The First Night

She was laying on the bed, crying.

How did she ever think she would be able to do this?

She had left her home four days ago, attended a camp in Berlin and flown to Africa to volunteer. To save the world? To help? When she wasn't even able to help herself?! When she felt she'd never survive in this scary, unfamiliar country that did not feel at all welcoming, but a totally different world from her own, a world full of dangers that made her feel completely helpless.

She would not be able to do this.

She lay on her bed, trying to get through this night. Sleeping was impossible. She'd been taken to a cheap hostel by a man from the organization, who had, instead of telling her everything, guiding her and making her feel safe, given her food and left, simply saying he'd pick her up in the morning. She didn't even manage to ask for drinking water, so she had the 2 dl she had taken from the aeroplane and that was it.

So, she hadn't eaten. It was incredibly hot and she didn't have drinking water. The hostel had no mosquito nets and she'd been told to use one, so she was wearing trousers and a long-sleeved shirt, which was only making it far too hot to sleep. In addition to all this, she had to share the room with a completely unknown Nigerian woman, who was sleeping on the next bed, so she couldn't cry openly - instead, she lay on the bed, shedding invisible tears, trying to keep quiet.

In the middle of the night, the woman on the next bed started making strange noise. Like whispers. She couldn't understand it at all, and the only guess she could make was that the woman was praying. It made her even more scared, even more shocked and even more unwilling to stay here any more minutes.

A lot later, still remembering that night as vivid as it was at the moment, she'd understand not only that the woman was really praying, but also that it probably meant the other person was ar scared as herself. As lonely, spending the first night in a new country. This realization would come at a time when she would have not only learnt how to live here, but also fallen completely and inevitably in love with this place, the place that would (still later) turn out to be the home of her soul.

Right now, that was far ahead and she had no idea of it (which didn't matter, because she wouldn't have believed if someone had told her this). It seemed like the morning would never come. She started crying again, and the only thing she could think was a given-up thought:

"I want to go back to Finland."

Thanks be to God, Fate, the Universe or whatever you believe in, this wish didn't come true until nine months later.