In English TEXT by Minne Mäki & Adeyemi Adebayo PICTURES by Adeyemi Adebayo ILLUSTRATION by Tuuli Heikura
Oulu insiders and outsiders Every year, around 9500 people move to and around 9000 people move out of Oulu. Statistics tell us that most people both come here and leave because of work. When moving to a new district, the biggest questions seem to be asked first: What is this place like? After a while, the question starts to become more precise: What is this place like for me? The same applies to the moment of departure: What was this place like for me? What are the memories I’ve shared with these streets and their people? As outsiders of the city, we shared a few mundane moments with Oulu residents, asking these questions. Little by little, they add up to become a tiny but accurate fraction of stories that tell us what it is like to be here: What it is like to arrive, wanting to leave or having stayed your entire life.
Mirjami “When I was 18, I didn’t have any plans for the future. Everyone around me was working or studying, and I was doing nothing. In an attempt to find myself, I went volunteering in the Netherlands. I was really lost, but found out that I was able to survive. It was a turning point for me, as I understood that I have to take responsibility for myself. When I came back, I started studying to become a hairdresser. I soon realized I loved working with my hands. I like seeing the result of my work right away. Now, I’m not so uncertain about the future anymore. I see myself doing this for a long time. In the Netherlands, people are a bit more open than in Finland, they look you in the eye and are really good with small talk. I started getting used to it, it was refreshing. But sometimes, in situations where everyone was talking a lot, they might ask me whether I was super shy. I answered no. I just didn’t have anything to say. Having come back from the Netherlands, there are some things I see differently. I worked with refugee kids and people from the Middle East and Africa. We had this one young kid who had only lived in the Netherlands for two weeks. He was struggling because he didn’t know the language and everything had changed so quickly for him. It opened my eyes, because people actually had to leave their homes even though they didn’t want to. It made me realize that even if my own problems feel big, they are not.”
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