Today’s guest blogger is Johnny Hellqvist, who lives in Malmö. He is a primary teacher who works as a prison officer, who also runs the indie club Dåliga gatan.
Three things. Money, free time, friends. Plus, minus and minus. Let me explain.
1. I don’t have pockets full of cash and yet I have too much money. After all, it actually doesn’t cost so much to live. No flat-screen, no cry.
2. I have too little time off. I want to remember my off days like colored M&M:s, not the way the melted mess of M&M:s in your hand on a summer day looks like. Having a job can easily mix the M&M:s into a chocolate mess.
3. I have too few friends. Not that I have a shortage - but still. You can always get more nuts in the mix.
A few months ago I thought of how I should solve troubles one through three. A street café. I offer coffee (that costs money). I bake cookies and decide on a day (I have to take time off from work). I hang around the street café and people mingle with me until I’m about to break (I make new friends). And after trying the concept twice, I can vouch for it working.
There has been a fantastic atmosphere in my staircase and in the neighborhood. Even the strangers of my street sit down and talk or maybe shut up. Whatever. We are together and it’s spontaneous and is an arena absent of the typical consumption of alcohol to boot. We're talking to each other in a whole new way. The ink of new phone numbers shimmer in my phonebook and I beat my chest proudly because me and my life-partner Julia started the very first street café.
Now, the epidemic is spreading over Sweden. Read the manifesto at folkfik214.blogspot.com and bring the concept to your neck of the woods. Small ripples on the water today, yada yada tomorrow. You get it. You get everything back.
Required time:
1 day or less
Cons:
A little weather-bound. Street cafés should be held on the street - so it’s difficult to hold them here in Sweden half the year.
Pros:
A bit like hitchhiking. It can take you far and you also get to talk with a lot of interesting people you might never have talked to otherwise.
