Tuesday, December 26, 2006

2 years ago today

Today is "Annandag Jul" in Sweden. "Second day of Christmas". It's the last of the three consecutive days of Christmas celebration, a celebration that you spend a long fall waiting for to arrive. The peak of winter.

It's become more and more common for Swedish people to leave the darkness for the sun over Christmas. This year more than 200 000 Swedes (out of a population of 9 millions) left the country.

Two years ago today several thousands celebrated their Christmas far away from home, in Thailand.

542 never returned home.

I didn't know anyone who was in Thailand at the time. But I followed the horrible news reports closely those days two days ago, both Swedish news online and American news on the TV. 542 is a small number in comparison to the enormous number of people that lost their lives that day (33 Americans are believed to have died in the disaster). But it's a huge number for a small nation like Sweden.

Today this is of course one of the major news reports in Sweden.



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