Saturday, September 29

 

 

This morning I sneaked out of the house while Irma slept, and made my way to Kauppatori to meet the Job’d workers. We had to meet at 8:50 to catch the 9:00 ferry. All four turned up on time.

We walked across the island to HIAP and almost got there without getting lost. Almost but not quite. I ended up phoning ferry.Ilpo who talked me through the tricky right turn by the statue of the helmet. Once we had done that everything proceeded smoothly and we got there to meet Bogna, the chef.

Bogna had piles of vegetables that needed chopping and so I handed the two male and two female Job’s workers over to her and told them to tell me when they had run out of things to do.

I then walked back towards the harbour and meet the workshop leaders and participants arriving on the 10:20 ferry.

Rich and Nati from Loomio had a roomful of participants for their workshop on 9 patterns of decentralisation, and Nick and Sophie had seventeen for theirs on cultural democracy. I joined in that one, and ended up co-facilitating it until it began to facilitate itself.

Lunch proved excellent. Bogna had led the team in making autumn vegetable soup. She had also made hummus and tahini, and a variety of salads. At least two of the Job’d workers told me that they had never made soup like this before, and they had really liked it.

The workshops seemed intense and productive. Certainly everyone who attended the one I sat in professed their satisfaction with the day. At the end Oliver produced boxes of wine and boxes of beer. I had a couple of small Karjala beers and chatted.

Barry suddenly appears with his and Sophie’s two year old daughter Alice, and I play with her for some time. Then we all leave together to get the ferry back to the mainland. I pause to take a photograph of HIAP in the evening light, with the sky so grey that it appears invisible.

Nick will take a video of me on the ferry. I will play with Alice some more. Everyone will say goodbye at Kauppatori, and I will hurry to the metro.

Irma and I will spend the second half of the evening enjoying each other’s company with some sparkling wine.