The title of this diary is a bit of a play on words. You see, the Icelandic word for election is, in fact, kosningar, related to the verb kjósa (KYO-saw), meaning to choose or vote. And America isn't the only place in the world having a hotly disputed presidential election coming up: in Iceland, people vote for forseti at the end of June. And this year, the battle lines are, for the most part, between incumbent Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson and challenger Þóra Arnórsdóttir.
Plus: My shipping crates arrive, I continue to get settled in here in Iceland, and someone nearly dies right in front of me. No, I'm not kidding.
Here is a photo I took of Þóra, spouse, and newborn child at a campaign rally on May 28th:
Now, odds are, you've just gotten the wrong impression. Þóra is the woman on the left, a reporter for RUV. The man on the right holding the infant is her husband, Svavar Halldórsson, who will be a stay-at-home "first husband" if Þóra wins. As for the infant, Þóra gave birth while on the campaign trail just ten days prior to appearing at this campaign rally.
The incumbent is a giant in Icelandic political circles: Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson:
President now for sixteen years, it would be difficult for him in any election cycle, let alone with as significant of a challenger as Þóra. But he has a strong following and earned some new friends when he made international news by sending the Icesave repayment compromises to referendum instead of signing them (note: the banks ultimately did repay the money that they owed, thanks to a lot of support by the government, but Iceland is being sued by the British and Dutch nonetheless in the EFTA court - something people over here aren't too happy about). At the same time, Ólafur is seen by critics as increasingly out of touch and having a sense of entitlement for his position (as examples, I've heard critics comment on things like him eliminating hosting regular meetings with the public and consistently using capital letters to describe his job).
I personally take no stance on who should win this election. Not that I feel that I'm not entitled to; while I can't vote, I do live in this country and what happens in the political scene affects me just like it does everyone else here. But I don't feel I know enough about the nuances and policy stances to pass judgement. I will, however as a tangent, note two things. 1) That if Þóra did win, this would be a historic election, having women in charge of both major offices in Iceland at the same time, and 2), that I've been told (who knows how seriously) that I speak better Icelandic than Ólafur's wife. She's from Israel; he reportedly picked her up by responding to a question about what he does for a living, "I'm a president of Iceland," which she assumed for several days he was joking about.
The polls are being confusing as to how the election is faring, swinging wildly. Early polling gave Þóra a commanding lead. The next poll showed a dead heat. Then Þóra was back clearly on top; this was credited to an interview where Ólafur suggested that her campaign was part of a conspiracy. But then in the next poll, Ólafur was on top. So the situation is difficult to read. One thing is for sure: we'll know the answer in a month!
As for myself, there's been so much going in here in Iceland... mostly revolving in recent days around my stuff arriving. First came my car:
It can charge (a little bit) on electricity, but I haven't yet had the chance to take advantage of Iceland's cheap, clean electricity because his charger's cable got damaged in shipping and I haven't had a chance to fix it yet. I'm still dealing with a long paperwork trail to get him registered, made worse by the fact that I'm dealing in a language I'm not great at on a subject I know nothing about. So, for example, when the Umferðarstofa kept trying to ask me to fill out something on a blank whose name translates as "inspection location", I was simply baffled, and having two people come over and try to translate the word to English didn't help any! (what it was: cars here have to be inspected regularly, including upon arrival; eventually I got them to just pick a location for me, since I know nothing about it).
Then my crate came... looking a wee bit more disheveled:
Ouch. But it wasn't as bad as it looked; actually, very little was broken. Just a ton, ton of work, just like on the other side of the pond.
First came loading stuff into storage:
The culture here is majorly about helping people out. But I really don't want to burden anyone else; I'm enough of a burden as it is, barely speaking the language and such. :) So I did it all myself (and got complaints later from coworkers that I should have called ;)). The
hardest thing - and I have no idea how I managed to do it by myself - was moving my spare car engine.
Everything in storage, it was time to restow the rest of the crate and get it to my apartment:
(Above: Yes, I was listening to the Tetris theme on my phone while packing, and yes, in the back of my mind, I was worried that if I packed things any tighter, I'd get a line and lose a big chunk of my stuff)
I get home from work and the crate is at my apartment. Wonderful! I'm unloading it, but of course, it's taking forever. A kindly man, perhaps around 60 years old, comes up and asks me what's going on. I tell him and he offers to help me out. I feel bad, but he wants to help; he refers to himself as a riddari (knight) helping me out. Aww... :)
Between the two of us, we get the crate nearly unloaded in record time. Oh, sure, he accidentally knocks over my water pail at one point and soaks the hardwood floor, but I grab the one towel I have out (the rest are all packed), half-clean it up, and decide to finish cleaning it up later when I can find more towels. We keep going. He's taking in the third to last box, and I grab the second to last box. Between each time we pass each other, I start thinking in my head about what I want to say to him in Icelandic when next I see him. So I'm thinking that as I come up to the apartment. Except he's not coming out. He's on the floor. Fell, because of the wet floor I can only assume.
Ertu í lagi? (Are you okay?)
No response. He's making strange sounds and doesn't appear to be breathing.
Ég hringi í lækni! (I'll call a doctor!). That's when I realize that I honestly have no clue how to call a doctor. My mind snaps to the only option I can think of: run. Find someone who knows what they're doing. I run down the street and a couple houses over spot a man on his porch. I go to cry for help, and then I realize... I don't know how to do that, either. Oh, sure, I know the verb for "to help", and the noun "help". But the exclamation? Total blank. I think it's "hjálp", but I'm not confident enough to give it the force it needs.
Hjálp.!.(?) He looks up at me but doesn't look concerned. Maður var að hjálpa mér... hann datt... mig vantar hjálp... (A man was helping me... he fell... I need help)
Er hann í lagi? (Is he okay?)
Nei! (No!) I start heading back. He starts following and I break into a run; he seems then to grasp the seriousness of the situation.
We get back to the apartment and he calls the paramedics. They only take about five minutes to arrive, but it feels like forever. The voice on the line walks him through performing CPR. He gives me the phone to hold for him on speaker. I hold the hell out of the phone, as though if I held it wrong, that would be the cause of death. Every time the neighbor presses down on the man's chest, there's a strange sound that comes from his lips. But at least that means there's air moving in and out... right? Right?...
The paramedics show up and everything is now out of our hands. They make a path through the boxes and clutter and pull him into my bedroom, which had the largest open space because I was getting ready to set up my bed in there. I no longer can see what's going on -- only the aftermath. Him leaving on a stretcher. Medical waste littered all over the room, adrenaline syringe wrappers and the like. My landlord came home in the middle of it all and tried to reassure me. But I was really shaken by it all, and still kind of am.
I was told the next day that he was alive and that the doctors were getting ready to wake him. I've lost my source of updates, however, as my landlord is on vacation now, and I don't know which house the man lived at and am too uncomfortable asking around... I really don't know what his family thinks of me. A coworker told me how to dial for emergencies (112) and how to call for help (yes, it was just "hjálp"). Good to know things like that. That's the sort of thing you should learn before even a vacation, let alone a move.
The funny thing was, it never occurred to me to switch to English. I guess it's so drilled into me to speak Icelandic here that even in an emergency, I just didn't switch back.
Anyway, so that's what my life up here is like - volume knob turned to 11. But hey, at least we have an election to distract us! Now if you'll excuse me, I need to keep putting away more boxes (grumble, grumble... )