It's FRIDAY!

The sunshine came back today! Like Seattle, this weekend is supposed to be incredibly warm and sunny. Woo hoo. It’s a three day weekend here because Sunday is Pentecost Sunday so for some reason, Monday is a holiday, too. Tomorrow all the stores are only open for a few hours and like Easter, everyone goes away for this weekend up to their mountain cabins – except us. It might be pretty boring if we don’t plan something soon. I have been battling a sore throat for the past few days and today it’s taken a turn for the worse, so I hope I’m well enough to enjoy whatever may come our way the next few days.

Usually Fridays are pretty boring in school because The Good Teacher Inga teaches English on Fridays to another class, so we have Lena. Lena is nice enough, but pretty boring. She just gives us our assignments and sits back while we do them. Today however, the assignment was to talk amongst ourselves on whether Norway should tighten their regulations on who they let into this country. Two women in our class nearly got into a fist fight over that discussion. One woman from Brazil said the place where her husband works employs many people from Poland and they do random breathalyzer tests on the employees at 7am and when they do, all of the Polish employees are sent home because they are drunk (at 7am!). She felt people from Poland shouldn’t be allowed here because they don’t respect the laws and they drive drunk, when a Norwegian would NEVER do that. She’s afraid one day she may be killed by a drunk driver from Poland because, she said, “Everyone from Poland is drunk all the time.” Well, those were fightin’ words to the woman in our class that is actually from Poland. I think she would have been OK if it was said that MANY people from Poland are drunk MOST of the time, but the fact the woman from Brazil wouldn’t back down on that absolute statement she made really created a ruckus. I couldn’t believe that Lena let the fight go on so long as they began to call each other names and it was getting ugly. But the fact is, the polish people come here to do the work no one else wants to do. Norway has open borders with all countries in the EU and all are welcome here if they can find a job. Kory works with a lot of guys from Poland and he said they rarely show up to work or they show up late. One guy he works with just got arrested and put in jail for drug possession, so they don’t exactly have a good reputation, but the blanket generalizations made today were a bit much. Then we got on the discussion about the difference between refugees who come from war torn lands with nothing but the clothes on their backs and the asylum seekers who SAY they are being persecuted in their own land, but sometimes that is not the case, and they come here just to live off the system. There are huge groups of immigrants now in Norway, all here for different reasons, and all of them have changed the culture drastically in many way - unfortunately, mostly for the worse. But there’s no going back now. The floodgates have opened and they even let in folks like us! (There was a funny episode of The Simpsons a friend sent to me that was about the influx of all the immigrants to Mexico and the idea of building a wall to keep them out, except they used mid-western Norwegian farmers as a substitute for the Mexicans in conveying their message. I guess they felt that was the only group of people who wouldn’t take offense to being poked fun at in that way, as Norwegians do like to make fun of themselves.)

Kory spent his day over at Odd’s working on the remodel and then tonight he went to Filadelfia Church to see a big YWAM year end drama production. (I wanted to go but didn’t want to give others my germs.) Kaleb spent the afternoon over at his friend Henrik’s house, who lives down by his school. Ironically, Henrik used to live in The Sinking Houses, but had to move. Henrik and several other boys from school got the new Nintendo Pokemon game that was released this week, so Kaleb has been chomping at the bit to buy it himself, but in the meantime, he’s taken up with playing his friend’s version. He only came home to eat dinner and was right back over at Henrik’s house, then called at 9pm asking if he could sleep over. I’m sure he won’t sleep a wink, but it is a three day weekend, so it’s fine with me. I’m so thankful he has friends. And I noticed yesterday when we were at school watching him sing with the other fourth graders that he stood with all his friends, and they were the only boys standing still. All the boys in his class that he told me he avoids were all standing in a group together with about three teachers standing guard, constantly pointing fingers at them, separating them and once even putting one behind the bleachers because he wouldn’t behave. I am so proud that Kaleb has chosen friends that don’t get into trouble and that do well in school.

My computer died a second death today. I think it’s God way of breaking my addiction to it. I need to work on more self-control so these lessons aren’t so painful.