Week 7: Heinävesi to Joensuu

June 24, 2003

By Liperi, I must have looked as bad as I felt. A community of Seventh Day Adventists had placed a shiny, new sign along the road advertising cheap beds and a sauna for travellers. When I asked, a thin man with a hearing aid became nervous. He scratched his beard and made a phone call. Soon, a stout grandmother appeared, tounging an ice-cream. “Who are you? Where do you come from? Why? How? Where are you going?” I told her God’s truth but she didnt believe a word. They whispered in a dialect I didn’t understand and concluded that the sign was old, the beds were broken and the sauna had burned down. They sent me on my way.

But when I arrived at Koivulahti the Sinkkonen’s took care of me. They put me up in the shore sauna and told me stories. I sauned, swam and fished for perch and I didn’t move for nearly a week.

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