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Posts tagged ‘Norway’

Aug 22

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Life is too short to not pick strawberries

The other day Steve and I went biking. It was a beautiful day, one of the few where it was warm enough to wear shorts in Norway this year. After spending the day by our desks using only our butt and finger muscles by sitting and typing, it felt good to move the whole body.

This is me biking on a different day. Not so sporty-looking, you may say, and I agree. 100%. But the surroundings are spectacular though. Or what?

I had gotten a pulse watch from Steve for my birthday so it was fun to keep track of our pace and distance ridden. I was amazed at my speed. We have nice bikes, all high-tech and light weight. Steve was in a rebellious mood and did not put on his helmet. I wore mine, because, quite frankly, the downhills scare me. The helmet on my head gave me a small sense of security. Still I used my breaks diligently as I made my way down.

We wanted a real workout. We wanted to sweat and hurt a little. We wanted to see if our time was better this time than last time. So we trotted on. There was just one problem: there were wild strawberries on the side of the road. Every few meters there were big amounts of them (not big, because wild strawberries are small, but you get my point). At first I kept looking past the strawberries and changed gears to make the impact on my body a bit more intense. This was not the time for picking strawberries. This was the time for sweating. This was the time for high pulse. This was the time for calorie-burning.

Sweet, red and tempting

But finally it got too much. I could not resist the temptation. I stopped, got off my bike and started picking strawberries. They were delicious! Sweet and tart at the same time, bright red and vulnerable. When we had picked them all, we got on our bikes and went a little further, until we saw more strawberries. Then we got off and picked more.

We finally made it home, but not in record time. And, in the end, it didn’t matter at all.

This is what I thought: How many chances like this will I get this year? A sunny day, a beautiful place and strawberries on the side of the road. Next week they may be gone. Next month fall is already here. Next year this road may be a be paved and the strawberries gone. Why not enjoy them now? Why am I in too much of a hurry to stop and pick strawberries?

To experience the joy of strawberries to the max, thread them on a straw like Kristin and her cousin did here. If you do that in a hurry, you will fail. If you take the time required you will end up with the finest jewelry.

While adding handfuls into my mouth I thought that my experience as a good illustration of real life too. Often we hurry along, trying to break our own records in efficiency and perfection. Often we get so busy that we forget to look for the strawberries in our lives. And if we see them we don’t take the time to pick them. And when we finally decide to make time for the stopping, picking and enjoying it may be too late. Winter is already there, the strawberries are gone—either picked by others or rotted.

So I committed to not pass up strawberries. Not on my bike rides, not on my walks and not in my own life.

Jun 19

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Meeting Bono on a jet plane

I wonder if Thar Thar could have imagined he would one day dine with kings and presidents, ride on private jets with pop stars and sleep in the fanciest hotels in many nations. Would he have imagined being on TV all over the world, of riding in limousines and being escorted by lifeguards? Was this the outcome he had envisioned while he was playing cat & mouse with the secret police in Rangoon? He must not have dreamed of such privileges at the times when he did not dare to visit his friends because his presence would endanger their lives. When he, as a young boy, received the message that his dad had died in prison (the prison officials said he died from asthma. Thar Thar and his family knew that political prisoners seldom die from asthma) he most likely felt like his life was doomed.

Thar Thar is a political activist from Burma. I first met him at a coffee shop in Rangoon. He called me and asked if a meeting at 10.30 pm would be OK. “I don’t sleep much,” he explained. “When I was running from the secret police, I had no place to go to sleep. I would move from Internet café to Internet café and try to catch some sleep in the chairs there.” 

I was so moved by his passion and of his story. His whole life he had been living like a spy or like a fugitive in order to work for freedom for his country. “Most of my friends were arrested, some died, but I was always smarter than the police and managed to get away right in front of their noses.” He is one of Aung San Suu Kyi’s closest friends and aids. “I communicated a lot with her while she was under house arrest,” he explained. “But how could you do that? She had no access to phones and could not have visitors.” “Oh, but we were able to communicate anyway. Did you not hear of the doctor who went to check up on her? Do you think he went to check her health only? No, he was our messenger.”

Two days ago I met Thar Thar in Oslo! I could not believe that the t-shirt-dressed, poor and unknown guy I had met in Rangoon some months earlier now was wearing a suit, and was treated like the most prominent of VIPs. I commented on his new suit and haircut when I met him. He just laughed.

This is Thar Thar (in the grey suit), Aung San Suu Kyi’s son, Kim, and my actress friend, Ingunn. We had a wonderful time celebrating ASSK and Burma. The photo was taken by Gunn Magni, our great friend. Also, Ingunn’s better (?) half, Randolf, was also with us.

He was one of the four who got to travel with Aung San Suu Kyi on her tour of Europe. I met him after she had given her Nobel’s Peace Prize lecture. He had had busy days of meetings and fancy dinners. “I met the king yesterday, but who was the king again?” He said chuckling. We were at a fancy restaurant and the courses kept coming. “What am I eating? I actually just wish somebody would give me some rice. I have not had rice since I left Burma.”

All Thar Thar wanted was some rice. And what is this? Paper-thin marinated pineapple with chèvre from the finest dairy.

He said that he would meet Bono the next day, and would go to Dublin in his airplane. I sighed a very jealous sigh. “Not fair, Thar Thar! All my life I have wanted to meet Bono, and now you are going to ride an airplane with him!”

But Thar Thar has not lost his head to the instant luxury and special privileges he has received over the past days. He knows that what he is experiencing now is just a parenthesis of what his real life is. The smartly dressed politicians and famous people he meets don’t impress him much. Not unless their lives have proven that their words are sincere. I was nothing less than flattered when he said: “OK, so you are my friend, so can I ask you anything I want?” “Go ahead.” “Last night we went to a very fancy dinner with the king and the queen and the government. There were so many important people there. But I looked around and I wondered: Why are these people here? What have they done for Burma? I asked people: Where is Oddny Gumear? Why is she not here?”

And, although I did not feel worthy to dine with the king, I have wondered why all of a sudden everybody has become a Burma friend. Where were they when Thar Thar was hiding from the police, afraid of getting arrested and killed like his dad had been? Where were they when the villagers in Karen State were burning and thousands were running for their lives? Where were they when I tried to get them to write about rapes and pillaging in their newspapers? Where were they when we asked for money to feed thousands?

Thar Thar sees through the outer shall of pretend concern and into the hearts of the many who are not genuinely concerned about people like him and his countrymen and women. For a few days it has been trendy to care about Burma. Will it still be if there is nothing to gain for it for them? That is what I wonder, and what Thar Thar wonders too.

“All these people want to invest in our country now. Why? I think that they mostly want it for themselves. I am not so sure that allowing them all to come before we have the right laws in place is the right thing to do.”

The next day Thar Thar called me again: “Oddny, can you help me?” I thought he had gotten himself in trouble. “Sure, what is it?” “I have not had dinner, and all I want is for somebody to take me to an Asian Restaurant where I can get some rice!”

He, who could have called on room service at the most expensive hotel in Norway, wanted to go to a place where he could eat some rice and talk about things that really mattered, such as how to teach the grassroots in Burma about real democracy.

There is hope for Burma. Not because of rich investors from the West, but because of people like Thar Thar.

 

 

  

Jun 13

Human rights and the color of your eyes.

Today I took a look at Kristin’s comments about human rights and ethics. She said some things that were plain cute. Not everything was right, but it gave me some insights.

Kristin and dad

“Ethics is when you treat the dark people worse than the light ones (I think she got the words mixed up here and explained discrimination instead.)

We need to think that all people are of equal worth and we need to think before we act.

Socrates, he is helping a little in the UN.

Human Rights means that all should get what they want.

An example is that if one is popular and one is not, they are still of equal value.

The Declaration of Human Rights is: They meet every year and talk about new rules they can put in the book.

To discriminate means that for example somebody has blue eyes and somebody has brown. And then the ones with blue eyes are not allowed to come to Norway.”

So these are Kristin’s thoughts. Certainly they are very simplified, but I thought about this: If one is popular and the other is not should not determine their value. In Burma this is still not true. It still seems like the ethnic minorities are the unpopular ones, and the ones who are not considered of equal value. This is wrong in the mind of a ten-year old, and it is wrong in my mind.

Says I. I have brown eyes and hopefully I can therefore live peacefully in Norway.

 

Jun 8

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A Yo-yo or a spas?

We have all heard of yo-yo diets. The diets that get people to diet so hard for a short while that they can’t handle it any more and then they end up gaining all the weight they just lost. Well, me, I am a yo-yo blogger. First I write a ton, and then I get busy and nobody hears from me for days, even weeks. Perhaps my commitment isn’t strong enough.

But there is so much to do. So many other things than writing blogs about what I am doing. For example did we have a party almost as big as a wedding for Naomi, who got confirmed at the church two weeks ago. The confirmation symbolizes that one wants to follow Jesus still, and, for many, it is a rite of passage—from childhood to adulthood. We had a fancy party to celebrate the life of our little/big Nom-Nom. I am certain she is not an adult yet, but it was a special time of remembering some of the fun times we have had with her over the years. Did I mention it was a sit-down dinner and 45 guests?

Who has time to write blogs while getting ready for such an event?

And I went to Geneva the following day, with Steve. There we registered the new Human Rights organization we will be involved in, Fortify. An important and significant event. Too important to spend time writing blogs.

This is me walking with my good friend Matt, looking all important in Geneva. White legs.

On the way home we had such a long layover in Denmark that we decided to take the train to Copenhagen. Do you know what a Smooshi is? Not? Well, you will have to go to Copenhagen to find out. But it was really tasty. And, no, it is not a smoothie made from sushi.

Smooshi is yumsie.

And then, like pearls on a string, the events have lined up: Soccer games, handball games, visitors from near and far, another family party, enough laundry to fill a big room, a sick dog (you don’t want the details), lots of weeds and a house that needs to be painted.

Who has time to write a blog? Not me. So here I end it, and hopefully you will hear from me again in a few days.

 

 

May 24

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Sun stress

Right before midnight.

Sun stress. It is not something you get because there is too much sun. No, you get it because you have so little sun in your life that when it comes out, you get fantastically stressed. This is happening to me at this very moment. We have had sunny and warm weather here in the country up by the North Pole for a week. If you have a hard time defining beauty, then come here and watch. Sun setting at 10.30 and the kind of sun heat that is actually pleasant.

But, the problem is that there are:

1. Things one has to do inside while the sun is out outside. Like work. Like the dishes. Like laundry and sorting the bills. This is really frustrating.

2. There are so many things to do outside that we are not able to do the rest of the year, so we (I) feel slightly like an ADHD’er on speed. Gardening, BBQs, going for walks, riding the bike, going for runs, spending time by the ocean, reading outside, painting the fence, hanging the laundry outside, picking wild herbs (Yes, I do that and they are tasty!), getting a tan, picking rocks (from the lawn. Does not qualify as gardening), getting a tan, eating ice cream and going for picnics.

Right now I have brought my office outside. It kind of works, but not really.

I love the sun in Norway. It is always welcome here. Any day. As long as I don’t have to do something really important.

Need to define beauty? Come to Norway in the summer!

 

Apr 19

2 Comments

Why not dance? It’s spring.

Kristin, one of the world's biggest lovers of spring

It’s spring-time in Norway. Nothing can compare to the feeling of spring in a country that has winter from November until April. Like jolly calves who have just been let outside, we too dance around like dorks. Well, not exactly dancing. We just dance in our heads. Norwegians are reserved people after all, and one does not usually do anything that one’s neighbor isn’t doing.

It’s like we have been in hibernation for six months, and now, when the sun comes out and warms our bodies, we crawl out of our dens. You can see Norwegians outside wherever you turn (in Norway I mean. You can’t usually see them in the rest of the world). It’s not hot by any means, but it feels hot compared to how it has been. So although the temperature only is around 10 degrees Celsius (which is 50 F) we put on our sweaters, take a blanket with us and eat our dinner outside. The nice weather is just too nice to waste.

We go for walks, we rake the lawn, we have visions of our future gardens, and we close our eyes and face the sun. Mmm, the warmth it produces is better than ice-cream.

No snow, no ice, no need to spend more than a minute to get dressed. It is nice going for walks during spring-time.

I think that people who have not lived through a long, dark winter cannot appreciate how nice spring is. They may find it lovely and smile, but they won’t long to be outside like we do, they won’t fall in love left and right like we do, they won’t get all excited when they found the first flower of the year like we do. But we, having lived through the darkness and the cold, see the beauty of spring with all new eyes. It makes us smile. It makes us talk about it at the store. “Now spring is here,” we say to the strangers in line at the grocery store. It’s like the world is smiling at us. Do you have any idea how nice it is to go outside without three layers of clothes on?

It’s like life. Without the harsh realities of life’s winters we cannot appreciate spring as much.

It’s what I am trying to teach my kids when they have a hard time; when they don’t get the best grades, when they don’t get picked for the A team, when they don’t get as much money as their peers, when they don’t seem like perfect people that always get the best of everything. I tell them that this hurts right now, but later in life they will be glad for the experience. It will teach them endurance and it will make them appreciate spring more when it comes.

The same is true for me.

 

Mar 28

6 Comments

44 reasons to like Steve

Today my husband Steve turns 44. Unfortunately for him, he is in Oslo and I am not. But I have thought about him a lot, if that counts, and promised him a party when he comes home. He is my best friend and there are a lot of reasons why. I just really like him, I guess. So finding 44 things to like about him was easy. I could have written 88 or 777 reasons, but I settled for the 44 first that came to my mind.

You may find it boring to read and that is OK too. You can stop reading at any time.

:-)

  1. He says things that make me laugh
  2. He has a cute nose
  3. He loves God
  4. He is a great Frisbee player
  5. He reads interesting books
  6. He motivates people
  7. He is committed
  8. He is very good when he speaks in public
  9. He dances with me

10. He is articulate

11. He has a cute laugh

12. He is a great dad

13. He gets things done

14. He is not afraid to try new things

15. He is a good rock climber

16. He can be very convincing

17. He is romantic

18. He can fix stuff

19. He can run far

  1. 20.  He gives good massages

21. He buys nice gifts

22. He likes incense

23. He lives for what is right and true

24. He is a good leader

25. He can build houses

26. He admits his mistakes

27. He downhill skis like a pro

28. He can carry stuff and lift stuff

29. He knows lots of trivia

30. He does not lie

31. He taught me to drive

32. He taught me to swim

33. He taught me to play tennis

34. He is the father of my daughters

35. He does off-road biking

36. He makes great fires

37. He looks cute when he rubs his eyes

38. He understands complicated stuff

39. He is forgiving

40. He doesn’t take himself too seriously

41. He can explain complicated stuff

42. He is patient

43. He likes to make our home pretty

44. He is my best friend

 

 

Mar 25

5 Comments

There are places in the world where one cannot write blogs.

There are places in the world where one cannot write blogs. Or, at least where one cannot post one’s blogs. Some of those places are:

Hard to write blogs there, under water.

  • A very simple hotel by an unknown beach in Thailand. They had nice coconut drinks there, but Internet as slow as deep-fried bugs they sold at the local market.
  • Our room at the conference center where Partners recently held our annual staff retreat. Our room was the furthest away, which made it quiet and private, but the Internet waves did not want to travel that far.
  • The former capital of Burma, Rangoon (or also called Yangon, since the then-military government decided to change the name of the capital as well as the name of the country itself. Later they also changed the capital. Military dictatorships have great freedoms.) Surprisingly there is Internet a lot of places in Rangoon. And even more surprisingly, they let you download almost anything, even websites critical to the political system in Burma. The problem, however, is that the Internet is so slow that by the time you get to download a page you have lost interest. And if I should have posted blogs, then I would have had to cancel all my important meetings because I would be stuck in my room.
  • My own home in Norway when I have just come back from a long trip and my kids, my husband, my dog, my friends and my laundry room need me.

    Dan and me. Dan dressed like a police man, me dressed like a homeschooling mom. Partners staff retreats are not quite like other staff retreats. Blog-writing is not considered an option during our days together.

I know you have been sitting there, staring at your computer, checking my blog and asked yourself what had happened to your favorite blog site. You maybe felt let down and depressed. Perhaps you felt that you deserve an explanation for my silence—for my absence. I want to say I am sorry for dropping the ball on my blog. It is unacceptable.

My excuses are above. From now on I don’t have those excuses any more. I am in Norway. There is Internet 24/7. There are no former dictators looking down my back. My kids, my husband and my dog will just have to learn that there are times during the day that I need to dedicate to writing my blog. The laundry can wait.

So, dear blog follower, don’t leave me now. Look here again tomorrow and the days to come. I will tell you about what it was like when I went to Burma legally, with a passport, a visa and five copies of my new book.

So long.

Oddny

Jan 30

5 Comments

Picking Flowers on Dusty Roads

The other day a journalist wrote about me that I had “been pregnant with this book for a couple of years.” I thought it was a good way to describe the birth of my book. Finally, after all this time, my book is born and you are all invited to have a look at it. And not only that, you are invited to read it, and tell others about it and tell me about what you have learned from it.

You can buy it here and here

Tonight we had a small party in honor of my book launch. People called me author and talked about my author dress that I was wearing and wanted me to sign their copy of the book. They clapped and took photos. They shook my hand and said congratulation. It all felt like they were talking to and about another person. Author? Yeah, right. You don’t become an author before you write books. And then I realized: I have written a book.

You can look at these photos. And you can read an excerpt from the introduction here.

Major Lah Muu died fighting for freedom for his people, the Karen of Burma.  His wife is a widow.  When I first met her she lived in the only teak house in Mae Saliit Khee village on the Thai-Burma border. I remember looking at her face and wondering if I had ever seen a more beautiful woman before. She was not young, nor did she look like a photo model from a fashion magazine. She had a serene beauty, like I could have imagined belonging to an Asian Mother Earth.

She was the first Karen person I ever met, her house was the first Karen house I ever entered, and her costumes were the first Karen costumes I ever admired. They were colorful like the lotus flowers around her pond. It looked like she had been created to wear those costumes. She would walk around her property doing her daily chores with a straight back, head lifted high, and steps so soft that the grass hardly bent under her.

All the Karen people of Burma wear colorful and ornate costumes like those of Major Lah Muu’s widow. Each village and area has different colored shirts and patterns. They all look beautiful to me. For years I have been spending time with the Karen and almost without exception I receive a hand-woven bag or shirt as a parting gift when I leave them. I don’t know how many shoulder bags I have. The incredible thing about this is that not one looks the same. They are all unique.

When I first got to know Major Lah Muu’s widow, the Karen and their costumes, I noticed strings hanging from different places on their garments. To me they looked like somebody had been in a hurry and hadn’t taken the time to fasten the threads when the piece was ready. They were annoyingly messy. Then they told me the meaning of those threads, and I learned to love them.

They would hold the threads in their hands and say, “Try pulling one of them apart!” I did, and it was easy. Then they asked me to take a whole bundle of the threads and try pulling them apart. It was impossible.

“This is a symbol of our people,” they explained. “If we stand alone, it’s easy to break us, but together we make one strong bunch.”

Since then I have never been annoyed with the threads that get tangled with each other after a little bit of use. I just say, “It’s the Karen people learning to get along so they cannot be broken.”

This book is a bit like the threads on the Karen costumes. 


Here I am talking about my pregnancy with the book. I did not use those exact words though although I now think I should have.

My good friend, Egil, introduced the evening and said nice things about me. Way too nice actually.

I think I look a bit too intense here, but I am trying to explain to people why writing an international book in Norwegian would not work and that is why I chose English. Chinese would have cramped my style.


Dec 30

7 Comments

Click. Suddenly you have clicked yourself in the head.

Ideally this is how we would travel to people's houses. In real life we drive cars and it is windy, rainy dark and cold.

Here in Norway it is still Christmas. Middle Christmas, we call it. That is the time between Christmas day and New Year’s Eve. During Middle Christmas we mostly go to people’s houses and eat, or people come to our house and eat. The exception is when we go for the occasional walk or run. Or, like today, when our family decided we needed a break from all the socializing and eating. We just stayed at home and didn’t invite a soul.

We get together and eat, laugh and are jolly. Kind of like the seven dwarfs and Snow-white

We watched a cool movie together tonight. It made all the girls in the family cry, and the man, well, I am not sure if he had to wipe a tear or two too. The movie was called Click, and Adam Sandler was the main guy. You should watch the movie. It is worth it, and it will teach you some new cuss words too. I am not sure how you will feel about that. I thought it was pretty funny. Maybe it is because I am irreverent.Maybe it is because I am not a native English speaker. I do think the movie will make you laugh though, even if you don’t care for the cussing. That is my personal opinion. But more than that, it will teach you to live your life now, and not to fast forward it all the time. It will remind you about what really matters, and how easy it is to rush through life, forgetting that all those small moments will never come back.

I was massaging Kristin’s feet while we were watching the movie. She was not feeling good tonight. I was looking at her and wondering where the ten years have gone since I held her in my arms the first time. I thought about how nothing is more important to me than to let my kids know that they mean more to me than anything else. Elise is turning 16 next month and in some cultures she would be married off by now. I just want to hold on to her, lock her into a room and make sure I have full control over her life. I, of course, do know that is not the way to raise a teenager. I just wish I knew where the balance was between locking her up and letting her go to wild and crazy parties where there are guys and other scary stuff.

To learn what is going on inside my teenager's head. That is more important than email.

Click. And our lives may be over. Click. And we are sitting at a retirement home looking back at our lives. Click. And we will wonder if we missed it by spending too much time on things that don’t really matter, and too little time on what does.

Click. And I am turning the computer off, leaving it alone while I go and tuck my kids in. It is Middle Christmas and during Middle Christmas it is the people that matter. The people and the food. And when you think of it, what is the fun with the food if one cannot enjoy it with people?

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