I was sitting by the train window, staring outside.
The sky was gray, and the breath of passengers had fogged the cold glass of the carriage windows. The air inside the train felt heavy. Or maybe it was only the anxiety that had been turning inside my chest since morning.
My phone buzzed.
Hanna had texted: “Almost there. If you reach the train, don’t wait for me.
”Just get on.”
I replied:
“Sure.”
But I didn’t tell her that I had already been sitting inside the train for nearly twenty minutes, aimlessly looking around me — like someone still unsure whether he truly had the right to be there.
I slipped my phone back into my pocket and once again felt the bitter taste of the cigarette I had smoked before arriving. I was uncomfortable with the idea that my breath might smell like smoke. Strange, really — a man who had survived prison and interrogations was now worried about smelling like cigarettes before meeting a Finnish friend.
My mind refused to settle. I kept thinking about today. About the new people I was going to meet.
About World Press Freedom Day.
About the possibility that, among all those journalists and researchers, I might — for the first time in years — feel that I still belonged to this profession.
Then I remembered how, a few days earlier, I had chosen to read a Persian novel instead of an English book. Now I regretted it. I kept thinking that if I had spent those days reading English, maybe today I would have had more words to say. Maybe I would have felt less like a stranger.
For immigrants, language is never just language. 1 It is the border between “being present” and “being ignored.”
I was at that stage of language learning where, if I stopped practicing for a few days, everything began slipping away. As if my brain still refused to accept that this country was supposed to become my new home.
I was lost in these thoughts when someone greeted me.
I looked up. It was Hanna.
Like always, she was smiling — even when she was tired, even when it was obvious she hadn’t slept enough. Some people wear their smile so often that it becomes part of their face; without it, they seem incomplete.
I stood up. For a few awkward seconds, we hesitated between shaking hands and hugging, and in the end somehow did both halfway. That small confusion always existed between me and Hanna — a cultural difference that never fully resolved itself.
She placed her backpack above the seat and sat beside me. I was slightly surprised. I had assumed she had reserved another seat. Most trains I had taken in Finland were quiet, and people usually kept their own space.
But she sat next to me — as if to say we were truly taking this journey together.
We spent a few minutes asking about each other. She looked tired — the quiet, restrained exhaustion carried by people whose lives are constantly occupied by work and thoughts.
She said: “The train stops in Seinäjoki. Can we finish your application there?”
I said: “No rush.” She gave a small smile.
“At least we can get some good coffee there.”
The train jolted forward violently, and our journey began.
For the first few minutes, silence flowed between us. Then Hanna opened the newspaper she had brought and started reading.
I asked:
“Is it in English?”
She said: “No, Finnish.”
Then she added: “There used to be an English newspaper too, but it doesn’t operate anymore.”
I was used to hearing the phrase “there used to be.”
Before I was born, Afghanistan used to be a better place.
Before I entered journalism, things were better for reporters.
Before I immigrated to Finland, this country’s economy was stronger.
Before, winters were colder and springs were more beautiful.
Sometimes I wonder if, everywhere I arrive, something begins to decline.
A bitter joke — the kind that only forms inside the minds of tired people.
The Finnish paradox
Gradually our conversation shifted toward housing and living costs. I explained that I would probably have to move because I could no longer afford my current rent.
Without hesitation, she opened her laptop and started searching for apartments.
Silently, I watched her screen — watched someone helping quietly, without trying to make her kindness look grand.
She found a small apartment. Thirty-six square meters. Cheaper than my current place.
Hanna said:
“It’s small.”
I laughed.
“For someone who spent years of his life in two-meter rooms, thirty-six square meters isn’t small at all.”
While searching for apartments, our conversation drifted toward immigration and Finland’s future. Hanna opened the Population Pyramid website and showed me Finland’s demographic chart.
She said:
“See this? This graph is supposed to look like a pyramid — showing more young people than elderly people — but it doesn’t anymore. The population is aging, and the workforce is shrinking. Finland will have a difficult future without immigrants.”
When she talked about immigrants, her tone sounded like someone who both loved her country and was disappointed by some of its people.
Then suddenly she said:
“The problem is that many people want a strong economy, but unfortunately, we’re racist and can’t tolerate immigrants. They don’t understand how vital immigrants are for the future of this country.”
I was surprised.
I said:
“I haven’t really experienced serious racism here.”
And honestly, that was true. For someone like me — someone who had often been humiliated in Iran simply for being Afghan — Finland felt welcoming.
But Hanna slowly shook her head.
“It’s different here. People don’t say things directly. They just simply distance themselves. I’ve seen people avoid certain stores simply because immigrants shop there. And there are people constantly criticizing immigrants online and on social media.”
Then she showed me a recent news report from Yle about attacks by black-blue groups.
Images of demonstrations trembled across her phone screen — people dressed in dark clothing, masks, flags, slogans.
And suddenly that old feeling returned.
The feeling I had spent years trying to escape.
The feeling of being extra.
Of not truly belonging.
The feeling that no matter how polite you are, how much you study, work, or learn the language, somewhere deep inside some people’s minds, you still remain the stranger.
My body felt heavy.
I thought about myself — about the strange road that had brought me from dark interrogation rooms to a train in Northern Europe.
Had all of this been worth it? If I had stayed silent, would I still have my home, my family, my country?
These questions always come during moments of exhaustion.
Hanna probably noticed the change in my mood.
Quietly, she said: “Most of these people are lonely. People who never managed to connect with society and never learned how to deal with their frustrations. Personally, I believe that if they had grown up in healthier environments, with books available to them, they wouldn’t be doing these things now.”
I said nothing. I only nodded.
“Things don’t always follow logic”
The train reached Seinäjoki, and we both got off.
The station air smelled of rain and wet metal, though the sky was sunny. We crossed through the tunnel beneath the tracks and reached the small café inside the station.
Hanna said the station building had recently been renovated.
“But the new version is smaller than the old one.”
I said:
“I feel like the logical thing would’ve been to make it bigger.”
She laughed.
“Things here don’t always follow logic.”
We sat inside the café. The quietness didn’t surprise me; in Finland, even public places seem to breathe softly.
When Hanna asked what I wanted — since Kristiina from Vikes had already promised to cover the costs — our cultural differences appeared once again.
In Afghanistan and Iran, we are raised with ta’arof.
With politely refusing several times.
With insisting.
With hiding what we truly want.
It is part of our culture. Through ta’arof, we give warmth and color to social relationships. We show respect. We practice humility.
But Finns are direct.
If they say, “Be my guest,” they truly mean it. And if you’re not their guest, they directly say it.
It wasn’t easy for me, but little by little I was getting used to that unfiltered honesty.
After coffee, we sat in a corner and completed my research grant application.
It didn’t take long, but for me it carried enormous meaning.
For months, I had felt as though my profession was slowly dying in exile — like an old radio that its batteries were fading.
But that small form, that simple application, was more than paperwork to me.
It was an attempt to still be seen in the world of journalism.
Prisoners of Geography
Then we boarded the train again.
During the journey, we talked about everything — theater, journalism, technology, geology.
Hanna believed journalism and theater could be in different faculties, while the University of Tampere had merged these two in the same faculty.
But in my mind, I kept thinking about the protest performance we were supposed to watch that evening — an event and a place where art and journalism intertwined.
Halfway through the trip, she ordered a book for me as an award of eager studying of Finnish language.
Prisoners of Geography (2015).
After paying for it, she said:
“You’re the first non-Finnish person I’ve ever helped buy a book for.”
I didn’t know what to say.
Sometimes, in exile, people need this kind of recognition more than money.
The feeling that someone still believes you are worth investing in.
As the train moved through forests and rain-soaked northern plains, Hanna suddenly said:
“I think we should go to the train restaurant early. Otherwise, it’ll get crowded and we won’t find seats.”
I looked outside the window. The sky was gray, and pale sunlight filtered through the clouds onto the trees. She was right; until that moment, I hadn’t even realized how hungry I was.
We stood up and headed toward the restaurant. It was three carriages away. We had to walk through calm, half-silent compartments; past people who were sleeping, people with laptops on their laps, and people simply staring motionlessly outside — just like I had been at the beginning of the trip.
Each time the doors between the carriages opened, a cold gust of air from the connection space hit our faces, and the metallic sounds of the train’s wheels grew louder.
Then we would step back into the warm silence of the next carriage.
The restaurant wasn’t crowded yet. It had a soft yellow light, and the smell of coffee and warm food filled the air.
For a moment, I felt as though we had entered a tiny world separated from the rest of the moving train.
Hanna picked up the menu and asked: “What are you having?” I stared at the menu for several seconds without truly understanding anything. Many of the dishes were unfamiliar to me.
Hanna ordered pasta for herself and fish soup for me.
When I heard the name, I laughed. If someone had told me a few years earlier that one day I would sit on a train between Finnish cities eating fish soup, I probably would have thought they were talking about somebody else’s life.
We took the food and sat at a small table by the window.
The train continued gliding quietly through green and gray landscapes. Raindrops occasionally landed on the glass before being swept backward by speed.
The soup was hot and smelled of herbs and fish. Outside, the air was cold, which somehow made the food taste even better.
Hanna ate quietly and occasionally looked outside. Between us was a silence that wasn’t uncomfortable — the kind of silence that only forms when you feel completely at ease with someone.
For a few minutes, we spoke neither about immigration nor politics nor the future nor fear.
We were simply two people inside a moving train, in a country far away from the place I once called home.
I don’t know why, but at that moment I suddenly felt that life might not always be cruel.
Maybe happiness is exactly these small moments: sitting beside the window of a train, eating hot soup, and being next to someone whose presence requires no explanation.
Gradually, the restaurant became crowded. Hanna was right. People entered one by one, searching for seats.
We could still have stayed there, but Hanna said: “I think we should head back so other people can eat too.”
This was another Finnish trait I was slowly growing used to: That quiet, unspoken consideration for the rights of others.
Before returning, we grabbed two cups of coffee.
Then we walked back through the carriages toward our seats while the train continued passing through the cold, quiet northern forests, and I felt that day was slowly becoming one of those memories a person never forgets, even years later.
When we arrived in Helsinki, light rain had started falling.
Hanna pushed her sunglasses onto her head and said sarcastically: “Yeah, because I wore sunglasses, nature decided to make it rain.”
I laughed.
Then she opened her umbrella and said:
“But nature can’t surprise me.”
And the two of us walked beneath it together. It felt strange; it had been years since someone had cared for me in such a simple, effortless way.
Helsinki Central Temple
Helsinki Central Library felt like a temple for people who loved books.
The smell of wood.
The soft lighting.
The quiet breathing of people.
Shelves that seemed to continue endlessly.
Everywhere I looked, there were books.
Books I wanted to read all of.
Right there, I once again thought about how short human life is.
No matter how much one reads, thousands of unread books still remain.
Among all that silence and order, I suddenly remembered the days when, in prison, I wasn’t even allowed to walk freely. Books were forbidden to me, and the sun felt foreign.
Now I stood in one of the freest countries in the world, able to pick up any book I wanted.
Sometimes the contrast becomes so immense that the human mind cannot fully process it.
After wandering around for a while, I left the library and walked through the streets of Helsinki while Hanna stayed behind because of her meetings.
The blossoming trees were pink, and the smell of rain-soaked earth filled the air.
For a moment, I felt that maybe life was not over yet.
Maybe it was still possible to begin again.
When evening slowly approached, I returned to the library to meet Hanna again. As usual, I had arrived earlier. I stood beside the escalators watching people come up one by one from the lower floors — tourists, students, office workers, people who all seemed to have clear destinations in life.
I spotted Hanna from afar. She was standing on the escalator, looking through the crowd for me as she descended. The moment she saw me, she smiled and raised her hand. In it were two bottles of drinks and two bananas that gently bumped together as she waved.
When she reached me, she said:
“I got really hungry, so I figured I’d get something for you too.”
She held out the bottles.
“Choose which one you want.”
I picked one. I barely even noticed the flavor. More than the drink itself, it was the moment that felt pleasant to me.
The fact that, in the middle of a crowded city, someone remembered that I might be hungry too.
She asked: “So? Did you enjoy the library?”
I laughed. “Very much. Though I wasn’t only in the library. I walked around and discovered the city too.”
Suddenly, as if she had remembered something, she said:
“Why didn’t you tell me to let you take the umbrella?”
“The rain had stopped. The weather was nice.”
The museum wasn’t far from the library. The streets were still wet from the rain, and the smell of damp soil and spring blossoms lingered in the air. Evening light slowly settled across the buildings, and at that hour Helsinki felt less like a busy European capital and more like a city quietly breathing to itself.
Most of the way, Hanna talked while I listened. The exhaustion of the entire day had slowly settled into my body, but at the same time I felt strangely light. As if, for a few hours, I had finally managed to step away from the constant burden of survival and simply live.
By the time we reached the museum building, the program had almost begun. Inside, it was far more crowded than I had expected. Groups of people stood together talking. Laughter, clinking glasses, and soft conversations echoed through the lobby.
We handed over our coats. I went to wash my face, and when I returned, Hanna was still standing there waiting for me. These small acts of waiting still felt strange to me. For years, I had been used to doing everything alone.
When we entered the hall, nearly all the seats were already occupied.
I was surprised.
At most events I had attended in Finland until then, there were usually more chairs than people. But this ceremony was different. Some people even stood through the program. For the first time, I felt that this topic truly mattered to them.
We sat near the back. Even after us, more people entered and remained standing until the end. The event was held in Finnish, but Hanna constantly sent me links to articles, speech transcripts, and short English explanations so I could follow the discussions.
Sometimes I think being an immigrant means always understanding the world a few seconds later than everyone else.
The ceremony began with support for an imprisoned Chinese journalist, Dong Yuyu. His image appeared on the screen as they spoke about his arrest. Then they showed the global press freedom rankings.
Finland was once again near the top.
Afghanistan was almost at the bottom.
Seeing my country down there felt strange —as if they had turned your homeland into a wound, that people only recognize through statistics.
Then Hinni Aarnisalo stepped onto the stage to present her research — a study about journalists in exile in Finland.
As she spoke, it felt as though parts of my own life were being projected onto the screen.
She explained why many immigrant journalists gradually fall silent after reaching safe countries.
Not because they no longer have anything to say, but because a new language, a new system, loneliness, lack of professional networks, and emotional exhaustion slowly swallow their voices.
By the time she reached her final sentence, my body felt heavy.
I was exactly one of those people.
A journalist who had spent years fighting to speak, yet now sometimes lacked the energy even to begin a simple email.
After the speeches came the performance by a Myanmar artist.
The entire hall fell silent.
A young woman slowly stepped onto the stage dressed in black, wearing a red mask across her face — something between the face of a protester and a frightening mythical creature.
Without saying a word, she spread newspapers across the floor, pulled on black gloves, and dipped her fingers into white paint.
Everyone watched it in silence.
Then suddenly she placed both hands over her mouth.
A simple movement — yet so human and familiar that the room seemed to freeze for a moment.
Then she began erasing the words from the newspapers.
Line by line.
Word by word.
Every so often she lifted the pages, as if checking whether the text had truly disappeared.
At that moment, all I could think about was Afghanistan.
The journalists still there.
The people who every day must choose between truth and survive.
My throat had gone dry.
When the performance ended, Hanna was still standing there watching.
Quietly, I said to her:
“Remember when you said on the train that journalism and theater have nothing to do with each other?”
She laughed.
“I still believe that.”
After the ceremony ended, the most important part of the day began for me: networking.
For most people, it might be nothing more than a few simple conversations. But for a journalist in exile, it feels like trying to rebuild his entire life.
In migration, you don’t only lose your home.
You leave behind your connections, your colleagues, your phone numbers, your office, your credibility, even your professional identity.
And then you must rebuild everything from zero.
Hanna started introducing me to people.
Each time before approaching a new group, a brief anxiety passed through me.
That old feeling again: Do I truly belong here?
First, we went to Kristiina and Hinni.
I barely recognized Kristiina. She looked completely different from the last time — more energetic, more elegant, younger somehow.
We spoke briefly before she disappeared back into the crowd.
Then Hanna introduced me to several others: editors, researchers, and journalists.
Some conversations were short. Some longer.
But the best moment of the night came when Hinni herself walked toward me.
The moment she saw me from across the room, she hurried over and hugged me.
Among everyone in that hall, she knew more about my life story than anyone else. Maybe that was why talking to her never felt exhausting.
She said: “I’m really glad you came.”
And I truly believed her.
When she heard about my new research project, she reacted with genuine excitement.
As always, Hanna minimized her own role and said:
“Hamid wrote everything himself. I only helped him apply.”
But I knew that without her, I probably still wouldn’t have had the courage to begin.
Little by little, the crowd thinned.
We became so absorbed in conversation that we were almost the last people to leave the museum.
Outside, the air had grown colder, and the streets quieter.
Hanna was staying in Helsinki that night, while I would return alone to Vaasa.
Before saying goodbye, we stopped at a supermarket to buy something for my return trip. I picked up a few slices of pizza and a hot dog. Once again, Hanna paid without even discussing it — something that still made me uncomfortable.
Near the train station, where our paths separated, we stopped.
I said: “Thank you, really. You made my day.”
She smiled.
“I didn’t do anything.”
But both of us knew she had.
Because some people, without even realizing it, lift part of the world’s exhaustion from your shoulders simply by being there.
We stood there for a few moments — in the middle of a rain-soaked sidewalk beneath the yellow city lights.
Hanna wanted to walk me all the way to the station, but I refused.
I said:
“You’re tired too. Go get some rest.”
She said:
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. I’ll go myself.”
A few seconds of silence stayed between us — the kind that is neither heavy nor awkward, only difficult to end.
Then she said:
“Alright. When I hear back from the university, I’ll message you. And by the way… about that project, I think we should talk to Jani next week too.”
“No rush. We still have time.”
She nodded.
“Okay… take care of yourself.”
“You too.”
We hugged each other.
She smiled briefly.
“Hei hei,” I laughed.
“Hei hei.”
Then slowly we parted ways.
She disappeared into another street, and I walked toward the train station.
Back to home
On the return trip, exhaustion lay across my body like lead. I no longer had the energy to think, or even to look outside. I only wanted to get home.
Inside the train, I opened my laptop to finish that damned application. But first I put on my headphones and played a few Ahmad Zahir songs.
Ahmad Zahir’s voice always smells like home to me.
Like the days before, exile, borders, asylum, and interrogations became the meaning of my life.
The train moved through the darkness of night while I filled out the forms one by one.
Even though Hanna had already explained everything, it still took me nearly two hours to make sure I hadn’t entered anything incorrectly.
Sometimes being an immigrant means spending hours of energy on the smallest steps of life — things that other people might finish in a few minutes.
Around midnight, I arrived in Vaasa.
When I stepped off the train, a cold wind hit my face. The station was almost empty. A few scattered people moved quietly with their suitcases while the sound of the departing train echoed into the night.
I took a deep breath.
I lit my last remaining cigarette and stood there for a few minutes.
I had a slight headache, and my legs felt heavy with exhaustion.
Then I walked toward my bicycle — the same bicycle I had locked beside the station that morning.
It wasn’t surprising that it was still there. In my opinion, nobody would bother stealing it.
I cycled through the silence of the night for twenty minutes until I reached Mustasaari.
Some of the streetlights along the route were off, and only the faint brightness of the sky showed the way. It was still something strange to me — the fact that in Finland, even at midnight, the sky never becomes completely dark.
I looked toward the horizon.
Where the sun had set, a faint trace of light still remained.
In my country, no such night exists.
The cold wind had numbed my ears, but I carried a strange feeling inside me — Something between exhaustion and peace.
As if that day, despite all its weight, had awakened something inside me again.
Finally, I reached home.
The same small apartment on the second floor of a building meant for elderly residents.
A place that might look depressing to many people, but to me means safety.
A small, quiet home far away from fear.
When I opened the door, the familiar feeling returned: that all the exhaustion of the outside world remained behind the door.
I changed my clothes and lay down on the bed.
My body ached, but my mind was still awake.
I began thinking about everything that had happened that day: from the morning train, to Helsinki’s library, to the press freedom ceremony, to the conversations, laughter, worries, and that strange feeling of belonging.
The feeling of mattering.
A feeling I had lost years ago.
For the first time in a long while, I felt that I was still part of the world of journalism.
That I could still write, research, ask questions — and not merely be a tired refugee trying somehow to survive.
But at that exact moment, thoughts of journalists still inside Afghanistan returned to me.
The people who remained there.
Those who continue working every day beneath the shadow of threats, censorship, arrest, and death.
The real heroes are them.
Not us, who managed to escape.
They carry the weight of freedom of expression on their shoulders every single day — a burden that could destroy their lives at any moment — and yet they continue.
I thought perhaps exile is not simply leaving one’s homeland behind.
Perhaps it is a kind of splitting into two.
Half of a person survives, and the other half remains forever in the place they fled.
My eyes gradually grew heavy. The last thing that came to my mind before sleep was the image of the train that had carried me to Helsinki that morning —
The train moving through forests and cold northern towns while I still had no idea that, before the day ended, I would recover a small piece of my lost hope.
Then slowly sleep carried me away —
a deep sleep,
with a tired body,
and a heart that, after a very long time,
felt a little less exiled.
Article updated 13.5.2026 at 17:25. Added more pictures.
Article updated 15.5.2026 at 11:51. Added more pictures and Youtube link.
