Kaleb and I both headed off to school today (that’s him in the photo in his school yard). I got on a bus; Kory walked Kaleb down the street. Kaleb was quite nervous about the whole thing but when we picked him up at 12:15 he was beaming. He loved it! Hallelujah! He even understood a little of what the teacher was saying too, so that helped. He was very popular and everyone wanted to play with him at recess. So far, so good! The teacher even gave him a glowing report and said he did very well. Warmed my heart. So we have ourselves a little school boy in Norway. Now, we’ll see how it goes once they assign him homework.
As for me, it should be fun. There were about 25 women in my class (no men) from 18 different countries. They require all refugees and spouses of Norwegian citizens to take this class and it’s paid for by the Kommune, but there are others in the class that are paying big money to be there as they are here on work permits (mostly from Poland and Eastern Europe), and they find out quickly how much they need to know the language. It’s like being back in college, as it’s very proper Norwegian grammar. By the end of June I will have mastered the language enough to attend college here (or so they say). I don’t have to go that long, but they recommend that we all do and they pay for me – so I may as well. I love my instructor and today only, she spoke a little English – after that – it’s all Norwegian. But the introduction by the school Rector was all in Norwegian and I understood about 95% of it, so I feel confident I’m going to do fine. The old “A” student in me comes out at such a time as this, so we’ll see how quickly I advance.
I have a 45 minute bus ride to and from school so that will give me plenty of time to read or do some Bible study, as I hate wasting time. My school is right at the edge of Aalesund, near the port where the ships come in, so it couldn’t be any further from our house. I leave at 7am and get home by 1:30pm so it’s the bulk of my day – everyday. It seems so weird to be this structured.
When I got home this afternoon I “mowed” our lawn (photo to follow). Kory had to borrow a piece of farm equipment from his cousin to do the job. The body of the machine looks like a roto-tiller but it has a blade on it that oscillates back and forth like a hair trimmer, and it cuts tall grass. It was meant for small hillside farms when they need to harvest the wheat without tractors. Kory couldn’t use it because it was too jarring on his wrists so I spent several hours cutting down the jungle that surrounded our house. Then the machine broke so I’ll have to finish up tomorrow after Kory fixes it. I pray every day to be a blessing to someone, and today I’m sure I was a blessing to the entire neighborhood, as this place looks so much better now with all that grass gone. And I only had to pull seven ticks out of my skin for that good deed. (Ugh!)
As for me, it should be fun. There were about 25 women in my class (no men) from 18 different countries. They require all refugees and spouses of Norwegian citizens to take this class and it’s paid for by the Kommune, but there are others in the class that are paying big money to be there as they are here on work permits (mostly from Poland and Eastern Europe), and they find out quickly how much they need to know the language. It’s like being back in college, as it’s very proper Norwegian grammar. By the end of June I will have mastered the language enough to attend college here (or so they say). I don’t have to go that long, but they recommend that we all do and they pay for me – so I may as well. I love my instructor and today only, she spoke a little English – after that – it’s all Norwegian. But the introduction by the school Rector was all in Norwegian and I understood about 95% of it, so I feel confident I’m going to do fine. The old “A” student in me comes out at such a time as this, so we’ll see how quickly I advance.
I have a 45 minute bus ride to and from school so that will give me plenty of time to read or do some Bible study, as I hate wasting time. My school is right at the edge of Aalesund, near the port where the ships come in, so it couldn’t be any further from our house. I leave at 7am and get home by 1:30pm so it’s the bulk of my day – everyday. It seems so weird to be this structured.
When I got home this afternoon I “mowed” our lawn (photo to follow). Kory had to borrow a piece of farm equipment from his cousin to do the job. The body of the machine looks like a roto-tiller but it has a blade on it that oscillates back and forth like a hair trimmer, and it cuts tall grass. It was meant for small hillside farms when they need to harvest the wheat without tractors. Kory couldn’t use it because it was too jarring on his wrists so I spent several hours cutting down the jungle that surrounded our house. Then the machine broke so I’ll have to finish up tomorrow after Kory fixes it. I pray every day to be a blessing to someone, and today I’m sure I was a blessing to the entire neighborhood, as this place looks so much better now with all that grass gone. And I only had to pull seven ticks out of my skin for that good deed. (Ugh!)
No comments:
Post a Comment