Week One!

Halló!
It has been a very eventful couple of days!  I am going to try to cover as much as I can, but there is so much to talk about!  I suppose I will start with where I left off.

Friday

On Friday we attended our first morning meeting.  At 9 o’clock every morning all of the Solheimar community gathers together.  We start by coming together in a circle holding hands in a few minutes of silence.  Once the church bells ring all 9 chimes we lift our hands and say together “Góðan daginn” (Go-dan dyan) meaning good morning.  Then the community announces the date and any important news for the day and announces what will be served for lunch.  Finally we all take hands once more and everyone sings a song.  The whole ceremony is in Icelandic, so once finished our group stays and Axel, who is in charge of the building we have class in, comes and explains to us what was said during the meeting.  The song sung is also in Icelandic so we have not yet learned the words, but we will soon be able to sing along!  Later in the day we had class out in a field near a nearby river.  As a group we went out and discussed the importance of being one with nature and having time to sit with nature without the distraction of a camera, watch, or other man-made items.  We then had “solos” where we found a comfortable spot in the field away from others and had the chance to rest, think, sleep, or just enjoy the beauty surrounding us.  It was great to feel like I belonged to something so complex.  While sitting in the grass I watched as a small snail slowly worked its way up my water bottle, sinking into his shell every time the wind would blow, and observed as a lone goose flew overhead singing as if he had lost his group.  It was a very peaceful and moving class period. 

Saturday

Early Saturday morning our instructors took us out to pick blueberries.  This was a great experience and quite funny to me.  Since I spent all summer working in blueberry bushes it was humorous to see the Icelandic blueberries.  These don’t really qualify as bushes, but are more like a ground plant or moss that travels right on the ground of the earth.  The berries were a little sour and also chilled as if taken right out of the fridge because it is so cold outside!  We also got to try crowberries, which are similar to blueberries but a little darker in color and have a slightly different texture and taste.  They were very good though!  Later that day we went to climb Mount Hestur, a nearby mountain. 

 It was a very steep climb and very challenging at times, but the view from the top was probably the most beautiful view I have ever seen.  You could see all of the rivers and nearby mountains.

Off in the distance you could see Mount Hekla, an active volcano due to erupt in the next few years, and glaciers.  It was amazing to be there and see those sights, and to be blessed with such great weather.  We then were given solo time at the top where I found a nice seat in the moss on the side of the mountain and looked out on the river and Solheimar.  It was gorgeous!  At the end of the day we watched a documentary called “Taking Root.”  It was about Wangari Maathai, an activist who started the green belt movement in Kenya.  She grew up watching her country be deforested and destroyed and decided to start planting trees.  It started as something she did within her country, and quickly grew larger and more political.  It was moving watching her struggles, fights, and achievements, and gives me hope for a more sustainable world.

Sunday

Sunday was a very relaxed day.  After lunch I went to a church service!  Solheimar has church every other Sunday at 2 pm.  The whole service was in Icelandic, but it was so interesting to hear the different songs that were familiar to me sung in a different language.  At one point the home people (the community members that have varying disabilities) went up and sang “Deep and Wide” and “This is the Day that the Lord Has Made.”  It was a lot of fun because we couldn’t sing along with the words, but we followed their hand motions and were able to participate with them.  After church some friends and I went out with a volunteer from Germany, Suzanne, and picked some blueberries and walked along the top of a mountain to see an aerial view of the village.  It was very cool to see.

Monday

Today was our first day of official class!  We started off the day with a morning meeting.  Today’s morning meeting took place inside because we were having severe wind and some snow due to a hurricane.  After morning meeting we had our first Icelandic language class!  We learned some basic phrases and the alphabet.  This language is very tricky!  We all got a good laugh out of it.  That lasted for three hours until lunch, and then after lunch we watched a movie all about the geology of Iceland.  It was a very fascinating movie and I learned so much that I had not known before.  For example, the Mid-Atlantic Rift goes through the middle of Iceland, and therefore Iceland is growing at the rate of 1 inch per year.  Also Iceland was originally formed by lava erupting from the ocean, but was later carved by an ice sheet which extended over the island and later retreated.  This is how all the fjords were formed in the northern part of the island.  There is much more that I could share, but then this post would be way too long!

In the next coming days we will be traveling on a four day backpacking trip from the city of Landmannalaugar to the city of Porsmork.  The first day is a 7.5 mile hike in which we climb 400 feet in elevation.  The next three days are flatter, and we hike another 7.5 mile day then two 9 mile days.  Technically this is a European style hiking trip, so a trailer will take our sleeping bags and extra supplies from site to site while we just carry a day pack, and each night we will sleep in a hut with bunk beds and even heat in the first one!  This is nice though, because if we were traditionally hiking we would have no source of heat since there are no trees on Iceland to make a fire.  It will be a different experience, and if the weather is like it was today, it could be very cold and wet as well.  However the scenery will be so beautiful that we probably will be so distracted that it won’t be as bad.  I will post again when I am back with pictures and plenty of stories I am sure!

Bless bless!!!