5/28/2012- Musings from Greenland (Nuuk, Greenland)

Two things said by Anne Mette caught me off guard and made me think.

“If you’re sick just go to the hospital, and don’t even bother trying to show them insurance—they wouldn’t know what to do with it and it would just complicated the matters. Simply give them your address in Nuuk, and you’ll get all the medication and service you need for free.”

“Feel free to sign out the company car and drive anywhere. You don’t need an international driver’s license; the police if you were stopped wouldn’t know the difference between your US license and the international, so you’ll be fine. Oh, and be careful at the two traffic lights—they’re the only two in all Greenland, and often people from the settlements driving here will stop in the middle of the road confused at what to do when they see it or not stop at all because they have no idea what it is.”

I’m making a point to not be political in any conversation I am having while here but rather to simply listen in, and this blog will be no different. What I took away from these two statements wasn’t an idea of one government system being superior or inferior to another, but a representation of how simple and pure life can be here. Hearing these comments made me realize what I had heard about hiking was correct—you can hike anywhere in the country outside the national park as no one owns any of the land, not even what your house is on. Land belongs to the people, and anyone can enjoy it.

My second day in Greenland after a morning chatting with the man I am staying with, Roar (and this is not an alias; he is from the Faroe Islands—though his name is quite possibly one of the coolest in the world,) I walked from my home in Nuussuaq to work on the coast, about a 30-40 minute trip. It took longer than that, about an hour, since everyone was outside to enjoy the weather on the holiday and would stop to greet everyone passing them on the street. Nuuk has a population of around 15,000 people, making it one of the smallest capital cities in the world, and unlike in the US when you’re often asked ‘you’re from Brookfield? Oh, do you know so-and-so’ when you know for a fact that no one will ever know who is being spoken about—here, the answer is generally yes. For example, to explain where we are living to the office Sarah and I gave our host family’s first names, and everyone immediately knew who they were and what they did. Even when I remembered nothing about the man I spoke to on the plane at Kulusuk, everyone I have spoken to here about him could infer who I was speaking about by knowing that he owned a business in Paamiut and lived in Nuuk.

After arriving at the office I sat on the rocks outside which separate the ocean from the road. Boats of all sizes shot by while families gathered to have a smoke and watch for whales nearby, and I enjoyed watching the contrast of people out on the water to the colored houses outlined by snowcapped mountains behind them for a good while. Ever since Semester at Sea I have found myself calmest and most at peace when I am looking out over the ocean, hearing the waves and knowing the power of what is before me—sitting on the rocks rivaled being in the middle of the ocean under the stars for me. I could only imagine sitting there in the dead of winter during the three month darkness that envelops the Arctic region, watching the sky light up and dance.

I’d wondered how I would enjoy being in a place where internet is so costly its prohibiting, grocery stores stock what can be shipped in from abroad and are subject to the weather, and few people speak my language. Admittedly, my opinions could possibly change in the coming months. However this move has already clearly been the best thing for me at this point in my life. The purity of the air and the break from ‘reality’ are saving me from the neurotic, dependent, type-A personality I had slowly been becoming while working full time and working on my Masters. My days these past few years had consisted of waking early to sit at a desk for a job that I had no passion for, not moving until it was time to ‘go home’, when I would walk a few buildings over and sit another few hours for class. I’m eternally grateful for the opportunities the job and degree have afforded me, and always will be—however, I could see myself becoming comfortable.

Comfortable... that is the word I’ve avoided like the plague. In my opinion, when you become comfortable, it’s time to move on, try something new, jump off a new cliff into a new ocean, lest you become stoic and settled.

I truly hope that I’m never comfortable in my life.

…and that, my friends, is how you skip conversation topics and write what’s on your soul.