Tolu Ogunlesi is a Nigerian poet and short story writer, and currently the 2008 Guest Writer at the Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, Uppsala, Sweden. He visited Finland in October to attend the 2008 Helsinki Book Fair.

Danish novelist Peter Fogtdal writes on his blog of being asked by a guest, after a reading at the Nordic Museum in Seattle: “Why didn’t the Scandinavian countries ever unite? Your countries are totally the same!” I used to think so too, until I found myself visiting Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland – in that order.

I arrived at Helsinki-Vantaa Airport on 24 October 2008 eager to see how the country differentiates itself from its Scandinavian neighbours. As the plane landed what struck me first was that I seemed to be the only black person on board, which is unusual. This thought occupied my mind as I walked to the arrival lounge, dragging my bag along.

All of a sudden I found myself sandwiched between two men. In that instant I realised they were immigration officers. They guided me into their nearby office, where a bored-looking big black dog lay on the floor.

“Do you speak Finnish?”

“No. English.”

They asked for my passport.

They wanted to know where I was travelling from, and what I was doing there.

I handed over my collection of poems, and a sheet of paper with biographical information.

The guy who collected it flipped through it, smiled and said: “Poems?”

“Yes.”

He gave them back to me and bade me goodbye.

Sometimes we travel, only to arrive at our destination and encounter stark reminders of the home we thought we had left behind. It is one of the grand ironies of life. Home for me is Lagos, Nigeria, which is about as far as one can get from Helsinki, Finland. And having been told years ago, sort of jokingly, that Finland accepted perhaps two immigrants per annum, I didn’t particularly expect to find much comfort there.

But I was wrong. Helsinki brought to my mind different vivid images, some which are very closely tied to Nigeria:

War. A photography exhibition I visited in Helsinki displayed moving images from rural Finland of the 1960s, as well as from the Finnish Civil War. The war images, with their death and suffering, reminded me of my collection of black-and-white photos from the Nigerian Civil War of 1967-1970.

And then there was the Temppeliaukio Church, the famous ‘stone church’ in Helsinki on whose wall the word B-I-A-F-R-A was graffitied (during its construction in the late 1960s) by young Finns trying to draw the world’s attention to the starvation that characterised the Nigerian Civil War (more famously known as the Biafra War).

Nokia. I think it’s fair to say that there are only a few mobile phone-owning Nigerians who do not currently own – or have not at one time or the other owned – a Nokia phone. It was a great pleasure therefore for me to visit the Land of Nokia.

The memories I took away from Helsinki – apart from the harsh winds, unrelenting rain, and the disappointment of a failed attempt to experience a sauna bath for the first time in my life – are those of a ‘grand’ city. With buildings that resemble giant blocks of neatly laid out concrete, it’s almost as though the city was designed to convince you that a city does not need skyscrapers to be intimidating. And then there is the atmosphere of a place caught between a past that is both proud and painful, and a future it is only too eager to define itself, on its own terms.

I certainly look forward to returning to Finland someday soon, but this time in the summer!