Norge

When I was fifteen my parents sent me off to Norway as part of a student exchange program. Except they got no student in exchange for me. They just offloaded a potential timebomb – as fifteen year old girls have a propensity to become – on to someone else. I just flew off to Norway, not knowing where I was going to be living because the exchange organisation had yet to find a family for me. I think this was, in part, due to the fact that on my application form I had stated that I wanted to be housed with a Catholic family. In a Lutheran country. The naïveté of it all. Really. The only Catholics in Norway, as I was soon to discover, were Vietnamese and as they were only recent arrivals into the country – as refugees – they barely had enough money to look after their own kith and kin, let alone that of someone else. Oh, and my grandmother was convinced the exchange student organisation was a front for the white slave trade.

By the time I landed in Oslo a temporary family had been found for me in Tyristrand where I lived for two weeks until the exchange organisation could find a permanent one for me. The temporary family consisted of Mor & Far and their two daughters: LT, a 6 ft tall 12 year old potential super model and AK, a hyperactive 8 year old. I loved living with that family and I loved Tyristrand. We lived in a little wooden house in the middle of open spaces, not far from the Tyrifjord where we spent our days swimming because it was summer and school had not yet started for the year.

After the two weeks were up I moved to my permanent host family in Sætre, down south on the Oslofjord in a province called Hurum. I didn’t have as pleasant a time with this family as I would have liked, mainly because the father in my “host family” was a racist, misogynist overseer. And I don’t particularly like racist, misogynist overseers. And being extremely shy I found it rather difficult to defend myself against him. Sometimes it was quite excruciating. He was not at all happy about the Iranians who had moved into the town next to ours, Åros. Never mind that they were all Baha’i and escaping persecution, detention and death in their homeland. He just didn’t want them in Norway or in any country where the nation’s airline, SAS, for whom he worked as a pilot, conducted business. And so, as those Iranians became friends of mine, he was not particularly happy with me. One of those Iranians (let’s refer to him as P) was the boyfriend of my best friend (L) at school. Some years later they married and my mother and I attended their beautiful wedding on a boat on the Oslofjord on midsummer night’s eve.

To get a bit of extra pocket money, I got a job at the Shiraz Café in Åros which was owned by P’s parents. So all in all, I was not a popular gal in my host family’s house. I was an Iranian sympathiser! And to make matters worse, I was Catholic (my host father hated Catholics) and if that were not bad enough I did not hang out with his definition of the right class of people so I got double demerit points for both of those grand sins.

The Iranians next door in Åros were magnificent people. P’s mother, X, appeared to be somewhat of a polymath to me. She was an intellectual who, amongst many other talents, spoke seven languages and could cook the most exquisite pastries. Part of my job in the Shiraz Café was to clean the pastry making equipment. I never ceased to be amazed that this woman could speak seven languages and still make skolebrød (a traditional type of pastry that I was addicted to – which, upon my return to Australia, caused my youngest brother to ask me if I had contracted the mumps in Norway!).

X was a wise woman too. I participated in a number of Baha’i meetings and learnt a lot about spirituality. But it was not so much her and her family’s words that had an effect on me, but rather their actions. They were so gentle. Facta non verba. They were so accepting of this Irish-Australian Catholic girl who was so incredibly green around the gills. They just opened their world to me.

I was sure that if my host father, O, met these wonderful people he would change his mind. One day L and P came over to my house, the first and last time, and it became apparent that O wasn’t going to change his mind. I was utterly embarrassed at his rude attitude towards them.

The other incredible woman who had a great influence on me was L’s mother, K. K was a social worker-turned-Persian-carpet-seller (and a brilliant one at that too) and her husband V was a cooking teacher at my school. There was an incredible amount of laughter in their house. Both V and K were extremely happy people and had permanent smiles on their faces. V used to tell lots of stories about his days working as a chef on naval ships and having served the King of Norway whose name really was Oscar, just like the sardines! K was simply love personified and when I started to become quite unhappy living with my host family she called her family together and they decided I should live with them. But I declined the offer. I thought that by living under the steely gaze of the evil overseer that I would become stronger and toughen up. In hindsight, I wish I had moved in with L’s family. K passed away at the beginning of this year and I was inconsolable. It was such a shock. I always thought I’d have another opportunity to see her again and tell her how much I loved her, but it was not to be.

That year in Norway taught me a lot about the world, instilled in me a love of other countries, cultures and languages and changed me in ways that I could never have imagined. I am still in touch with L and P and also with my first host family in Tyristrand and one day I hope to visit them again... and eat more skolebrød.