By Candrabhaga devi dasi
Padayatra Iceland was a joint event largely made possible by the efforts of Bhakta Pavel, who last year had gone to the main town of Reykjavik on a book distribution mission. Happy with the success of his mission, he planned another visit for the summer of 2016 both to the city and to a remote tourist area of northern Iceland called Akureyri. While in Mayapur during the padayatra ministry seminars for the ILS event, I thought about how to expand, to do more padayatras to reach the goal of 50 padayatras for Iskcon 50. Being inspired by the stories of worldwide padayatras, I returned home to Sweden and inquired from Pavel about the opportunity to convert the book distribution mission into a padayatra program. We advertised far and wide, even amongst former padayatris, but ultimately it was a small team going to the remote villages surrounding Akureyri.
The program started out from Akureyri airport. We were surprised to find ourselves in an empty parking lot upon leaving the one room airport suitable for around 40 people. No taxis, no buses or even people to be seen once our small propeller plane group had emptied the waiting area.
So, with the address of the local campground, we started off on foot, asking the locals we saw to direct us. A few hours later and into a steep hike up a mountainous road, a young alternative couple stopped by car and asked if we wanted a ride. Our preaching in Iceland had begun!
As we finished the few kilometers up the road to the campsite we explained our mission: we were part of an international cooperation that travels the world teaching people about bhakti yoga. The teenaged girl was very interested and took a SSR book. We left with a hug and good wishes as these fortunate Icelandic youths drove away with the timebomb of Srila Prabhupada´s book in their 4 wheel drive SUV.
We stayed at a campground full of international outdoor activist tourism. I heard people speaking at least 6 different languages, and received many positive comments on my sarees. One girl was coming from California, USA (my birth country) and we shared her experiences with devotees while cooking together in the community kitchen. She gave me some olive oil, and in turn I shared some prasadam. Others were able to catch a short darshan from utsava deities SS Nitai Gaurasundara while we made offerings in the common room.
During the days of the short one week program we would set out walking the 3 kilometers from camp to town, where we would then go through many different streets, ending in the town centrum for several hours doing kirtana and book distribution. The mood was very favorable, with many Iskcon 50 magazines and books going out, some in the local Icelandic language from NE BBT in Sweden. We went to a nearby town of Hrafnagilshverfi, a small community of maybe 600, here we went door to door with books. We met one Swedish migrant who was a former active Jehova witness. He invited us in to his place and showed us his extensive garden, and in exchange for a small book he gave us some vegetables. In fact, we begged alms from several homes in this village to get supplies, as there were no shops anywhere around us.
We met many tourists in town centrum. One young man was looking at the Bhagavada-gita when his mother and two sisters returned, surprised to see what he was doing. The mother exclaimed, “Oh, Bhagavada-gita. We have that at home. In fact, they have studied it in school.” Apparently there are secondary schools in Germany where Bhagavada-gita is included in the curriculum. They left with a copy of it “As It Is”. There were a few tourists from USA who had been to the Potomac temple, and a troll-like man with rainbow colored fingernails and waist-length grey hair and beard who exclaimed, “Hare Krishnas without the orange??!!”. But in general, the local people had no previous contact with anything to do with Hare Krsna or Vedic culture. In the capital city there were several yoga studios and two vegetarian restaurants, but in the north, there was very little worldly influence on the culture. It was indeed an isolated place where devotees had never, yes never been before. The response was overwhelmingly favorable and there is plan to continue regular preaching in this zone. Please contact us if you are interested in contributing to this mission, as there is expectation to expand every year.
rabhagad@hotmail.com
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