Velkommen til Skolen

I started going to Norwegian class at Voksenopplæringen for innvandrere (and no, I haven't quite nailed the pronunciation on that one yet). Thank goodness Norwegians believe in abbreviations! So my school VO :) is less than a ten minute walk from our apartment. Classes are held in two buildings right next to Hamar Stadion, which is pretty awesome. Yesterday when I was on break I went out and watched a fotball team practicing. I commented to Lars later that they seemed really good, and he told me that it had to be HamKam, Hamar's professional fotball club (because who else would be practicing in the middle of the day!!). The building is the beige one at the end of the field.

Class starts at 9am, and goes until different times Mon-Thurs for a total of 15 hours per week. The classes are specifically for immigrants (innvandrere sounds a bit more like invaders to me), and it has become obvious that this almost always means refugees who are staying in Hamar waiting for their application for refugee status to be approved or denied by the Norwegian government. These refugees are actually being paid to take class and live in Hamar. Granted all my information here is pieced together from scrambled conversations in English, Spanish and Norwegian...But with that said, I have learned that most of the immigrants are staying in the same housing development where they are allotted 3,000kr\month. They live with people from similar regions of the world, or from the same country if possible. I think I am one of only 3 people in the class that are not in this boat. Luckily for us, if you are not a refugee you can still take class for a price. I pay 2,500kr\month, or almost $400. While $400 can seem like a lot all at once, when you look at how much I am paying by the hour it seems like a steal. Depending on the exchange rate of course, I pay around just $6.50\hour. I never calculated what I was paying at PLU by hour but I am sure that it would blow this phase of my education out of the water.

And to be honest, I am not really sure that you can put a price on the multicultural feeding frenzy that is my everyday experience in VO. The class is so incredibly diverse; there are almost 30 students from 17 different countries: Afghanistan, Iraq, Turkey, Poland, Romania, Russia, Thailand, Eritrea, Somalia, Serbia, Slovenia, Ethiopia, Burundi, Latvia, Morocco and the U.S.! That with the addition of our super cool Norwegian teacher Liv (pronounced like 'leave')...we are quite the bunch. I cannot even begin to explain how stimulating it is to be in a classroom where everyone has had such unique experiences bringing them to the classroom each day. I have had quite a few interactions that have kept me thinking long after class...and I have a lot of unanswered questions. Needless to say, I am learning a lot more than just Norsk.

At the same time, having almost 30 students with no common language is a very challenging and large group. It is a much larger group than ideal for any classroom, but especially for language learning. Sometimes it is frustrating because we are all so different, and I find myself irritated with other students for being what I would deem disrespectful...but I keep giving myself metaphorical slaps on the wrist; I have no idea what school is like in these students' countries of origin, or if they have even gone to school. So I sit there quietly, glad that I am here by choice and that I haven't been forced out of my country due to war or political turmoil (although McCain and Palin are just about bad enough for me to try and claim some kind of asylum) and try to be as helpful and as attentive as humanly possible.

But I will admit that sometimes my mind wanders...what do these people think of me as a U.S. citizen? Especially the students from Iraq and Afghanistan? I am hoping that people can separate any feelings that they may or may not have for the N. American government from me as a person...otherwise I am not sure how long I will survive, haha (nervous laugh). This is not to say that I have felt any hostility at all in the classroom...it has been quite the opposite actually. I have been treated as a semi-celebrity from 'America'...whoo hoo, big deal. Even Liv caught herself treating me a bit different. The first day when she was taking attendance, my name was about halfway down the list. Previously she had just said everyone's name but when she came to me, she said 'Lisa Gilbert...fra USA?' Maybe I am just overly sensitive about these things, but I don't think her continuing to say each student's country of origin after that was much of a coincidence.

I had an interesting interaction with a young guy from Iraq during one of our breaks. He wasn't in class the first day, and so he made a point of introducing himself to me (and only me) on his first day\our second day of class. Our conversation:

'What's your name?' He asked, reaching for my hand.
'Lisa. Og du?' I replied, shaking his.
'You're from America?'
'Ja...hva heter du?'
'My name's Ali. Don't worry...you'll remember it'.

Uh...ok. I sat back down in my seat, smiling and saying over and over to myself 'Please be flirting with me, please be flirting with me, he just thinks I'm cute, yep, just hitting on me...'...Right? He seems like one of those 'funny guys' based on his attitude in class, and he wasn't in class today so I guess we will see if anything else comes of that. When I told Lars the story he laughed with me pretty hard, and then suddenly quieted and asked, 'Uh you didn't tell him where you live, did you? Because then you'd have to move out.' Haha, another funny guy. :)

But don't worry after three days of class, I have been able to focus on some pure language learning as well. In addition to the standard what's your name and where are you from rabble, I now know how to tell the time, chat a bit about the weather and how to pronounce the letters i, t, u, l, o and v. And after a bit over $100 for a textbooks titled På vei I think I really am on my way!