Chapter one
Svanhildr : Im still human
When somebody asked me about my day today, I said it was terrible.
It all started in the High School World History class, I wanted to see how many kids knew where I was from, the Faroe Islands. So I asked them to point the Faroe Islands on a map.
Everyone got it almost correct. The only person who was very far off thought the Faroe Islands were in the coast of Indonesia, which isn’t true.
However, there is one girl who took this too far.
Her name is Jannelle Davis. She went up to me, said that the Faroe Islands are not real and then punched me in the arm and broke the Faorese flag I had in my backpack. And people still supported Janelle.
I cried walking home from school, I did not wanted to be referred as “The Nordic girl who dosen’t exist.”
But then I realized that I lived in a community full of people of Nordic descent. The girl who who sits across from me at school during sports class and never speaks but I think she is cool? She is Part-Norwegian. The man who works at the radio station? He is Swedish-American. My little sister’s math teacher Mrs Oskal? She is an Immigrant from Sápmi.
While I was at home, My little sister Æsa Skovgaard (she likes my mom’s surname better, so she likes being a Skovgaard and not a Jǿhansdotter) who is in the 4th grade looked at me.
Basically because I am almost an adult, My parents have an overnight job so therefore I barely see them on weekdays. Not even before school.
But it wasn’t like most days when me and Æsa talked endlessly afterschool, played video games and went to the park to cause absolute chaos.
I ran to my room as fast as possible, so fast that Æsa wasn’t able to say hello to me and starred at my very crowded wall.
There was a picture of Me when I was 12, Æsa when she was 4 and my mom at the airport of the Faroe Islands. Above was a flag that I got for my 15th birthday.
On the shelves, There was my record player I got for Christmas last year and a collection of albums by the Faroese singer Eviør.
I grew up on her.
Ever since I was a kindergartener, I loved Eviør. She is probably the most famous Faroese person in the world, since she has a song with over 12 million views on Youtube. Which was deserved.
However, I couldn’t stop thinking about what Janelle said. She said that I don’t exist, my “country” (it’s owned by Denmark) dosen’t excist.
I felt very hurt, however I was teached from very young age that we had amazing culture and that we had to protect it, we always did. We spoke Faroese at home, we listened to a Nordic music radio and we did a lot of stuff.
However, I feel something I haven’t felt in a long time…. I felt faded, disconnected from my culture and my people.
“Hvat gera eg greiða?” I said, crying. That means “What did I do.”
My sister came upstairs. She went in very quietly.
“Eru Júst?” she asked. That means Are you Ok?
“Ikki” I said, then shut the door.
I decided to check my work, but it didn’t help.
My wallpaper was a picture from last year of me and Æsa wearing the Traditional Faroese dress. I tried to move on but I got an email from a girl at the 7th grade (we have elementary to high school)
From : Randhi Kristiansen
To : Svanhildr Lena-Johansdóttir
Heil og sæl!
I heard what happened today with Janelle. I think Janelle is gonna be at a DAEP for a month so you’ll be safe.
I looked at the email. It was from Randhi Kristiansen. Randhi was known for being the school’s “police.” she tried seeing who was behaving and who wasn’t. She also was the girl who plays at the football team.
Hours passed, and I still felt worried about Jannelle. She was the most popular girl in school and everyone loved her. She is very big of a troublemaker too, she bullied anyone who was from a Country she never heard off. She was at a DAEP for 3 times and even went to a JJAEP when she was in the 8th grade.
After getting over with the whole “you don’t exist” situation, I went to the family room.
It was cool.
We had a flat-screen TV, a Nintendo switch, a ping-pong table and other stuff.
But the whole purpose of the family room is to blend the modern with the old.
Turns out that there is also a very big and wide poster that had pictures of every person in the Johans and Skovaag family. The poster looks broken, but it’s new. It is the Johans-Skovaag family tree (everything is in Faroese by the way).
I remembered when I was 13, I put my picture there. The picture where I looked like I was extremely happy.
The picture of perfection.
I starred at the picture and looked at the caption.
Svanhildr-Lena Johansdóttir
Born January 14, 2007
1st Daughter of Johan Olafsen and Vár Skovaag.
That was the picture that described the whole legacy of my life. Kind of. Probably future Faroese-American descendants of Me and Æsa will have to learn that my life is falling apart.
Apparently, Æsa is a huge genealogy kid. She goes to the local Genealogy center every 2 weeks, and the last time we went we learnt that we were related to a Faroese leader from the Viking age.
Are we proud of that? Yes.
Did that make me more confident with Janelle? No.
Today was pretty overwhelming. And I feel like sleeping will help clear out everything.
So I closed my eyes and thinked of everything good that happened today.
Which was I got tickets to the Eviør concert at a Nordic festival.
