Jokela: a peaceful little village thrust into world spotlight
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Dozens of journalists and photographers mill around the Jokela School. Camera crews from around the world have shown up.
In the centre of the village, the weight of the school massacre can be seen on the faces of passers-by. Acquaintances hug each other in front of a grocery store.
"This is just awful" is a comment that is repeated over and over again.
The horrific events took the small, normally peaceful community completely by surprise.
"This is a small village. Everybody knows each other. When an outsider passes by on the street, people look and wonder who it might be", says Markka Kannisto, a native-born Jokela resident as he sips a cup of coffee at a petrol station cafe.
He says that it is rare that anything extraordinary happens in Jokela - just the occasional village fight.
Mari Korhonen, the cashier at the petrol station agrees.
"Fortunately, we have been left pretty much alone", Korhonen says.
"This is a little place where neighbours greet each other. It used to be that almost everyone knew each other, but you can't say that any more because so many new people have moved here in recent years", she adds.
Jokela has grown very quickly. In 2000 there were 5,000 residents in the community. Now there are more than 6,000.
Many of the new arrivals are families with children.
Mervi and Tomas Löfgren moved from Helsinki to Jokela a year and a half ago.
"We wanted to move to a detached house or a row house, and we would not have been able to afford that in Helsinki", Mervi Löfgren says.
If the events of recent days are excluded, the Löfgrens feel that Jokela is a much more peaceful place than Helsinki. Everyday life goes well. Mervi praises the health care facilities and other services available there.
Postnatal clinic services are certainly needed in Jokela, which has 250 children under the age of two. There are many children of other ages as well - nearly 1,700 residents have not yet turned 19.
In the local supermarket, 114-year-olds Emmi Takkinen and Tuulia Ranta-aho say that Jokela is a place where nothing much happens.
They find the Wednesday's events in their own school to be incomprehensible.
"I never would have believed that something like this could happen", Takkinen says.
Jokela is a place of small circles. "You don't necessarily know everyone, but you do recognise the faces", Takkinen says.
Normally Ranta-aho likes to spend time with her hobbies and with her friends in the schoolyard.
If it isn't a school night, she will stay out until ten in the evening in the summer. In the winter, the cold and darkness have her home by eight.
Takkinen and her friends often hang out near the supermarket.
"It would be nice if there were some kind of a place for kids. There isn't really much anything at the community centre", Takkinen says.
In fact, there are some activities at the community centre. Pensioner Maire Helin puts finishing touches on a piece of china that she is painting, with the help of an instructor.
On Wednesday, Helin was with the local volunteer fire brigade handing out food at the Perttu School where students from the nearby School Centre were evacuated during the shooting spree. She was doing similar work during a train accident that took place in 1996.
"It seems that Jokela is known only for bad events", she sighs.
Helsingin Sanomat
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| 9.11.2007 - TODAY |
 Jokela: a peaceful little village thrust into world spotlight |
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