300,000 Kings And Queens

Kittí is Disa´s baby brother.

His actual first name is Kristjan. As Disa (þordís) is Guðmundsdottir
(daughter of Gudmunður), Kittí is Guðmundsson.

Kittí has spent a number of his adult years traveling and working for
aid organizations. Iceland sponsors many humanitarian aid projects.
Kittí was stationed on the coast of Sri Lanka for a few years and, mere
days before Christmas last year, he flew home to spend the Jól season
with his family. The tsunami destroyed his apartment in Sri Lanka
on Boxing Day. He isn´t sure when he´ll go back, if at all.

Kittí is the most fluent of all his family in English, which may be the
result of how gregarious and expressive his spirit is. If the Italians
are the most physical in their communication and use the most hand
gestures, Icelanders would rank near the other end of that spectrum,
being more taciturn, metaphysicalmore than physical in their mode
of communication. Kittí is the exception, not the rule. I could say that
he is by far the most Italian of the Icelanders I have met, haha.

He is passionate about his country, its independent character, its
citizens´ adamant refusal to bow to any authority outside of their own
outlaw spirit. He cites the Cod Wars with England, how "100% of the
population stood in protest and solidarity" with the fishermen and
the government position. "The Irish still love us for that!" he says with
a chuckle. He fights a moment to find the precise, subtle words in
English to capture the contradictory quality he is trying to describe.
"In Iceland," Kittí says, "we are 300,000 kings and queens." He has
inflated the population a little, but I am guessing that he included
the Hidden People in his number.

Kittí has been to the U.S.A. a number of times. He has a friend in south
Florida, a transplanted Icelander, and visits him there. Kittí explains
how the Americans he befriends are always urging him to apply for
his green card, to move there. He shakes his head. "Why would I ever
want tolive in America?" he cries, light in his eyes, spouting a litany
of reasons why he loves and prefers his own country.

Kittí and I get along very well, and Disa defers when we talk of music.
Her baby brother, in his travels, has developed a passion for the many
and varied cultures of the world. When I visitied Kittí the first time,
he kept bringing out cds that he´d picked up in faraway places. A concert
by Tuvan throat singers, a rare African guitarist, an amazing drums-only
cd from Iran, music from India and Sri Lanka. At the end of my first visit,
he handed me a stack of cds to borrow. "Take your time, keep them as
long as you like," he says.

Though Iceland was mainly settled by Norse people, there is an Irish
influence here, too. Kittí says that influence is far deeper than one might
think. "We have much in common with the Irish," he says, pointing to the
similarities in how deeply influential Iceland´s traditional music continues
to be in the national psyche, and to how the pagan beliefs and rituals
persist despite the arrival of the Christian church in Iceland.

After more than a month in Iceland and occasionally starving for a freely
flowing conversation in English, my meetings with Kittí have sated my
hunger on a few occasions. In this literate, intelligent and compassionate
North Atlantic nation, Kittí´s communications with me confirm my own
perceptions of his people, that I am indeed walking and living among
300,000 kings and queens, an "independent people," as the country´s
most famous author, Halldór Laxness, called them.

I hope to see Kittí again before I leave.

DL