Sunday, February 15, 2009

The not so little thing called market...







Hej all, Wow...it has been a long time since I last posted....so here we go!

For the past few months, nothing very exciting has happened. We stuck to our normal routine which consists of going to school, talking with students, hanging out at the house, knitting, and chilling with our highschool friends. And before we knew what hit us, 30,000 plus people bombard our peaceful town for a crazy fun-filled 3 days! This bombardment is more commonly known as Jokkmokk's vintermarknad (winter market) which celebrates the Sami culture and arts. It's the market that puts Jokkmokk on the map and it's been happening for over 400 years.

Monday Feb. 2 was when the market week began and it starts out with historical market, which is suppose to show what market would have been like 100 plus years ago. It was here you could find people dressed from head to toe in fur selling reindeer meat, hand made mittens and socks, and various hand made crafts. This market is very small...it took about 10 minutes to walk through it and see what all it had to offer.

On Wednesday the 4th, the opening ceremony for market occurs. It takes place in the middle of town and lots of people gather to hear what the important people of Jokkmokk have to say and then watch the show that starts the market. This year it was yoiking, which is a traditional Sami style of singing. It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever heard. After the ceremony, which takes about 45 minutes, every one heads home, or continues to set up their stands.

Thursday the 5th was a free day for us because there was no school due to that fact that it was turned into a make shift hostel to accomadate all of the people that come to market. There are only 2 or 3 hotels in Jokkmokk, so for 250 crowns a night, you can rent a space on the floor of the school. So this was my first day of market wandering. It was pretty intense. There were so many people and so many things to look at. After wandering around for a bit, I headed back to the church to make bread for the fika that we would be selling the next night. After finishing the bread, I decided to brave the cold and go back out to wander around somemore.


Friday the 6th is markets BIG day...when I say big I mean so many people that you can hardly walk around. None the less my day started out with the church service held at the old church. It was a very beautiful service in which the choir sang, John 1:4-5 was read in 12 different languages and Tom Rutschman gave a sermon in 4 languages, Swedish, English, Spanish and French. After the service we headed home and hang out and warm up. Around 3 we headed down to the lake to watch the famous reindeer race. The race consists of 10 volunteers, preferably from a country other than Sweden. Then they attach a sled to semi-wild reindeer, the volunteer lays on the sled and the they race around a track. It was pretty intertaining. After a while we decided that we couldn't stay and watch the end because we were so cold...maybe the fact that it was -20 celcius had something to do with it. So we headed home to warm up before we had to work at the folk dance later that night. Around 8:45 we made our way up to the folk dance to sell fika, snack, to the dancers. It was a pretty good night. I got to do some traditional Swedish line dances and talk to lots of interesting people. We finished selling fika at 1 and went home exhausted.

Saturday was another big day at the market. Once again there were so many people you could hardly walk. It was this day that I decided that I was going to go on a dog sled ride. It was awesome, for 80 swedish crowns you could ride on a dog sled around the track that had been made on the lake. The ride was really short and the dogs were insanely loud, but it was definitely worth it...I mean how many of my friends can say that they have been on a dog sled ride before. After my ride, Bethany and I decided to wander around the market a little more. After sufficiently freezing ourselves, we made our way back home to thaw before having to go work at the folk dance again. Once again we spent our night at the folk dance selling fika and chatting with all the interesting people.

Sunday was our day of relaxation. After church we decided to go out for pizza to celebrate the success we had in selling fika. Market was finally over, people were leaving and our town was finally going back to it's normal quiet self. All I can say is that market is a very interesting and one of a kind experience and I am really glad that I was able to take part in it.