Oh my May 2017

In my last blog I hoped for a warmer spring from now on. It didn’t happen: May 2017 was one of the coldest as long as I can remember. There were a mixture of sleet hail, snow and water mostly available.

Luckily some days were warmer, including the Mayday when it was possible to enjoy sunshine at the garden. But it didn’t last long... 

The other exception was 19^th of May with 26 centigrade warmth. We were at Hauho meeting and I took an advantage in going to swim. This time the water was really freezing after so long cold period so I didn’t swim very long time. 

However I didn’t feel myself cold after swimming and I also enjoyed the warm and pleasant evening outside - the only one of this kind in May, unfortunately.

The Hauho meeting was sort of normal and the program was mostly based on our own activities. I gave a couple of lectures according to my blog articles which also paid quite a lot of attention.

Our oriental dance group decided to do some costumes by ourselves so we had a sewing session at Leppävaara library. There is a facility for sewing with a couple of sewing machines and a broad board for cutting fabric. Our master seamstress Katri even brought two sergers with her. First we went to a fabric store to choose the right material. I chose dark lilac velvet-like fabric for a skirt. Our leader Marinka had patterns which I had tested earlier. I also bought some satin ribbon to fix a top which had a hole under the armpit.  

                                               Photos by Marinka Nyqvist

I have had bad Karma with sewing machines so I wanted to have some support with using it. With the help of two Katris I managed to accomplish my goal, a skirt, mending the top and also shortening a long skirt. We had fun and the library audience was interested in us. A member of personnel wanted to take pictures of us and she published some of them on the library Facebook site.

Katri (the one mentioned first) had been busy with her serger: She made white tops for many of us. This made some nice unity to our appearance when we danced Myrskyluodon Maija based on a story of a Finnish woman in the 19^th century. 

                                             Photo by Marinka Nyqvist

The performance in our spring show was a co-production of two groups, our Marifet and Hile. Marifet also danced a more traditional dance Mish Fadilak. We had quite a hurry in the dressing room because we had to change the costumes and jewellery and even strengthen the makeup between the dances. Hile had even less time for that so we had to help them to change.

Photo by Monna Timonen

Partly because of that hurry and partly because my long lasting flu I got my dance didn’t gospecially well. I’m still happy with the dance season and I decided to go on with it by taking part to the summer course of Marinka.

I also visited The Helsinki World Village Festival. It was situated partly in the park and partly at the square in Helsinki Downtown. There had been a refugee demonstration camp from February at the square. A racist organization The Finns First also had their counter demonstration camp at the same square. The police did allow the place in spite of the fact there would be some provocation between the demonstrators. The Finns first camp situated on the area The World village rented for their purposes. First some Helsinki official decided to chase both camps – for equality reasons! The decision was repealed and the both camps were allowed to stay. So when I went to the festival area I happily walked through the refugee camp but for some reason passed the nazi camp with distance.

There was nice ethnic music at the festival but because my flu I had to restrict my desires to dance along it. Instead I stayed some time at the table of the LGBTI organization Seta to talk with people about this kind of issues. 

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