“Where do you come from?” is a question I am often asked here in Iceland. I proudly reply: “ I come from the north, from the Øst-Húnavatn county, from Blönduós where the glacial stream flows through town...”. I suppose I am provincial. To me this is nothing derogatory, but implies that I share a connection with the earth, water, air and fire; the four elements without which there would be no life, and which I therefore deeply respect. On the other hand, most people think of the word “provincial” as pejorative, giving a sense of something outside the mainstream.

I grew up with the sometimes calm, sometimes choppy bay of Húnaflói; with a mother who taught me the names of plants and birds; with a father who taught me how to use a shovel and a screwdriver; with siblings that I had to look after, being the elder; with horses, dogs, rabbits and sheep; with happy times. Some years ago, my pride and love for my hometown came under attack, when I at the age of 16 moved to Reykjavik to attend high school. I had been told that the students had an active social life outside of school, and that one of the best things about the school was its cohort system. This meant that I would interact with the same students in nearly every class throughout the four-year education. It sounded both fun and beneficial. I soon learned, to my great concern, that most of my classmates had also been classmates in primary school. To ease the transition to a new school, they had decided to form a tightly knit group. I was in a cohort with cosmopolites from Reykjavik, who didn't think highly of people from the provinces. In their opinion I was a boring farm kid, someone best kept at a safe distance. Everything I had been taught by my parents and my grandparents up north was quite useless in my new high school environment. I was not a real person, but a foreigner who only knew a few provincial things like harvesting crops, saddling a horse, the names of plants and birds, and looking at the sky. I also dressed according to the weather, not according to fashion, which made me look completely lame in the eyes of my classmates. To be a part of the group I had to become one of them. I tried hard to fit in without changing who I was, but I was never accepted. My classmates' antipathy grew every day, probably because I refused to conform.

After a series of strange events I, the provincial girl, decided I would never become one of them. An innate stubbornness ran through my veins, as well as a survival instinct inherited from my maternal and paternal ancestors. I thought: my great grand mother, Guðrún Kristmundsdóttir from Smyrlaberg in Øst-Húnavatn county, had reared ten children by herself under difficult circumstances. Surely, I could go through four years of school without losing my identity, and so I did. I also think a primal force inside of me took control and gave me the power and the courage necessary to resist the pressure. Today, I'm an environmental ethnologist specialising in how ancient cultures understood the natural world. My goal is to teach people about nature in a positive and stimulating way based on our ancestors' understanding of nature. When people learn to appreciate and respect the Earth through such ancient knowledge, they have been reconnected with two important principles: by maintaining our unique characteristics, and not yielding to outside pressure, we remain faithful to our origins. At the same time, we respect old traditions and insights from  generations past, as well as the earth, water, fire and air. This is what being provincial really means, if you ask me.