Return to school and asylum

Since moving to Lødingen, which lies in the community called Ofoten, which just so happens to be east of the famous Lofoten I have returned to school, quite literally! Each day sees me nervously negotiating the teenage kids in the hallway to find the adult learning classroom within the secondary school of Lødingen. The kids seem very nice and occasionally say hello and giggle when I try and speak back. Returning to school to kick-start my Norwegian again has been a really interesting experience to say the least. There are two classes, one for people that have asylum, for which I am in and another class for asylum seekers who have been sent to Lødingen to wait for a decision to be made on there application. The class I attend is mainly made up of women, from Russia, Latvia, Poland, Cuba, Thailand and Brazil. There is also a couple from Palestine. Now and then there is a bit of friction between the girls, which is great to watch. One day we were asked to join the asylum seekers and prepare some food. They are mainly from Eritrea and Somalia. It’s a humbling experience and reminds me how fortunate I have been to grow up in two democratic countries. The group I joined was made up of a very quiet man from Eritrea and the other a younger lad from Afghanistan. The young lad spoke better Norwegian and so we struck up a broken conversation as we prepared potato salad. I wanted to ask so many questions but felt it was rude to ask, so the conversation drifted on. Afterwards when I was leaving he ran over and asked if we could speak English. We walked through the playground chatting and I asked why he had come to Norway. He just said someone told him it was a good place and that it was safe. He described how he had been smuggled through country after country before ending in Norway. I told him I thought it sounded so dangerous. He just smiled and said, sometimes you just don´t think your going to get out alive.

I took the following pictures during our cooking class. I asked permission of every single person before taking his or her picture. They have also been published on the community website.