Connection by Danmarks Medie- og Journalisthøjskole

con nec tion 1

connection Community. Love. Acceptance. Sharing. Challenge. Greed. History. Feeling. Home. Connection is a basic human need. It is how we relate to those around us. It is how we shape our worlds, our communities. Through these connections we find love and learn to accept ourselves, accept our flaws and strengths. Once learning to love ourselves we can share our love with those around us. In these communities challenges arise, selfish actions and connections sought with greed have arisen throughout history. Feelings both good and bad cultivate our connections with each other. Love and Greed. Challenge and Acceptance. They all blend together to create a feeling of belonging. A place where all of our connections meet. A home.

Jungle Paradise

Miss Transgender

France

Scottland

Sergey Polezhaka

Emily Macinnes

Page 6

Page 14

Feelings... Learning, Playing, Laughing Denmark Lobna Tarek Page 30

A Pig of a Problem

Cold Hawaii

Denmark

Riina Rinne

Nicole Boliaux

Page 46

Page 56

Long-Drawn Season Lithuania Sofija Korf Page 72 4

In Between Romania Sonja Palade Page 22

Desde Colombia til Gammel Rye Denmark Gino Kleisen Page 38

Surviving by Love Denmark Alaa Elkamhawi Page 64

JUNGLE

PARADISE

“With a lover there is paradise even in a shelter” - Russian proverb. Thousands of migrants trying to get to England every night through the tunnel by foot or bike are organizing their own temporary paradise in the “New Jungle” camp in Calais, France.

“Every night and every day every night and every day I try to come UK but the things are not okay…” Local migrants’ song

Photo and Story // Sergey Polezhaka

he bus from Paris to Calais stops on its way in Lille and all but three passengers get off it. These three people are me and two guys presumably from Africa. A french policeman comes into the bus and gently asks for our IDs. Contrary to my Ukrainian passport, which is not interesting for him, the guys’ shabby papers folded four times grab his attention and make him ask several questions. “Ou vas-tu? Where are you going? Calais? Camp? New Jungle? Tunnel? Britain?” Being confused from such a verbal pressure, guys who seem to barely speak

English or French, murmur something with an agreeing nod. “Merci” is the only answer from the cop before he leaves the bus a second later.

Welcome to the New Jungle

The first migrants started coming to Calais more than a decade ago and their goal remains the same: to get on a ferry or, more likely and popular, on a train with trucks going through the Eurotunnel and therefore to make it to the United Kingdom. The only difference is the number of people doing it. If in the beginning there

Top: A man walks past tents at the entrance to the migrants camp “New Jungle” in Calais, France Right: Local citizens repair and ride their bikes on the edge of “New Jungle” camp.

were tens of adventurers, now there are several thousands of them. Some media report numbers like 6,000 and number is constantly increasing. After several changes, they have chosen a piece of land at the eastern suburbs of Calais to settle a camp to live during their attempts and call it now the “New Jungle.” Its citizens came from various countries - Iraq, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Syria, Afghanistan and so on - with various stories but similar troubles. Due to different origin and reasons to come here, there is no consensus on how to call them: refugees, migrants or asylum seekers. Some of them explain their strong will to get to the British Isles because they already speak English, while others reproduce some rumors and myths that in the United Kingdom it

is much easier to get an asylum, have a place to live and socialize.

Night Runners and Fence Cutters

I watched one of the groups in their night raid to the famous fence enclosing the railway terminal, from which trains depart to the UK through the tunnel under the English Channel. Their agenda for tonight is to send the avant-garde group to cut the fence, wait for their signal that everything’s OK, to break through the fence, then run some 1.5 kilometers on the terminal territory, jump on the train with trucks and - if not being detained by the French police - to go for new and better life. The “New Jungle” is located just east of Calais, the train station - to the southwest and the distance between them is

Below: Jafar pumps the tire after a repair in a makeshift bike shop at his tent in the camp. Bottom: Getcho picks up one of the bikes from the line for repairs.

some considerable ten kilometers, which is somewhat tiring if one walks this route every night by foot. If the attempt fails, and in most cases it does, people have to retrace this distance, and the road is not made of pavement, but gravel, rocks, stones and grass. Under these conditions many people decide to travel by bike instead. Their plan is simple: if you manage to break through the fence - bikes to be left behind, if no - at least you have transportation back. Therefore, bikes have a hard life on this journey and riders would struggle a lot without good bike repair masters. Luckily for them, the camp has one. He has no lack of customers.

One-euro bike shop

One can recognize the local bike shop

easily. In front of the one of the tents there is a group of men working with lots of bikes laying on the ground. Some bicycles are carefully turned upside down for repair and stand on rags between the seat and the mud of the road. The air is filled with buzz. Men sing, laugh and talk to each other. I can distinguish some unfamiliar language, this is Ethiopian native language of the small community living in this corner of the camp. Jafar, one of the local masters, tells me through a translation by his friend, Ridvan, that in Ethiopia he worked as a car mechanic. And here, in France, he repairs bicycles as a small business. The cost of repair varies from 0.5 to 1 Euro and is really diverse, although there are common issues like tightly attached or rusted parts, mostly

problems are punctured or even ripped tires, broken spokes. Generally, bikes that come here are “battered”. All kinds of bicycle, mountain-bike, racing, city. In addition to the tough road, the very origin of these bikes also raises some concerns. Too many bikes without one wheel are here for repair… Often Jafar has to sculpt out a few “donors” to make one working transport, and due to this lego-style work his backyard looks very eclectic - bike frames are rusting as a bunch of skeletons, flattening thick green bushes under constant little gray Norman rain. Because Jafar and Getcho, another master, not only repair them, but also buy and sell and thanks to the unknown origin of these bicycles, though there is no secret about at least part of their origin, as for example

the city’s “one-legged” rental bikes, some incidents happen. The same bike can appear among the inhabitants of the camp several times in different hands, causing controversy. It starts heavy raining, and people, both repairers and customers, squeeze in the tent to hide from it.

Home is where the heart is

The owners of the tent - Jafar and his wife, Zazrani, 22 and 20, have been living here for more than two months. They made many attempts to sneak into Britain by train before, just like everyone else here. They would attempt a few nights in a row then rest for a night, then start over. Both are from Ethiopia, both are from the same region and even from the same city (Oromeya and Adama respectively).

Jafar and his wife, Zazrani, look at photos and videos of themselves on their phones after the dinner in their temporary home in the camp.

Jafar said that he moved from Ethiopia “for political reasons” while Zazrani was almost married by her father against her will, and no one tried to support her, even a brother. They met each other in Sudan two years ago, where Jafar used to work as a taxi driver at that time. They exchanged phone numbers. Started dating. Married. Jafar moved to Libya, began collecting money and in two months she joined him. Then, after ten months they had gathered enough money to move to Italy on a boat - which is seen in the media a lot today. In the sea they spent a total of three days before being caught and rescued by Italians. In Italy, they did not want to be fingerprinted, arguing that if they register as refugees there they would have to stay in Italy, and according to them, in Italy there is no work and no place to live. So 12

they moved here, to Calais, hoping to join those trying to make it to England, or to get registered in France. They want to share their stories even when there is no one who could translate, so they show photos and videos from their phones, cheap Android ones. All videos are mixed in one folder: videos made of photos of them as a couple with some cheesy crossfades, some music videos with Ethiopian mountains and national flags on the background; a video of attempts to break through the train fence; a piece of a film about the Italian rescuers in the Mediterranean sea; a video of executions by ISIS edited with some sad music... Jafar had someone from his friends executed by ISIS, and he still seems to have some PTSD, despite looking so happy and cheerful as a person.

Jafar and Zazrani disclose the reasons why they are not going to get on the train in the night anymore: Zazrani is pregnant and it is becoming colder and more risky to run during nights. Their friend, Ridwan, received a paper from French officials with positive results and tickets to his new home in a small town in the north of France. So they hope for the same fate and are going to apply for asylum in the next few days.

From top left to bottom right, clockwise: Zazrani listens to a conversation after dinner in their tent. Jafar sings and dances while people smoke shisha in their tent. Said, one of the guests of Zazrani and Jafar in their tent, chats on his phone while others talk around the candle. Jafar, Zazrani and their guests have a chicken curry and rice as dinner in their shelter.

MISSTRANSGEN Photos and Story // Emily Macinnes

Despite growing up in one of the most conservative regions in Scotland Jai Latto says she faces more discrimination from the Trans community than she does from the rest of society.

hen I met Jai Latto for the first time at the inaugural Icon Awards, 2015 in Glasgow she was dressed in a red floor length dress, cream-coloured stilettos and had flowing, brown hair that she wore tucked over her left shoulder. She was radiant and beautiful and she walked with elegance: she pointed her toes and crossed her legs and when she ate she politely hid her mouth behind her hand. She flirted with men and they flirted back. Had she not been wearing a sparkling crown and a white sash that read â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Miss Transgender United 2015â&#x20AC;&#x2122; it would have been easy not to question her gender at all. Having only come out as transgender 10 months ago Jai was thrust into the spotlight after winning 1st prize in the first Miss Transgender UK a couple of weeks ago.

NDER

Jai calls with Sue Pasco, the organiser of her reassignment surgery at the Transgender Surgery Institute in India, to discuss the fine print.

“I come from a small town in the Scottish Borders and now I am being nominated for Role Model of the Year at the Icon Awards… it’s just incredible and I feel humbled to take on the responsibility of inspiring other young transgenders to embrace their inner-selves” she says. Jai was born to a Thai-Indian mother and Scottish father and lived in Bangkok for the first four years of her life before moving to a small, rural town in the Scottish Borders where she says she grew up facing very little discrimination. “People don’t hate or abuse me in the Borders because I’m gay; they don’t hate me because I’m transgender and they don’t hate me because I’m Asian people are usually just awkward… they don’t know how to act or talk to me or 16

they might not want to be seen with me because they don’t want their friends to judge them.” But she says that in fact the hardest part of being transgender is being accepted within the trans community. “You’d think that it would be harder coming out to my parents or walking the streets of the Scottish Borders but it’s not. It’s actually proving myself as a trans woman within the trans community - proving to them that I’m good enough to have the label of a Trans Woman.” Shortly after she was named as Miss Transgender UK, Jai found out, through a statement on a Facebook group for transgenders, that she was being stripped of her crown because she had supposedly breached the MTUK contract - in a move

that appears to driven by jealousy. The organizer claimed that she was not a real trans woman because she did not live full time as a woman whilst other transwomen, mainly other MTUK contestants, chimed in that she was just a ‘gayboy in a wig’, condemning her for turning up to the MTUK finals venue dressed ‘as a boy’ and spreading rumours that she was on Grindr as a gay man on the night of the finals. Jai is mature and confident for her 22 years but it is hard for anyone to be attacked by their own community - the very same people who should understand most that transitioning is a journey and not an event. “Being transgender isn’t a certain way, there isn’t a manual that every-

Jai uses chicken fillets and padded bras to fill out her chest until she gets upper surgery where she will ask the surgeon for a C or D cup.

one has to follow. Transgender can be cross-dressing, transsexual, transvestite, drag queens, anything... If you feel like a woman and want to transition then that should be enough.” Jai explains that the transgender community in the UK is a tiny bubble where older members, typically the transwomen self-appoint themselves in mother roles within the community. “Because they think they’ve experienced everything they can tell you what to do and how to act. And because they are often shunned by their family and friends they create a very insular community where they bully and control the newer transgender people.” Jai’s title was eventually reinstated but not until she had provided medical docu-

mentats that stated she had been recognized by a doctor as transgender and that she was starting the process of hormones. The MTUK website have since changed their eligibility criteria on their website from accepting ‘transgenders, transvestites and drag queens’ to stating that only those who are living full time as a female can enter. Jai says she feels just as feminine without makeup and her wig on but as she is not due to start hormone treatment for several months and is in the beginning stages of growing her hair out it is easy for people to still react to her and treat as male, often referring to her using the male pronoun. Her parents still regularly use ‘he’ which she says is nothing to do with a lack of acceptance but rather just 17

Jai gets ready at home before an interview at a local tv station about winning the pageant. She has done it so many times that she can do her make-up in about 20 minutes.

22 years of habit. Unlike most parents of transgender children Jai’s parents were incredibly accepting and almost nonchalant to Jai’s gender transition. In her mind when people use ‘he’ it simply means that she still has a long way to go until she can fully blend in as a woman, even without all her makeup. At home she lounges around in hoodies and leggings - most of the time bare-faced and with her curly hair loose, still too short to tie up. She hates putting on her make-up and a wig and would love to be effortlessly feminine - but when asked if she wishes she had been a female in the first place she says: “No, because I’d probably just be one of those stuck up arsehole girls who go about and like drink champagne off of VIP tables and suck posh dick. I think that the process that I’ve went through 18

in transitioning, trying to figure out who I am, makes me more of a humble and down-to-earth person. I like that I’ve lived two lives and that I feel I can understand both men and women.”

The Prize

As part of the first prize Jai was awarded gender reassignment surgery at the prestigious Transgender Surgery Institute in New Delhi where she is due to undergo surgery in March next year. None of the contestants were told before entering the pageant that reassignment surgery was being offered to the winner but it is something that Jai has wanted since she transitioned but she could not figure out how to finance it. She says she can’t wait five years on the NHS for the surgery because she is desperate to reclaim some of the teenage years she spent without breasts.

“I’m scared that I’m going to be 25 and be hairy and have no boobs...” But when Jai was told that the £10,000 expenses paid trip to India covered ‘bottom surgery only’ she panicked. Not often the wish of transwomen – most want more than anything to rid themselves of anything male - Jai is adamant that she wants to keep her penis. “I’m going to have breasts done, my jaw reshaped, my nose done, my adam’s apple shaved and full laser hair removal but I’ve genuinely had nightmares where I wake up from the surgery and they’ve taken my penis.” Luckily she was able to arrange with MTUK and the Transgender Surgery Institute that she could receive top surgery as well as several cosmetic surgeries of her wish in replacement of the bottom surgery initially agreed.

Clockwise from top: Jai attends a weekly body pump class at the local gym; Jai spends a Saturday evening with her mum and dad who live in the neighbouring town; Jai jokes with friends during the rugby match; Jai goes shopping at Aldi. 19

Jai says that at ‘some point’ she might have bottom surgery but at the moment she is fearful of losing the sensation and not being able to experience pleasure. “I would have the surgery if I was 100 percent sure I could still get off. Plus, I’m still young and still trying to find myself so maybe five or so years down the line I might have full reassignment surgery but for now I’d be very content living as a beautiful she-male.”

Transitioning

At the Icon Awards in Glasgow where Jai was nominated for Role Model of the Year. Jai says she’s always glad to be able to come back from the madness of the trans scene to the peace and quiet of the Scottish Borders.

Long before transitioning Jai came out as gay at 16 and although she said ‘no one was shocked’ she knew that it never sat right with her. Despite breaking up with her boyfriend a year and a half ago they still live together and even share a double bed. “Derek is my best friend and I can’t imagine not living with him” but as she began to realize she had transgender feelings their relationship broke up. “It didn’t feel right to be a man dating another man but at the same time it was the most comfortable option. At that time there was nothing in-between being straight or gay, or at least it wasn’t being talked about, so identifying as a gay man was the closest I could get to my true self. But I always had in the back of my head ‘This isn’t right, this doesn’t feel right’”. But Jai explains that she was never happy playing out male gender roles: “I would always rather have female gender roles. As a male I didn’t like the way that people looked at me or the role they put me in because I didn’t physically look like a female. Even though I was confident with who I was as an individual inside it was the pronouns they used and the way people saw me that I felt uncomfortable with.” Now that she has begun to transition she feels like people will be able to see her the way she feels inside. Although she has no doubts about having reassignment surgery she says that she worries that once she starts the process of surgery she will be constantly chasing forever-moving goalposts. “When I first transitioned I thought ‘Oh I’ll lose weight’ but the more I lose weight the more my jaw line gets bigger, and the more women’s clothes I wear I find the more masculine I’m starting to look… So I’m constantly running after this dream. I’m happy I’ve got the surgery but I don’t know how I’ll feel after that… I’ll be feminine and beautiful but I’ll always be chasing this idea of perfection.

On the train, somewhere between Hungary and Romania.

In Between

Born in Romania but raised in Germany, I always had two homes. Yet at the same time I felt at home in neither.

Photos and Story // Sonja Palade

lănic-Moldova is a small sleepy town in the mountains in the north-east of Romania. Once it was a spa town filled with hotels and tourists, but now that the borders are open, people would rather go abroad on vacation than stay in Romania. Many of the hotels lay empty and decaying, a lot of apartments have a “For Sale” sign on the front door and the elementary school recently had to merge with the neighboring town because there weren’t enough children to fill a classroom. It is mostly older people who still live here. Everyone else has left for the big cities or sometimes even the West to find jobs. What remains is many elderly ladies in head scarves going for walks and feeding stray dogs, or groups of older men talking at the coffee shop down the street. The atmosphere is very quiet and calm, and anywhere you stand you can see the large fir trees and mountains that surround the area and smell the sulphuric smell of the healing springs. The spa park with its old wooden gazebos and Soviet style statues is mostly deserted at this time of year, nevertheless every other lamp post has a small radio attached to it that plays odd Romanian pop music. This is the place where my parents lived when they were in their twenties, where they got married and where I spent the first year of my life and many summer holidays to follow. My parents

left there in 1989, when after years of waiting for a permit they got on a train to Germany, a foreign place that they had never been to, with just two suitcases and a baby, and no intention of ever coming back. At the time, they didn’t know that only a couple of months later the Cold War would be over and that they could come back to visit the place they had left.

Leaving home for a better future

To them, Romania was their home. Even though it was limiting and living conditions were poor, my parents often said it was one of the best times of their life, because despite everything, they were young and happy and they were surrounded by their friends and family. But at the same time it was a country that stricted their freedom. Not being able to travel anywhere, only having limited access to what was going on in the outside world, what almost everyone wanted at the time was to leave. In Romania, wages are low and pensions even lower, and small towns offer almost no opportunities to young people at all. Even if you get a job in one of the bigger cities, you might not earn enough money to support yourself and your family. Between a handful of people with very high incomes and many of people living in poverty, a middle class barely exists. To many, the only solution is to leave and look for work elsewhere. 23

My uncle, Gheorghe Palade, in my grandparentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; garden.

Right after Romania’s entry into the EU in 2007, an estimated 3.4 million Romanians emigrated to work abroad.

Going back in search of a connection

I haven’t been to Slănic in seven years, but I decided to go back there in order to find out more about this feeling of being at home somewhere in between. Is it really Romania as a country, the way it is today, that I feel connected to or is it a place I made up in my mind? Will I feel any more or less at home there than I do in Germany? This time, I’m going back the same way my parents came to Germany 25 years ago, 1500 km by train, through Austria and Hungary, and then halfway across the country. It’s a strange thought that my parents, too, went from a place that was familiar to them to one that was completely unknown, on the same train ride, only backwards. Noticing the way the landscape changes, how the train stations change, how the people and the languages change,

everything becomes more and more different the closer I get to Romania, but there is also something that feels more and more familiar. Once I change trains in Budapest I’m in a completely different place than I was before.The trains become slower and slower, the view from the window changes from neatly built family homes and straight roads to vast landscapes, huge construction sites and small villages with cows and stray dogs running along the tracks. Two days and several train and bus rides later, I arrive in Slănic-Moldova. I’m staying with my aunt, in the same apartment she has always lived in, that I still remember from when I was a child. It’s located on the edge of the town in one of those Socialist-style apartment blocks that are ubiquitous around Eastern Europe. I haven’t been there in a long time, but walking in, I immediately recognize the smell of it, the kitchen furniture, the drapes on the balcony, the cute picture of my cousin from elementary school with an

My aunts in the old garage that my uncle turned into a house.

oversized hideous white bow on her head. All things that you remember about home. My other aunt lives right across the hall, but they spend most of their time downstairs in the building that once used to be their garage. My uncle spent a lot of time rebuilding it, and now it looks almost like a house, with beds, a stove, a TV, picture frames on the walls and a small garden behind it where I remember playing with my cousins when I was little.

Foreign and familiar

During the days I’m in Romania, I’m visiting almost all of my relatives there - and there is a lot of them. Growing up apart from almost half of my family, I hardly ever see them and to be honest, also hardly even know some of them. It’s a strange feeling, to be with people you are related to but know so little about, when at the same time, they will know almost everything that is going on in my life from regular talks with my parents on the phone. Then

again, people asking questions about your personal life that you don’t really know how to answer (“How come you’re not married yet?”, “Are you ever going to graduate university?”), if that isn’t home, then I don’t know what is. What mostly makes me feel at home though is the way people will warmly welcome you into their house even though you haven’t spoken to them in years, and that invitation usually comes with a big meal and a lot of coffee and cake. In Germany, everything is a little bit more distant, it takes a longer time to get to know people. Being completely new there like my parents were, and also from an Eastern European country, which comes with its own set of prejudices, can sometimes make life difficult. The problem with trying to fit into a place where you don’t just naturally fit in like everybody else is that it is incredibly exhausting. You are always hyper aware of your surroundings, and it takes a lot more effort to understand everything in a language that isn’t your native language, and Romanian isn’t

The main road in Slﾄハic-Moldova, a small town in the north-east of Romania. 27

Mihai Nechita, a friend of my parents, in his painting studio. 28

mine, just like German isn’t my parents’. Having to ask my aunts to repeat their questions while we’re talking, not always being able to express everything exactly as I want to, communication becomes a complicated thing. To me, a lot of things are very foreign in Romania. Talking to my Dad, he told me he had similar experiences in Germany in the beginning. Even just the small things, like not knowing how something works exactly, who to ask, where to go - when they accumulate over a day, you end up feeling slightly stupid for not knowing how to do tiny everyday things that everybody around you does naturally.

Home is somwhere in between

Going back to Germany, I don’t really have an answer to my initial question. In many ways, Germany is my home, it’s the place where I grew up, and where I lived most of my life. At the same time it’s not the kind of home it might be to

other people, there always remains a part of me that feels a little bit out of place, a little bit foreign. It’s a feeling that is hard to explain, as if you’re missing something you never really had in the first place. But the things I associate with Romania are mainly childhood memories from summer holidays, as I have never really lived there. Maybe that’s why I can afford to be nostalgic where other people can’t. However, it’s part of my own personal history, and that of many others who came to Germany at a very young age from a very different countries because their parents wanted to give them the opportunity at a better life. Even though you don’t grow up in your country of ori gin, it is still present in your home, in your relatives, in the way you are raised, and that gives you a feeling of belonging, of home. You make your own identity, your own culture, by taking bits and pieces from both cultures, and your home becomes somewhere in between.

Feelings

Learning ..Playing ..Laughing 31

Susanne Nolsoe does a lot of things in her life to be happy, survive and overcome her struggles. She also does the same for others to put some good feelings inside of them and teach them something new. Photo and Story // Lobna Tarek

Susanne has played drums in a band for seven years. She plays with her firneds and boyfriend who also have physical disabilities.

n an easy movement and in a professional way fingers play a classical music track to Benny Andersen on the piano, this is the sound in the background as I sit inside Susanneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s room. A room full of different musical instruments, piano, drums, saxophone, small musical keboard and lots of guitars. The music stops and you look to Susanne while she is turning the music pa-

per and starts to play music again. You feel like you are inside a special studio for a band but it is a small room inside a house in Aarhus in Denmark.

I do what I love

â&#x20AC;&#x153;I love music and its instruments, I have this passion and really love to learn how to play different instrumentsâ&#x20AC;? Susanne says after she finishes playing the piano.

Susanne Nolsoe, 48 years old, started to learn piano when she was very young and this is the first instrument she could play. Now she can play drums, saxophone, and started this year to learn how to play guitar. “Classical music is my favorite on piano. I like to play Beethoven, Mozart, and Bach. My favorite composer is Benny Andersen. I love to listen to his music and to play it

on piano, but sometimes I try to play jazz music on piano. It seems like a different sound coming from a piano but I like to try it.” Susanne and Ole her boyfriend decided to make this room inside their house because both of them love music. “This room is for playing music which we love. We have a band and play once a month, my boyfriend and our friends.

We have been playing together for seven years. In our band I play the drums.” Susanne says. You can see five or six guitars around you hanging on the wall. These are all Susanne’s and her friends’, instead of carrying them every time they come to practice together, they keep them in this room.” This year Susanne decided to learn how to play guitar. She said that she isn’t very 33

Susanne reads specific music notes written in Braille to understand the musical notation. When you are playing you have to memorize the notes or stop and reread the notes with your fingers.

good at it so she attends a music school to learn how to play it better. Her goal is to be able to sing while she is playing guitar. It is all about how to remember the lyrics and tone in guitar at the same time. “Music makes me relax and sometimes it turns darkness in my mind into light. Usually it depends on my mood what kind of music I play. When I feel sadness, I play sad music, when it is too crowded in my mind I play loud music like the drums and after playing music I feel relaxed and refreshed”. Every day before I go to bed I listen to the Orientering program on the P1 radio channel. It is a channel for old people but I love that they sometimes play good jazz music.

Meet the challenges

Sudden disease and high pressure in Susanne’s eyes turned her blind when she was seven years old. Her life turned into a new road with lots of challenges. She was faced with a lot to learn and a lot to do. The first change she had to face was quitting her ordinary school

and going to a specific school for blind children in another city near her hometown in Zealand in Denmark. After this school she went back to an ordinary high school and then on to university. where she got her degree in law studies. “I was very young and what I understood was that I cannot see anymore and I was quiet, but then became happy because I would not have to do house chores anymore and could just play, I was too young to understand the challenges I would have to face.“ Susanne tells me laughing. “I studied law and after that I worked as a law staff in a company.”, Susanne says. She started working in Arbejdsskadestyrelsen in answering general questions on law concerning injuries caused by or during work. Later she worked in Aarhus Kommune answering questions concerning disabled persons and wrote a lot of reports in the office. Her last job was at HK, a union taking care of workers’ rights. “Recently I lost my work because they want to reduce the number of employees, and I was one of them. I tried

“

All of this helps me to

overcome my depression and the stressful time I

”

face in my life.

Navigating through a crowd at Aarhus H Train Station, Susanne attempts to find her train to visit her father.

to look for another job but I cannot find one because people did not choose to hire me”. After Susanne lost her job she got depressed from all of these words she heard in places where she searched for work. They always say that they like her but that they had chosen someone else. She went to a psychiatrist and now takes medicine for depression. Now she does a little work, teaching blind people how to use phones and computers. “Sometimes I have a lot of work and a busy schedule and sometimes no

one asks for my help. It is a small job but I have to work and do something in my life. I also like cooking and eating good food, which is why I go to a cooking class every Tuesday evening to learn more about it. All of that helps me overcome my depression.” “I have Mokka, my guide dog, since the dog was 2 years old. She is now 8 years old. I consider her a friend and a family member. I got my first dog at the end of the 1970s. It was not a guide dog but it was as a friend. Then I got another dog, my first guide dog.

“Mokka, Susanne’s dog, is a German Shepherd. It goes everywhere with her, guiding her in the streets, in order to avoid cars and bikes. Susanne marks places she wants to go with special sounds, like the fountain in Sønder street in downtown Aarhus. When she arrives there, she will recognize the sound and know her way, so she can tell Mokka what to do. She always tells Mokka the direction, left or right, and Mokka has to guide her to the safe road to go through it. Once, Mokka refused to walk and stopped in

“I was very sad about being fired and that I cannot be with the nice people there anymore.

Susanne likes to sit at her kitchen table and make phone calls or just sit and relax as it is her favorite inside her home

”

the middle of the road, so Susanne knew that there was something wrong and asked people. The street was closed because of roadwork in it. “Mokka has to take some free time to play in the garden and go to the toilet and play with her stick. Every day I make sure it*s play time, because that’s how I thank the dog for doing its job guiding me.“, Susanne says. Dogs generally start training when they are 11 months to 2 years old. Dogs are taught to respond to very specific commands; there are 29 commands in total, such as ‘find door’ and ‘find edges’.

Susanne is the oldest in her family; she has two sisters and one brother. Her family lives in Zealand now and they are gathering during holidays and especially around Christmas time. “We are a close family and I love seeing them. Each person is busy with their life but when we have time we visit my father in my hometown city.” ‘Don’t worry, be happy’ – Ole, Susanne’s boyfriend, sometimes sings this song in their house while they are cooking together.

Don’t worry, be happy

Susanne lives with her boyfriend Ole Brul, 54 years old, who is also blind. He is a teacher at the University of Aarhus. He teaches blind students how to use computers in the university. They have been living with each other for more than 20 years. “Since I heard her voice I liked her. We met at a course for blind people, that’s how I fell in love with Susanne.“, Ole says, and she laughs and says this was the first time she heard this. “I loved him because of his humanity,” Susanne adds, “and he is so funny.”

“In the end I do what I love and learn more about new things, my life is good and I am satisfied with that.”

Draining water from potatoes, Ole and

Susanne uses a guide dog everyday to get around. Her and her dog, Mokka, take a long walk home to give Mokka some rest. 36

To tell the time, Susanne uses a watch that’s face the time.

d Susanne prepare their favorite meal: meat, potaoes and onions after long day at work.

can open and she can touch the hands to tell

As a part of her job, she travels to different towns to teach fellow blind people how to use a phone. 37

Desde Colombia til Gammel Rye One year ago, single mother Sara Linda Ramos Alarcon (35) and her four children left South America as refugees for a new home in the village of Gammel Rye in Jutland. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;I feel peaceful now, in a more stable life with perspective for myself and my children.â&#x20AC;&#x2122;

Sara in a field near Gammel Rye that grows christmas trees.

Photos and Story // Gino Kleisen

‘I

remember my time in Colombia being very nice.’ says Sara, looking back on when she still lived there. ‘I had a farm, I had my son. But we lived in the middle of fights between the guerrilla and the Colombian army. The guerrilla suspected us of giving information to the army. They wanted my son to fight for them. Because of that we had to leave everything behind and flee.’ She, her ex-husband and her son left to another village where they had Luis (now 11), and eventually had to flee to Equador, where they had Anna (9) and Sara (7).

‘In Ecuador my husband left me for another woman. I was more or less left alone, neglected with four kids and no help from him whatsoever. Fighting my way through, I’d have several jobs and sometimes be away to work on farms for months. The kids would be with my parents. It felt terrible, seeing my dreams disappear in front of me. There was nothing left to dream about. It’s actually a common thing for women in Central America.’ It was only six years later that a cousin in Holland told Sara about the opportu-

nity to migrate to another country as a quota refugee. In an agreement with the UNHCR, every year the Danish government offers 500 resettlements, among them applicants from selected geographic regions. Having to flee from Colombia because of the guerrilla threats gave her the opportunity to obtain the status. The father first didn’t give permission for her to take the kids, but later gave in.

The relief of the Danish hills

Thinking back on making the decision of going to Denmark, she remembers 39

The Sct. Sorens Kirke in Gammel Rye.

Sara’s youngest daughter Sara.

not having an exact idea of what kind of country it was, but nevertheless no doubt about going there. ‘Fifteen days before departure they told us it would be Denmark. They gave me the option to either choose to live in the city or in the countryside. I chose the countryside, because that was what I lost in Colombia.’ The officials showed Sara and the kids touristic pictures of the region of Skanderborg. Sara remembers looking at the countryside, the lakes and the hills and feeling a sort of relief. ‘After living under pressure and with anxiety, Denmark seemed so peaceful 40

and safe, an opportunity to give the kids a brighter future, with studies and career possibilities. I asked the kids if they were sure of coming with me. They were excited and especially loved the picture with the bikes. From there we started to dream about it, together.’ A plane filled with 24 other Columbian refugees took them on a long trip to Denmark and eventually to different locations across Jutland. As a van drove Sara and the kids to their new home in the village of Gammel Rye, she remembers the pitchblack sky crossing by and the kids being asleep, tired of the long journey. ‘I felt a very big responsibility about go-

It’s 6:30 a.m. and Sara has just finished cleaning the ground floor of her house. She usually wakes up at 5:30 to get everything ready for the kids.

ing somewhere unknown with the kids. I was worried about learning the language, adapting to the culture, but more than this: the fact of doing this alone.’ Gammel Rye is a small village in Jutland, the North East of Denmark. The population of 1500 people is mostly upper middle class that prefers a home in the nature outside working in the city of Aarhus. Sarah and the four kids would be the first refugee family moving in. She remembers that everything in the house was ready for them. ‘It had beds, it had a kitchen, everything was there!’ ‘The first morning I woke up early and walked up to the windmill. While look-

ing at the sunrise and the sheep walking around I recognized the life in Colombia. It was so nice. I wanted to share it with my children. My father said that to know a place you have to walk it and so we did. We saw the autumn leaves falling down, the many different colours, the forest, the small pathways...’

Determined to adjust

Now, almost a year later the children go to school and try to find their way in the Danish society. Anna and Sara go to gymnastics after school. Luis is in a soccer team. Because he’s older, for Oscar (16) it takes a bit more effort to adjust. Sarah

is pushing hard to learn Danish. ‘It’s my first step in order to get further. I go to school three times a week and try to speak Danish wherever I can.’ Because her limited level of Danish makes her unable to find a job, the government hands out an allowance in trade of kitchen work at a kindergarten. ‘I don’t like being dependent on the money from the government. I’ve always been used to depend on myself. When I reach the next level of the language course, I can start with an education to be a qualified nursing assistant.’ Further reading on page 44 41

Top left: Sara and the kids on a 6 km walk back to Gammel Rye from a visit to the bigger village of Ry. Bottom left: The kids and a visiting friend looking at a four Danish boys during a boat trip organised by Gert Pedersen, who does a lot for the refugees in the surroundings of Ry. 42

Upright: Sara and her son Luis after a game of soccer. Middle: A goodnight kiss to Anna. Bottom right: Sara works at the kindergarden for three days a week. She cooks for and eats with the toddlers around lunchtime.

She recalls a big difference coming from a life where everyday is a fight for living, where you don’t ever know the day of tomorrow. ‘Here everyday is in a program. You have an agreement of seeing somebody in a month. There is a lot more space in my time, and I have a lot more time with my children.’ ‘It’s an adventure being a single mom here. I not only have to take care of myself but also of four kids having their difficulties adjusting to a new society. From the beginning the children had a period of depression, not wanting to go 44

out, to school. I was the only one that wanted to go out, and demonstrated it to them. It’s keeping up appearances all the time. There is no way I can lean back.’ But when the kids are in bed and the quiet moments come, the appearance falls down and a feeling of loneliness comes up. Tears come sometimes. ‘It’s difficult because I’m actually alone; I don’t have a husband or anybody to share my moments with. I have to be strong in front of my children. When I’m alone, is the only possibility I have to confront with my feelings.

I don’t think its frustration, it’s loneliness. An on-going feeling that you cant just cry away.’ ‘But I feel peaceful, with a more stable life with perspective for myself and my children. There are hopes for the future. I want to work, travel, have a car. And I want the kids to study and have a career.’ Top left: Sara hugs her visiting friend Paola after talking about the death of her father. It is the first time she meets someone of the same group that came to Denmark since she arrived. Bottom right: Sara with her daughter Anna.

A piglet sleeps under a warming lamp at Kobberbølgaard farm.

A pig of a problem Resistant bacteria are one of the world’s biggest health problems. Without urgent action, the world is heading towards a post-antibiotic era, in which common infections can once again kill. Resistant bacteria are growing in Danish pigs and transmitting to people. Should we be more worried about the meat that ends up on our plate? Photos and Story // Riina Rinne

here is a scent of fresh ground coffee mixed with a light scent of pigs’ feces in the air. A group of people is gathered around a table in a lunchroom of a pig farm, Kobberbølgaard, in Vejle mid-Jutland. They are going through statistics of the latest quarter. Employees carefully follow how farm’s owner Søren Søndergaard presents the important figures: the amount of piglets, successful pregnancies, mortality rate among piglets, levels of antibiotics, feed consumption and many more. All these numbers are reported to reach company’s goals for this year. “We are one of the best farms in Denmark when it comes to being most economically productive in sow herd”, Søndergaard says with a sound of pride in his voice. Denmark is the world’s biggest exporter of pork. Approximately 30 million pigs

are produced in Denmark annually, and 90 percent of them are exported. The global markets have made it difficult for Danish farms to compete against some of the lower cost producers in the world. “The Danish pig industry is in crisis. Many of the farms in Denmark still have to quit, cause there’s too much pork on the European market. If you want to survive you have to stay in the top 25 percent most productive farms.” Being in the top 25 percent means efficiency. Efficiency means bigger farms. The pig industry in Denmark has seen a dramatic change since Søndergaard was a child growing up at his dad’s farm. The amount of pigs is constantly increasing and the number of farms is going down. Søndergaard’s farm has followed this trend, and is now bigger than an average Danish farm: 800 hectares and 1,000 sows giving birth to 35,000 piglets every year.

“MRSA spreads from the farms, so the problem has to be solved in the pig industry.”

When pigs are raised in these big, economically productive farms, it means stressful conditions for animals and infections spreading easily from one animal to another if they are not treated. High volume production of pigs is therefore dependent on the use of antibiotics in animals. “We must use the absolutely minimum of antibiotics, but we also have to treat sick animals. It’s a constant struggle to find this balance”, Søndergaard explains.

Most Danish pigs carry MRSA

The increasing use of antibiotics in both animals and humans have created increasing amount of bacteria, which are resistant to antibiotics. These resistant bacteria threaten the ef-

fective use of antibiotics all over the world. According to WHO, without urgent action, we are heading towards a post-antibiotic era. Then common infections, which have been treatable for decades, can then once again kill people. Currently antimicrobial resistance kills 700,000 people every year, and it’s estimated that in 2050 resistant bacteria will kill 10 million a year worldwide if they are not tackled. One common type of resistant bacteria is called MRSA (Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus). MRSA can cause a variety of infections from wounds and abscesses to serious infections such as blood poisoning. There are several strains of MRSA bacteria, but one strain in particular, MRSA

CC398, is associated with animals. In Denmark this livestock associated MRSA is primarily found in pigs. As much as 68 percent of Danish slaughter pigs carry the bacteria. From pigs MRSA can transmit to people. The first person in Denmark infected with livestock-MRSA was diagnosed in 2007. After that the number of patients have grown rapidly. In 2013 there was 643 cases of livestock-MRSA. In 2014 the number was already 1,276. In addition experts estimate that from 6,000 to 12,000 people in Denmark carry the bacteria without knowing it. MRSA CC398 is primarily transmitted to people working with pigs or their household members. Studies indicate

that at least 70 percent of people who daily work in the stables with MRSA-positive pigs are infected. However, there is also a growing number of patients who have no contact with pigs, which means that the bacteria are also transmitting from human to human.

Hospitals pay the bill

In April 2015, the Danish government released a four-year action plan to fight against the rapid spreading of MRSA from pig farms into the community. The action plan includes reducing the use of antibiotics for pigs by 15 percent by year 2018, hygiene measures for everyone who works in piggeries and strengthened research in infection routes of pig-MRSA.

Left: Farmer Søren Søndergaard checks the sow stable at his farm, Kobberbølgaard, in Vejle mid-Jutland with one of his employees. Steen Lomborg, the head doctor of the Department of Microbiology in Herning regional hospital, prepares a sample of MRSA-bacteria for examination. Herning regional hospital tests a patient for MRSA approximately every other day.

“It’s good that we have a plan and standards, which are implemented in every farm around the country”, pig farmer Søren Søndergaard says. “But the goal to reduce antibiotics by 15 percent will be tough to achieve. If farmers reduce the use of antibiotics too much, there’s a risk that sick animals are undertreated”, he explains. But the government’s plan has received criticism for not being comprehensive and efficient enough. Just two weeks ago The Public Accounts Committee published a report that didn’t find government’s ac50

tion against livestock-MRSA satisfying. PAC’s report states that livestock associated MRSA is a problem for the public health care system in Denmark, and that Ministry of Food should have examined the health economic costs of livestock-MRSA more carefully. The public health care system is left with the bill of people carrying more and more MRSA. For a healthy people there is a low risk of becoming seriously ill with the bacteria, but people with poor health can suffer from serious infections of MRSA. This is why hospitals have spe-

cial guidelines for treatment of MRSApatients. These guidelines include extra protection and isolation to prevent the spread of bacteria.

New guidelines are questioned

The special treatment of MRSA-patients costs a lot of money. The Danish Institute for Local and Regional Government Research estimates that the total costs for treating patients with livestock-MRSA are approximately 43 million kroner per year. And livestock-MRSA already comprise almost half of all MRSA-cases in Denmark.

This makes livestock-MRSA a major cost in total treatment of MRSA patients. Just one week ago The National Health Board released a new suggestion that every patient who works with pigs should be isolated immediately after arriving to hospital. Now the isolation has been implemented only if the person is tested positive for MRSA. This would mean even more costs, especially for some hospitals. In Herning regional hospital in mid-Jutland, approximately 70 percent of all the MRSA-cases are livestock-MRSA, because the hospital is located in the most

Left: Piglets run around in their corral at KobberbĂ¸lgaard farm. This farm produces 35,000 piglets a year. Nurse Birgit Bjelke puts on a special outfit for protection to treat an MRSA-patient in Herning regional hospital. Working clothes in KobberbĂ¸lgaard farm. Pig farmers have to follow strict hygiene regulations. These include changing clothes everytime you enter or leave the stable. 51

A positive sample of MRSA-bacteria.

intense farming area in Denmark. The hospital doesn’t agree with the National Health Board’s suggestion. “We have patients working with pigs coming here almost daily. It wouldn’t be possible to isolate all of them”, says hospital’s infection control nurse Anette Jensen. In the Herning regional hospital there hasn’t been problems with the treatment of patients with livestock-MRSA. “We have such a high level of hygiene that there’s not really a threat of livestock-MRSA spreading in hospital environment”, Jensen continues. “The bacteria spreads from the farms, so the problem has to be solved in the pig industry”, adds Steen Lomborg, the head doctor of the Department of Microbiology in Herning regional hospital.

Farmers feel stigmatized

Søren Søndergaard know how it feels to be on the farmers’ side of the debate about MRSA. “Farmers are stigmatized, definitely. The way media has represented livestock-MRSA has made it seem a lot bigger problem than it is. The angle of the story

is always turned against the farmer. It’s hard to find a farmer who is willing to talk about MRSA because of that”, he says. Søndergaard himself hasn’t have trouble of people treating him differently because he’s a farmer. But sometimes he is worried for his son Aksel, 3, who attends a kindergarten nearby. “I’m a bit scared if some kid’s parent will go nuts and make it a problem that my son is from a farm. I have heard a lot of stories of farmers and their families being treated badly”, he says. Søndergaard himself hasn’t had any infections of MRSA and neither have his workers. Three of his employees who have been treated in hospital have tested negative. “I don’t know if I have MRSA, and to be honest I don’t care if I do. We work in our farm so that we assume that all the pigs carry MRSA. That means we take very good care of our hygiene. Every farm in Denmark does that”, Søndergaard says.

Reducing antibiotics is the solution So should people be afraid of livestock-MRSA in their everyday lives?

For a healthy person a risk of getting a serious infection of livestock-MRSA is minimal. The number of MRSA-cases of all staphylococci infections is approximately one percent in Denmark.In total five people have died due to an infection of livestock-MRSA, when 300-350 die due to a normal, non-resistant staphylococci infection every year. There is also nothing indicating that handling or eating pork poses a risk of infection. Otherwise the infections with 54

livestock-MRSA wouldn’t be found only in the farming area, but also in Copenhagen and other big cities in Denmark. The biggest problem with livestock-MRSA is that it makes the work in hospitals more difficult – and taxpayers are paying the extra money to treat the growing number of MRSA-patients. “The problem with MRSA is that we can’t use the antibiotic we otherwise use for treating patients. So treating MRSA means higher costs and more work in the hospitals”, says Steen Lomborg, the

head doctor of the Department of Micro- biology in Herning regional hospital. According to him people in Denmark shouldn’t be afraid of livestock-MRSA. “I don’t see that MRSA is a big problem in Denmark right now. But resistant bacteria are a major problem in general”, Lomborg says. Reducing both human and veterinarian use of antibiotics is the only solution for reducing all resistant bacteria. “I think also the pig industry needs to low down the consumption of antibiotics.

But we are also using a constantly growing amount of antibiotics in humans. And that’s a problem too”, Lomborg says. Luca Guardabassi, a professor of antimicrobial resistance at the University of Copenhagen, thinks that consumers have a big responsibility of how much antibiotics are used in pig production. According to Guardabassi, everything comes down to the fact that people are used to consuming very cheap meat. Producing cheap meat means growing farm sizes and a growing amount of an-

tibiotics. And that leads to an increasing number of resistant bacteria. “If we want to go back to small farm sizes and raising pigs without antibiotics, it will cost the consumers a lot of money. We would have to be willing to pay at least double the price”, Guardabassi says at his lecture about antibiotic resistance. Lomborg agrees with his colleague. “If we want to have such a huge pig production in Denmark we have to pay a price for it - and right now MRSA is the price we pay”, Lomborg says.

Left: Also consumers are responsible for the use of antibiotics in pork production. People are used to consuming cheap meat, and low cost, mass production of meat relys on the use of antibiotics. Farmer Søren Søndergaard fears that his son would be treated badly because of people’s predujice towards farmers.

Cold Hawaii Photos and Story // Nicole Boliaux

Transitioning from traditional village to surf mecca

waying on your board, cold winds chilling your face, the only part of you not covered in a wet suit, you look back at the next set of waves headed towards the shore of Klitmøller. You paddle as the wave swells, and then pushes yourself up, riding the wave in. The icy cold waters lapping at your feet. This is what is drawing surfers and their young families to the edge of Denmark. Tucked into Thy National Park, sits Klitmøller. This traditional fishing village, home to many families that have lived there for generations, has undergone significant change in the last ten years. Due to wind patterns and its unique environment, Klitmøller has transformed into one of Europe’s foremost windsurfing spots, earning the nickname of Cold Hawaii. Cold Hawaii spans from Agger in the south to Hanst holm in the North with Klitmøller as it’s symbolic capital. With 29 registered surf spots along the length of Cold Hawaii, it is easy to find the perfect wave. Surfers discovered Klitmøller in the late 80’s and since have brought surfers from around the world to test the waters. Since 2010, 54 new people moved into the town of just over 800, most young surfers and their families moving from bigger cities to the quiet of Klitmøller. This transformation into a European surf mecca has come with some resistance from fishermen and locals. “In the beginning the fishermen in the small fishing boats didn’t like it at all,” Joan Bach, a member of a family that has lived in Klitmøller for generations, said. “They hated the surfers and said they were totally out of their mind going

out to the sea when it was crazy weather.” This resistance to the influx of windsurfers starting in the late 1980’s grew as more and more headed to the area. “Many of the wind surfers who came here were not seen as welcome because many people did not see them as people who contributed to the area,” Robert Sand, founder and owner of the clothing company Klitmøller Collective, said. “They were looked upon as people who came here and stayed here, but did not pay to stay here. Which meant that they were just living in their cars in the parking lot and bringing their own food.” “In general there was this perspective on surfing people that they were unemployed and uneducated, but that changed because it was young people who were skilled, healthy, and had kids and work,” Gladys Kreutzmann, cousin of Joan Bach, said. Rasmus Johnsen, strategic communications advisor at CoWork, has been very influential in the development of Cold Hawaii in the last 10 years since he moved to Klitmøller. He has worked with locals and the local government to work on how to create compromise between surfers and fishermen. With the fear that Klitmøller would turn into a town for tourists with large hotels and destruction of the nature, Johnsen stepped in to curate better communication between parties. “Cold Hawaii is also a manuscript on how to develop a rural area,” Johnsen said in an interview with the Danish Cluster Academy. “We have turned a big problem into a strength position for the area, and

Above: A child attending a windsurfing camp through West Wind, a local surf shop, attaches his safety rope to his ankle before heading into the water to paddle board. Due to increased tourism there has been a smaller off-season in KlitmĂ¸ller causing the waters to become more crowded. Adjacent: A group of six mothers who had due dates around the same time meet once a week to have lunch and have their children over to play. Middle: Anna, who has surfed for most of her life, prepares to head out to sea while on holiday with her family. Due to the cold-water surfers beckon wetsuits, caps and gloves to protect themselves. Far right: Victoria and Fanny run from the waves while on Autumn holiday in KlitmĂ¸ller.

there are no limits to the publicity that Cold Hawaii received. The story on how surfers from all over the world travel to a small town in Western Jutland, Denmark, to take advantage of the amazing surf right here, has travelled round the world.”

Change in Klitmøller

As more windsurfers and surfers moved to Klitmoller permanently, investing in summer houses or their own year round homes and buying from local businesses, the resistance lessened. Many locals from Klitmøller have always been open minded to surfers. Sand, born and raised in Klitmøller, picked up surfing himself and started a business that flourishes with tourism. Bach and Kreutzmann, cousins from the same old family in Klitmøller see the influx of surfers and their young families as a positive impact on the village. “If the surfers wouldn’t have come here I think the town would have been dying because they closed down the

school and the kindergarten, but some of the young people living here started a private kindergarten,” Bach said. Cold Hawaii started hosting the Professional Windsurfers Association (PWA) World Cup in 1998 and this year the PWA was historic. This year Simon Kvamn and Morten Manaa, who both recently moved to Klitmøller with their families, presented ‘Rowdy Cold Hwaii,’ a free concert series held as part of the festivities and for the first time locals and surfers came together to enjoy music and the sea. “It was really a new limit,” Kreutzmann said. “The fishermen said the concerts could be in their building, which then showed that this was our PWA, it’s not just Robert Sands or Rasmus Johnsen’s. Everyone was a part of it.” Before this PWA those involved with the Association found it difficult for the surfers to invite the locals, but this marked a change in attitude in Cold Hawaii. “It was a big party for everyone for

three days,” Johnsen said. “It was a great mix of everyone having a good time. I think that this year, in that sense it marked a really positive change.”

Young Blood

Walking around Klitmøller in the afternoon one can see mothers and fathers walking wither their kids to the beach. Cars drive down Ørhagvej, the main road in town, with surfboards strapped to the roof of their cars. Children and teenagers skateboard towards the newly built Clubhouse near the reef. A father and his son run through the dunes. Klitmøller is bursting with life and youthful energy. As new families leave behind the big city life in favor of being surrounded by nature, the search for housing can be difficult. “We need more housing,” Johnsen said. “We need more housing for rent. There is a waitlist to rent a house here in Klitmøller.” Anna Larsson and Victor Rosario moved a year ago to Klitmøller to raise their two young children and have their third child. Larsson from Sweden met the surfer Rosario in the Dominican Republic and after moving from the Caribbean to Sweden they decided to settle in Cold Hawaii where Rosario is now a surf instructor at West Wind, a local surf shop and school. With their background in surfing the family chose to live near nature and the sea where they could continue to do what they love, surfing. Along with teaching surfing, Rosario works with Lakor Soulwear, a surf and skate wear company. “When you surf you have to adapt to whatever the water throws at you,” Rosario said in an interview with Lakor. “In many ways that’s just like life.” Larsson has found a community of other young mothers in Klitmøller and meets with them once a week to have lunch and

Top: A suffer heads to the ‘Bunker,’ a surf spot south of Klitmøller to catch some waves while the wind is good. Bottom: Anna Larsson tends to her two month old while her boyfriend Victor Rosario tickles their youngest son Elliot in their home. Larsson is originally from Sweden and met Rosario when visiting the Dominican Republic. They have three kids together and live in Klitmøller where Rosario is a surf instructor and Larsson works as a nurse.

Fishermen by hobby, Jan Johansan and Jole Anderson untangle herring from a fishing net at six in the morning at the beach of Klitmøller. They were out fishing for herring for the Christmas dinner, but it was too early in the season and they ended up catching more mackerel. Sand refers to the beach where the fishermen store their boats as the soul of the villiage.

allow their children to play with each other while they talk about life and the sea.

Future Development

As more and more families move to Klitmøller and more tourists visit again a resistance from locals begins to rise up. “Klitmøller has always been a popular summer holiday destination, but what we see now is that the season spread out, there is no complete off season,” Sand said. “There are more people in the water. We were used to having the winter season to ourselves. Now, even if you go out on a Wednesday in January you won’t be on your own.” The concern from newer locals, those who came here five years ago to surf, is that they will not be able to surf the perfect waves created in Cold Hawaii due to overcrowding in the water.

“And now some are wondering about is this too successful?” Kreutzmann said. “But I’m not afraid of that because I think people will come anyway out of curiosity.” The longer season has lead to a great boost economically in Klitmøller. Those who own local businesses, like Sand, now have more customers for a longer time frame. Sand sees the potential for the future of Cold Hawaii and doesn’t agree with the push to stop development. “Klitmøller can’t be something static because if so its falling behind everything else in this world, so it has to continue to develop,” Sand said. “I think its about maintaining the soul of Klitmøller and the authenticity of the village.”

Further ideas on how to develop Cold Hawaii included creating a bike/walking path along the coast line as well as making the area near the beach in Klitmøller more bike friendly have received some pushback from locals in Cold Hawaii. Johnsen’s main job is to facilitate conversation between parties so they can create a development plan that makes everyone happy. The ‘masterplan’ for development in Cold Hawaii, as Johnsen calls it, aims to make Klitmøller more attractive to visitors and more explorable to locals while still preserving the nature that surrounds Klitmøller.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Be happy and stick together, we are never alone, together we are strongerâ&#x20AC;? Kevin says

Surviving by love Although hard lives and the serious problems surround the homeless community, Kevin and his friends in the street are trying to survive by sharing love between each other.

Photos and story // Alaa Elkamhawi

Homeless for 16 years, Kevin Petersen, sells magazines made by homeless people in the city center of Aarhus, Denmark. He uses the money he makes from the magazine sales to pay for living expenses.

“Halloo boys and girls, do you want buy “Hus Forbi” magazine before you go its just cost 20 kroner, I am not lying you got eyes like diamond , may be you have little spare cash, people in leather do it better ,and if not of that all, then have really nice evening and good weekend, May all happiness rest of your shoulder tonight and tomorrow night and all nights.” By these words, which sound like poetry in Danish, prayers and wide smile, and the voice of Edith Piaf coming out of a speaker of the distinctive bike with trailer, while selling some of his magazines, Kevin Petersen starts chatting and laughing with the passers-by everyday in the downtown of Aarhus “I don’t do it for money, I do it for fun.” he says. Kevin doesn’t care about time, dates means nothing to him but he spends the night hours at this place hanging out with his homeless friends, he usually starts the selling newspaper at night, after sunset. 66

But only for few hours, until he realizes he has gathered enough money to live for today and not to worry about tomorrow, 200 kroner is enough. “I don’t need more! I’ve got enough money for today and the rest to buy more newspaper tomorrow, I don’t bother myself thinking about tomorrow, anything could happen. Today I’m happy, I’ve got money, beer and some hash”. “Hus Forbi” is a Danish language street newspaper covering stories on homelessness, mostly written by homeless people. It is produced monthly and distributed by a network street vendors, who are homeless or formerly homeless, across Denmark. Kevin sells the magazine for 20 kroner in the street which he buys it for 12 kroner from Hus forbi house.the house also provide the equipment and clothes for all the sellers on the street, as well as providing food, coffee, toilets, computers free to any

homeless in the city and open during all week except the weekend.

Night life

The weather is getting cold, it’s starting to rain, which make everyone move to one of the shopping mall entrances, using the roof as their shelter. Under the shelter the scene hasn’t changed much. Kevin’s bike, in the centre is, filled with beer cans. Sometimes he gives away some beer and other times he sells them. Most of the time, the bike is filled with food, sweets and fresh fruits that people gave to him and this food is always for free. While the weather is getting colder, the people’s warmth is getting stronger in a crowd full of different nationalities and cultures, where everybody is sharing the moment. It doesn’t matter who you are, where

Kevin rides his bike during the day and the night around the city, he plays his music, carrying a beer and magazines that he sells.

The number of homeless people in Denmark has increased by 23 percent since 2009, a report from the Danish National Centre for Social Research (SFI) has shown.

In the rain and cold, homeless people gather together under the shelter provided by Magasin.

you’re from, and what color you are. Because here on this spot, you get to eat, drink, smoke, and listen to music without any sort of distinction. Kevin spends the rest of the night, drinking beer and celebrating with his friends at the same place, with some music in the background, which would later be changed to Rock n Roll to better suit the celebration atmosphere that sometimes lasts until late night.

Some trouble

Everyone always is welcomed, even those who are famous for being trouble makers and have criminal records or drug addicts are most welcomed as long as they behave. With all this love and sharing, it is not without some hassles, especially when some people get so drunk and start fighting . And in case, things gets out of control, 68

Kevin tries to interfere, to solve the problem by talking, and calm down the situation. He basically protects his friends and try to get them away from trouble, attempting to make the night pass in peace. And if he can’t handle the situation Kevin always gets himself out, and makes the police do the work. That’s because he knows almost everyone in the street, that’s why his friends called him “King of Mølleparken.” It’s actually where he spends half of his day. Kevin starts his day when he wakes up from sleep Mostly in the afternoon, Kevin says that when he wakes up every day he feels very tired and suffers from shaking, all over his body and vomiting. Then he get dressed and drive his bike back to molle park where he meet his friends and start drinking beer and then he start feel good again . “Now I’m an alcoholic, I drink a lot of beer every day, I will stop someday, not

today, not tomorrow, but I know that this day will come,” Kevin said.

Growing up

Kevin was raised with his mother and his two sisters, in a big house with a garden in Felsted, a small town in the south of Denmark. His father was a truck driver, that travelled all over Europe, and that’s how Kevin loved traveling too. “I used to travel with my father, back in the old days when I was younger. When I was five I learnt to find the way to Netherlands and when I was seventeen years old I decided to start my trip as a backpacker around the european cities,” Kevin said. Kevin came to Aarhus 16 years ago, and he’s living as a homeless person ever since. He went through a journey, where he took heroin and cocaine but he was able to quit with the help of some people he met during his trip.

Kevin hugs a fellow homeless woman in the ciity center of Aarhus.

Kevin counts the money he earned and decides to share some of it with other homeless people.

Beer and food that were donated by people passing sit on top of Kevinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s bike cart. They are free for anyone. 69

Top left`: Kevin smokes inside a caravan where the family that owns it lets him sleep. Top right: He has slept in this caravan for five years. Middle: the caravan from inside. Kwvin does not have running water so he must use buckets as a sink. Bottom: Often, Kevin and his friends hang out in MĂ¸lleparken drinking beers. 70

Inside Mølleparken, Kevin smokes and talks with friends.

“When I was in England, my situation was really bad and I was addicted to drugs but I met good people and asked them for help, they were very generous. We agreed to lock me in a room until I got through the rough period, at this time I was going insane so they had to tie me up and they served me food with vodka to help proceeding,” Kevin said. “Now I quit and never, ever got back beer and hash only,” Kevin said. Kevin lived during the 16 years Homeless roving from place to place in Aarhus city and never left, he had a lot of hard times sleeping on the streets and in tents, but he got his own place five years ago where a family gave him half the space in an old caravan located in the backyard of the house to sleep. They

allowed him to use the bathroom home but he rarely does. Despite the narrow space Kevin feels happy with it and says this caravan is the best thing he has recieved in his homeless life. After Kevin’s long day has ended, he rides his bike to his small place, which barely accommodates him. He lights two candles to light the place because he doesn’t have lamps. Then he starts to take off his clothes and if he wasn’t so drunk he would sit by his computer, as Kevin recently found a way to use electricity from the house. He starts to smoke some hash and watch some videos and browse his Facebook. Some days he writes in his diary about the day. The last thing he wrote in his diary was “I am so drunk I cannot write, but I am so happy.”

LONG-DRAWN SEASON Young student Ana from a small Lithuanian village was too fast not to be noticed by Soviet sport talent seekers. After blackmailing her, one of them brought her to the stadium where she stayed for the next 20 years and set a new world record. However, she has never fully bloomed and did not participate in any Olympics because of decisions from above. Photos and Story // Sofija Korf

400 meter hurdles race is considered as one of the most difficult events in athletics - for a long time it was not in the Olympic program for women. To prepare to run one lap in a stadium Ana was running 10 kilometers every morning and training two times a day. She has published her methodology now but confirms that it could be too difficult to follow even for men.

ore than 30 years ago Lithuanian athlete Ana Ambraziene was walking on a wet Soviet Moscow stadium track. It was drizzling and windy and she could hardly breathe after an exhausting 400 meter hurdles race. Suddenly Ana heard the coach of the Soviet team shouting to her husband: “Algi, your wife is crazy! She beat a world record in these conditions!” But Ana was too tired to understand the meaning of these words and why everyone was standing in ovation. She turned to the scoreboard to check her time and could not believe the numbers she saw. Almost immediately she was taken to a doping control center to approve the clearance of her result. After a couple of hours there, Ana’s record was confirmed and she finally realized what had happened. But even then she did not begin jumping and screaming

and decided to go directly to her hotel to get some rest. This record at The Brothers Znamensky Memorial, an annual track and field competition, was only a part of her preparation for one of the most important starts in her career – Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles – and she wanted to reach her best there. “Well, I knew I needed to sacrifice all to achieve some. No entertainment, no free time and twelve to fifteen sessions per week. I was surviving in Soviet team’s mincer for eleven years and realised that I always needed to be first to compete in the big competitions.” Ana’s tone is still calm, but she shrugs at the irony. She remembers 1983 as if it was yesterday – all year she was leading in many important competitions and lost only by one-tenth of a second to Yekaterina Fesenko, another Soviet athlete, at the World Championship. Ana was dis-

appointed but did not mind too much because she knew that no one would remember it after the Olympics. She went to a sports camp in Bulgaria to continue her preparation for Los Angeles in a new environment. But new bases for trainings and favorable weather conditions were not the most memorable things she experienced there – after dinner at one of the usual team meetings all athletes were told they were not going to participate in Olympics because the Soviet Union had decided to boycott it. “It was a day the dream of my lifetime shattered into pieces. But I knew I needed to remain calm because of the competitions the next day and decided to go directly to bed.” Ana confirms it was very important for her to prove that her world record was not a onetime event. Now, when she talks about the boycott in 1984, she sits up and

BRIEFLY ABOUT THE BOYCOTT

Months before Olympics in Los Angeles, USSR announced its intentions to boycott the 1984 Summer Games stating there are “chauvinistic sentiments and anti-Soviet hysteria in the United States.” 13 other countries joined in the boycott. There is a hypothesis that this step was a follow-up to the U.S boycott of the Summer Olympics in Moscow, four years before, because of the Russian intervention in Afghanistan in 1979. In total, 65 nations refused to participate in the games, while 80 countries still sent athletes to compete. Records from the Russian Olympic Committee show that athletes did not know about the boycott and were preparing for the Olympic Games.

straightens her neck. She almost does not blink – only squeezes her office keys tighter in her hand. Ana finally works as a manager at a sports club for high-level athletes and can share her knowledge in rare talks with a younger generation. But it was a long journey full of ups and downs before she reached this kind of stability. Meeting sports and power Anna’s sports career started quite late – when she was studying to become a tailor in Light Industry Technical School in Vilnius. The beginnings of her trainings, which lasted almost until her 40th birthday, were not particularly romantic. Ana did not set out to do make this her life’s work but after a cross-country race for her school, where she got a good time, the local coach began to convince her to come to the stadium.

“I did not want to do all this sport and refused to give it a try but he was really stubborn. He came to me twice and then went to my school’s director. He called me into his office and said that they will remove my scholarship if I do not train. And of course I went to the stadium. For my family – for my mum and my grandmother who had always lacked money.” To somehow support her beloved women from a small Lithuanian village Ana began working at kolhoz, a collective farm, at the age of eight and then continued earning money for her family as a student by cleaning a kindergarten before lectures, usually at 5 or 6 a.m. But sport, that rudely interrupted her life, also made notable changes in her routine. After half a year of training she was second in Lithuania in cross-country racing; after four years Ana got an invitation to join the Mecca of Soviet

sport – the national team; and after five years there, she set a new world record in 400 meter hurdles race. Golden ages without gold Ana confirms she was one of the pioneers in her distance – 400 meters with men’s hurdles, which has been at the Olympic athletics program since 1900, but the first documented race for women happened only in 1971. As a discipline it was introduced three years later when Ana began training. Olympics in Los Angeles, boycotted by Soviets, were the first ones where this race was included in the official program. However disappointment in 1984 did not prevent Ana from running 10 km every morning followed by two training sessions. She knew she could prepare for other competitions and after two years break from professional sport because of injuries and childbirth Ana came back to prepare for the next Olympics in Seoul. A year before these games, in 1987, she became the fastest in the USSR again, but during the official selection in 1988 she finished second and was left at home. 1992 became the last hope for the 37 yearold athlete and also her first opportunity to compete under the Lithuanian flag. It announced its independence in 1990 and after more than 60 years without Olympics (the last time Lithuanians represented their home country was in 1928) Lithuania would finally have a chance to hear its own national anthem. Ana knew that her record could probably be the reborn state’s best opportunity at hearing this anthem and was working hard to run as fast as she did almost ten years ago. She received her new uniform and was very close to redeeming herself. However, three weeks before the Olympics Ana was told she was no longer in the team. “Why? They told me my result was too weak. But I knew that even with this result I could run in the final and I was ready to improve it. I do not think it was a fair decision but I am also not convinced that there is justice in this world.” Ana suspects her exclusion from the national team was also politically motivated. Even after these Olympics she was still training and won three gold-

After a long time without professional sport, Ana finally got a job in that field. She wishes to spend more time with her club’s athletes, but usually her days pass in the office routine. To get a breath of fresh air, she goes to run the same road she would run twenty years ago and still does it alone because no one wants to compete with a former world record holder.

en medals at the European Cup of athletics and did not plan to leave track and field. But her plans, as had happened many times before, did not come true. P.S. from Sport Usually it is considered that runners achieve their best result from 24 until 28 years old but Ana was competing far beyond this. She says she was the fastest in Lithuania even in her 40s and wanted to prepare for next season: “I had my passport and knew how old I was but it did not prevent me from running with girls that could have been my daughters. But then someone decided that I was too old and when I came to the Olympic center to receive my salary I discovered that they had fired me a few months ago without telling me a single word – just thown me away like a fly from borsht.” This time Ana promised herself never to compete professionally again and kept her promise even when she got a request from the Olympic center to join the national team at the European Cup. She did not find a job as a coach or physical education teacher so instead went to the kindergarten where she cleaned as a student and introduced a sports program there. Ana says she liked this job but has not stayed anywhere else as long as on the track – not at her later work at the school nor in a private firm. Now she finally came back to professional athletics and can provide a different kind of help for Lithuania’s young generation of athletes. She does not usually return to the past in her mind and tries to live independently from it. However, Ana still runs a few times a week wearing the green Lithuanian uniform and her beloved t-shirt with the Olympic rings from an amateur competition.