Supporters of slow travel often have a desire to combine being on the road and working. However, few are able to sustainably combine work and travel, let alone let go of romantic expectations when travelling.
However, the late Finnish translator Kyllikki Villa succeeded in this difficult task: she sailed the oceans on cargo ships, long before the current tourist boom, while at the same time translating literature to earn a living.
Kyllikki Villa kept a diary on her travels, and the book Pakomatkalla (“on the run”) is the diary of her 1992 trip. What makes the journey remarkable is that she made it at the age of 68, even though she could already have been retired. What's more, the book she was translating was not yet certain to be published. At the end of her voyage, she also went to visit the important places of her grandfather, a missionary man, in present-day Namibia.
The diary vividly and realistically depicts Villa's depressed feelings in Lisbon before the voyage due to some personal losses, as well as the process of working on the ship, and her stay on the isolated island of St. Helena for two months. One can sense how her depression gradually dissolves the further the journey continues.
Villa describes honestly her experiences in the footsteps of her grandfather in Namibia, remembering also what was shared (or not shared) in the family about the African childhood of her father and aunt.
The most refreshing side of the diary entries is their organic truthfulness: the absence of excessive words and exoticism, the descriptions of everyday solitude and struggle with one’s own feelings, as well as the vital connection to her daughter in the home country.
As a reader, of course, I am happy to pick up ideas from books that cut incisions in the weave of the story, through which the reader may get glimpses of a wider universe. Such a quick glimpse is Villa’s reflection during her visit in a Namibian church: looking at the ostentatiously dressed merchant's wife, Villa wonders if we are really striving for Christian equality, or do we still want to keep the poor poor to get the credit for helping them?
A revolution almost hidden in a fleeting passage of text, one of the moments that make reading worthwhile.
Kyllikki Villa. Pakomatkalla. Toinen lokikirja. Like 2007.
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