Somero People - My New Friend Manu

Here's an important cultural difference for you....when an English person says "I don't speak much French," that almost always translates as meaning this - "I don't speak much French at all." ie hardly a word, other than perhaps a random Merci or Bonjour.

In contrast, when a Finn says "I don't speak much English" that very often translates as "I speak almost fluent English, but because I occasionally mix up the odd preposition, I consider myself inadequate and feel it more honest to say that I can't really say anything at all."

For this reason, when Manu first told me, in an excellent English accent, that he "didn't speak very good English" I was immediately suspicious, and I was right to be. He is pretty much fluent. In fact there is a lot more to Manu than meets the eye.

Manu and his wife have lived in Somero for four years now, having previously lived for a year in Nummela to be closer to their grown up daughter. The couple have settled here well and these days consider Somero to be home. Manu is retired now, but spent his career as a laboratory technician working in the cellulose industry. I had to ask what that actually meant, and he explained that it is the base material for making paper and synthetic fibres.

Manu spent his childhood in Lappeenranta, close to the Russian border. In 1941 he lost his father, who tragically was killed trying to help a fellow soldier climb out of a trench. During the coming years, when still a young child, Manu was evacuated on three occasions - spending an entire year in Sweden with a foster family. He told me how he travelled across Finland with a group of children and then had to take the boat to Stockholm. "We had big labels hanging round our necks with our names on. The soldiers in Sweden were kind to us, they gave us chewing gum, which we hadn't had for years in Finland. Then we were taken to a hospital to have our vaccinations. I remember we travelled on a military bus with no seats in it. When that was over, we were taken to a big farm in central Sweden. They had published a story about the evacuated Finnish children in a local newspaper, so local families came to pick which child they wanted to look after. A very nice Swedish family picked out my brother...he must have been better looking than I was...but then they saw me. I guess they felt sorry for me because they  took me as well. I ended up staying with friends of theirs in a town called Ljusdahl. They were a good family." Manu is 75 years old now, but it is clear that these scenes are as clear to him as if they had happened yesterday. "I still remember our phone number", he says smiling, "sexton sju fem (1675)".

As Manu talks, it is easy to imagine the feelings of a frightened seven-year-old boy who had first lost his father and then had to leave his mother behind for a year to live in a strange country. He also remembers getting back to Lappeenranta and having to make regular trips to the bomb shelter in the cellar of their house. "I suppose I was too young to really understand what was going on, but I remember my mother crying sometimes in the pitch darkness. There was a bigger bomb shelter in the middle of the town...but it took a direct hit one day, and many people died that day."

I have been very fortunate never to have experienced a war first-hand.  When I listen to Manu share these memories of his childhood, I feel slightly ashamed to think that my own teenagers seem to spend their time whining about Facebook and tongue piercings, but I guess I am not the only one facing the complications of adolescence.

Every minute spent talking to Manu has been a pleasure. In addition to the past, yesterday we also discussed our respective dreams for the future and how easy it is to fall for the "Sitku syndrome" (mä teen sen sitku....I'll do it when....). I told him one of my dreams, and he pointed out that it wouldn't happen until I at least included it in one of my lists of things to do. He is right! His own dreams include travelling around the States in a caravan. I hope he makes it...I am already looking forward to the stories of his travels over a coffee when he gets back, when he can tell me all about it in his excellent  English!