Roberto Pagani: “I’ll explain Iceland as an Italian”

After Erasmus, in Edinburgh, and graduation, in Cremona, my city, I was unable to have continuous job prospects. I left for Iceland with the intention of doing Icelandic medieval studies for the master’s degree. I was counting on return to Italy after a year instead I stayed.

Why did you stay there?

In the community I grew up in, I didn’t feel great. For my character, I like to jump from pole to branch for many things – I teach at the University but I cultivate other things on the side – and in Italian society this thing is not very appreciated. Here there is no idea that one starts a career and has to keep it forever and if it changes, perhaps after ten years, it is a failure. Iceland is a small economy, strongly subject to jolts, so it easily happens that a company closes, that one has to change jobs, there is no stigma attached to this.

“I found the ideal company”

Then of character I’m pretty straight forwardI don’t like hierarchies, I don’t like structured environments and therefore I find myself well in a society that is less stratified than the Italian one. My students call me by name baptism, so when I go to the doctor or have to interact with an institutional figure I call him by name I stayed here because I found my ideal company. I became an Italian in Iceland.

How different is it from Italy?

The Icelanders don’t live to work they know how to be productive, they also know how to be distracting and bungling but generally the work here if it is a job that you have to do does not lead to sacrifice. You do it because you have to, but leisure and family are considered more important. An employer doesn’t expect you to work overtime and all the more for free. I have done several job interviews and the first thing that was communicated to me was the hourly wage, the amount of overtime.

After 5pm the highest pay

Here after 5pm you get paid more because from 5 pm onwards it is family time, free time: dinner is prepared and stays at home and therefore in the Icelandic mentality if one has a job in that time slot there it is right that he is paid more. Yet more you get paid if you make nights, if you work on Saturdays and Sundays, the pay is a third, sometimes almost half more than that hourly basis. There are so many maintenance, construction, heavy work that one does not necessarily have the desire to do, and all the more reason it is right that the commitment to do them is in balance with the rest of life. This is why the most repetitive jobs are done by the youngest, for example the waiters, it is difficult to find one over 30 years old.

The other side of the coin?

Professionalism is very low, because in Italy you have waiters who have been doing this job for decades and more than professionals they are artistsThere is no such thing in Iceland but there are also no frustrated people who have to sacrifice their lives at work.

Is it tiring for an Italian?

For an Italian in Iceland this aspect can be tiring. The queue in the offices is slow, they are slow to serve, they don’t do things right, many don’t know how to do their job. For those coming from Italy it can be frustrating. If you have the idea that the important thing is to be efficient and work well.

But when one remembers that this is the price to pay for one more serene and collaborative society it also passes over it. Another positive side of an Italian in Iceland is that in a society of this kind at work there is much less competitiveness and you are better off.

Is it difficult to integrate?

There is a discriminating factor which is the language, a distinction even more than in other countries. The Icelandic language is honestly very difficulta very complex obstacle to overcome.

Once passed, the language becomes a pass partout in society. The other factor is having a local partner. These two requirements make you rightfully enter their companythe problem is that they are difficult to achieve.

The partner because Icelanders tend to be with each other and with their immediate circles e foreigners tend to form a mixed international community a little apart from the fact that it overlaps with the Icelandic one.

I studied Icelandic for 3 years

On the other hand if a foreigner in Italy, Denmark or France speaks the local language it is considered a minimum requirementnot a particularity that deserves appreciation and therefore I was lucky that I spent most of the my time to study this language for work, I was also paid for three years with a research grant to do a history study of the Icelandic language and this helped me a lot.

Fake news about Iceland?

There are, positive characteristics that are mistakenly associated with Icelanders precision, efficiency, punctuality. Respect for the rules, transparency of public institutions, meritocracy. These are all things that don’t exist in Iceland, there aren’t.

Iceland is a society based on word of mouth, on knowledge, it is a society where you do the magheggi all the time, where public figures when they are publicly prosecuted, then things are archived, where things are done a bit ‘carlona. And respect for the rules is also generally very flexible, we imagine them as the Swiss to the nth degree, but that’s not the case at all.

The defects that are not there

The baseless flaws are the question of darkness, alcohol, suicide and depression. Winter is darkaround the winter solstice there are a maximum of three hours of light, but in the winter season despite the difficulties of biorhythm it’s really great in Iceland because there is a particular atmosphere of committed people to be good together.

You stay indoors, with candles, dim lights, making chocolate with cinnamon, having parties, having dinners, being there to knit, having reading clubs, going to play chess in the premises of the center of Rejkjavik, where two thirds of Icelanders live, or, there are sofas with blankets to put on, while sipping coffee. Daitaliano in Iceland was a discovery: for us winter is a crippled spring, not a season to be fully experienced.

In October it is already Christmas

They put the Christmas lights on as early as October now, but there is just a nice atmosphere that warms the soul, which warms the heart.

The question of depression, on the other hand, is very false because if it were true that light is enough to cure depression tall those who can afford a weekend at the beach a little further south would be out of it. Suicides are another matter. How do you combine this idea of ​​the high suicide rate with that of the perfect society in which everyone is on a bike ride …

Iceland and alcohol

Alcoholism is also exaggerated. In reality they drink a little less alcohol per capita than Italians, it must be said that Italians drink a little a day per meal, Icelanders drink more on weekends.

Go hunting for the Northern Lights?

For me theaurora borele is part of everyday life or almost, so in this sense I am used to it, but it is not that it just happens every day,

So a little as for the rainbow, you never get used to it. You linger each time with a little wonder, and it is the same for Icelanders. After 9 years if I get the notification on fb that there is one out and I’m already in bed I don’t get dressed to go out, but I also do tours to hunt for auroras, so I see a lot of them every time I see them of beauty, however, is an emotion of a certain level.

Do Icelanders believe in elves?

The Icelandic elves are not Santa’s gnomes of Anglo-Saxon culture. According to Icelandic folklore they are the children that Evehaving neglected to wash them, she hid from the eyes of God that she had come to visit her, denying their existence. Therefore God left them forever in invisibility to which their mother had temporarily forced them. The children hidden by Eve from God have become the progenitors of the elves, who are Christians, they have their own churches, rocks that are indicated to perform this functionwhich are called churches of the elves, and are rich beautiful healthy and just invisible.

Elves and Self help

For centuries the elves are been a form of psychological relief for Icelanders: in folklore it is full of stories of babies swapped in cribs by the elves. For example when there was a child with cognitive impairment, people did not have the tools to understand how to manage it, he made a reason for it saying he was not their son but had been mistaken by the elves. This was a help, because when a misfortune happens to us we tend to blame ourselvesin a very religious society, one would have wondered why God had punished us so Also here nature is and was all the more unwelcoming and it was enough to break a leg in the middle of a lava field to be doomed.

If, a young boy who fell gathering the sheep died alone and far from everyone. What was easier for the family? To believe that a young boy had died like this or to think that a beautiful elf had kidnapped him and brought him into his world?

iO Donna © REPRODUCTION RESERVED