that is what she is.  
    The Scandinavian culture has infiltrated my consciousness quite a bit in recent years, not least of all because of Netflix.  Scott and I love the hundreds of categories of movies one can search for.  We've gone through many, but our favored one is "somber Scandinavian dramas," and oh my, have we EVER enjoyed some of them, occasionally several times over!
    Also, I've met so many volunteers from Scandinavia over the years.  I still think fondly of all the Danish friends I met in the depths of the Kalahari in Botswana.   I've been VERY impressed and wonder what we Americans should be learning from their governance.  
    And, also, you may know that this area of the U.S., northern Wisconsin and the U.P. of Michigan, happens to be the settling place for thousand of Finns, and one of our dearest friends is very much into his Finnish heritage and has actually lived in Finland and helps make Finland real to us.  And also, Scott and I spent a full day and a half in Iceland a couple of years ago and LOVED it!  And , , , , and . . . and.  You know how it goes:  once you develop an interest in something, you find references to it all over the place.
    Well, Karin and I spent a few dispiriting hours looking around the street markets of Harare.  Dispiriting because the people there are so incredibly desperate to make a sale--any sale--that they are REALLY persistent, and your heart goes out to them, but there's only so much  you can do.  So we went to the airport early.
    And there we had . . . . .  . FIKA!  I had already heard that "Fika" is the Swedish word for a little snack with friends that one has in order to share camaraderie and satisfy a moment's taste for something sweet or savory.  We found the perfect place for fika in one of the little cafes in the Harare airport.  We also remembered that we had had NOTHING sweet to eat since our arrival at Imire.

Karin and fika in Zimbabwe