Alavus and Tuuri

Dear friends,

If you are like me, huge shopping centers make you sad. Perhaps you, too, start thinking about all that waste the goods are going to end up, and you think about all the little children in India, Cambodia or China or anywhere who have made the lots with they bloody little fingers. You also remember all the waste of energy, as well as the damage to the environment...

The huge "kyläkauppa", "shop" in Tuuri, Töysä area, would make you... just wordless. I have never seen soch a shopping inferno in my life.

We bought some stuff anyway. Couldn't help it, sad to say. Clothes for my baby, except a "Jussi" style T-shirt for me – the kind the locals wear with pride. Because I am a local, from Alavus. Remember. And Marimekko shirts (YES, REALLY, but they certainly are FINNISH) for some relatives.

Many people say shopping is like a hobby. Nice to do alone, or with the whole family, with friends... And spend the whole day doing it, or even the whole week, during the sales... Shopping? That makes me think some people must live really empty life.





Then we drove to the church of Alavus to look for the grave of my grandmother's mother, Liisa Sutikkala. Did not find it, the graveyard was too big. Before leaving the Alavus area we went to the Edesjärvi village where my grandmother lived before she moved to Helsinki (at the age of 17). Here she helped to take care of her sister's babies.

And soon she met my grandfather, In Abrahaminkatu, Helsinki. After they got married she never wanted to move back, and then they started a family of their own... And the wars came, first the Civil War, then the World War II, and the Soviet threat... But these are other stories. (Thanks, Nöpö, for sharing!)

The little lake on the picture is Edesjärvi, taken very near my grandmother's house.

IStori

Ps. About the current war in the Middle East, please see the previous post below.