Forgotten Boat

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Originally uploaded by gema fova.

This was the second obviously forgotten boat I have seen this month. It makes me wonder who forgets their boat. Of course, this was just a tiny boat so perhaps it isn't very valuable. The obvious answer would be that the owner died and had no friends or relatives to haul her out of the water for the winter. That is one of the oddities about Finland.

People die and are not missed for weeks, months and even years. One of the first times I heard about this it was just a person in an apartment who had been dead for years. Then, I heard another story, a man died in his office and was not noticed for a few days. Another one was about a man dying on a long bus trip. It was several hours before he was noticed to be dead. A doctor from a local health center was dead and hadn't shown up for work, maybe it was a week or so before somebody realized something was amiss and they found her dead, I think, in her apartment. I find it both fascinating and entirely unsuprising. If it weren't for the person I live with and my classmates of pesky foreigners, I believe I could go months without having to utter a word.