Girl from Namibia

After a short stop in Røst, we went back to the continent, towards Bodø. From this part of the trip, I remember being laid down on about 3 chairs, somewhere in the middle of the ferry, sick as hell.

That’s when I met a girl from Namibia.

By sheer coincidence, we were facing each other, each of us trying to move as little as possible. All that 15 hours trip on the sea was pretty strange and I remember the empty ferry and how we were trying to sleep as much as possible. That way, we felt like we controlled time and hours were passing by very quickly.

At a certain moment I simply forgot what I was doing there, why was I in such unusual circumstances. I mean everything went great with the flights, but then something happened.

The ferry changed its schedule and its route and because of a fishing accident, I was feeling worse than ever and yet, at the same time, this unexpected event created the opportunity to have the best view of the aurora borealis and immediately after that, to have a very interesting human experience.

This piece of memory is quite blurry, like remembering a dream and I feel like some things really happened and others are just phantoms of my imagination.

The girl was white and I was really surprised when hearing that she’s from Namibia. I remember that I was feeling great talking to her and it seemed so interesting to me that 2 individuals from 2 different corners of the world can meet and create a connection on a crazy ferry, in the middle of the night, through a mad storm at the edge of the Arctic Ocean.

A few hours passed by. When we were feeling really bad, we slept. When we were better, we continued talking.

Later on, after a few days, while visiting Reine, I saw her again. We said „Hello”, we smiled at each other and that was all.

Nevertheless, we both knew that we shared a few miserable hours in a violent storm, hours that remained in our minds.

And it’s not important what we talked, but how we felt being trapped on an angry sea and the way we dealt with the difficult situation. Two people from different worlds, separated by so many things woke up together (on some bloody chairs), trying to survive an arctic storm and discovering a common ground.

At that moment, I found out something interesting. If you want to create a powerful connection among people and have them get along with each other, all you need is to create a difficult situation where one can not survive without the other one’s help.

That is all.