Warning: Its been a while since I've posted, so this'll be LONG.
Weekend of 8th & 9th. This was the weekend where all I did was work... Kind of. (I lied a little. Sorry!) Saturday I went and volunteered. I LOVE volunteering. I always have so much fun. This time I learned the word for scared . I was helping one lady who was SO scared of the water... I held her up as she kicked across the pool... And then, with her little bit of english, she thanked me. Then, she was talking to another lady and waved me over. The other lady looked scared so I tried to help her... But she kept saying "Banka! Banka!" Eventually, from her grasping the kickboard so tightly, I figured out that this meant scared. So I gave her a floaty noodle and two kick boards, and off we went. By the end, she was still scared, but was greatful for the help. Then, the next group was younger girls. But its the last group I remember. There were 3 girls, who spoke pretty good english, and they basically followed me around asking me for help. It was... annoying at first because other people needed more help and they wouldn't let me escape, but then it was cute. I helped them a bit, but couldn't get them to understand that to swim you needed to understand how to kick... then how to do the arms... then you could swim. Not just... okay swim! But they were cute. Anyway. After all of that, I went and got dressed and everything and headed to the bus stop. The first lady that I'd worked with ended up being the mom of one of the girls that followed me around. So I walked with them to the bus stop. I wanted to talk to them so bad... but I felt back making the girl translate... And, while they were both so full of smiles and laughter while IN the pool... outside, they just looked solemn. Inside, we both work so hard to communicate... But then we left and suddenly... everyone gave up. Beyond smiles of recognition... There wasn't much. The rest of the night I just worked...
And the next day I worked too. Until I went back to volunteering. Which, was canceled at the last minute. However, Megan was there with me to volunteer, and we just decided to head over to Pasha Kebob to get some falafel. Its...rather tasty and one of the few foods you can buy for less than 5$. Pasha Kebob is just a kebob place I pass on the bus everyday and want to try. So we went in... it was a REALLY NICE kebob place with free tea and great decorations... Super. We order our falafel and then start talking to the cashier since we were the only ones there (and... we had to do an interview for class...) He was super nice. Like, usually, cashiers don't want to talk to you, but he was rather chatty! He's from Iraq, and has been living in Denmark for 8 years with his family. He says he likes in in Denmark... but that Iraq will always be his home and he looks forward to going back... once things calm down a bit... After we'd talked to him for a bit though, he changed the topic a little. He spent quite a bit of time making sure we understood this one thing. He explained it many times, each time in a different way. He said that many times when he meets Americans, when they find out he is from Iraq they get scared and act different and run away and he didn't understand why and didn't like that. He said that it is not something between him and I... it is something between our governments. He drew a sharp distinction between the two... something the media does not do. The media seems to dehumanize everyone in Iraq... Which is why the Americans probably view people from Iraq so poorly. But anyway, after that, another customer came in and we'd finished our meals... So we headed our separate ways home...
At home, Amanda was very much looking forward to making cookies. I'd promised that I'd make cookies for her class (which I was going to visit on Wednesday.) So, we made... SNICKERDOODLES! Yay. They were rather tasty. Nothing so exciting in making cookies (everyone loves cookies!) BUT I learned something... CRAZY. THEY DON'T DIP COOKIES IN MILK! I had to teach them. They thought I was crazy. Situation has been remedied!
Monday, my birthday, I worked ALL day. No good. Highlight of my day? I got a box of chocolates from Mike! And a cute little dear from Nara. :) Pretty much adorable. I got a bunch of birthday card too, which definatly were also great. Thanks to Jennifer and Amanda/Zoe/Ryan/James and Grandma and Grandpa! Everyone did a great job of planning so things would arrive on my birthday. :) I also had a panel debate for class... all about media representation of immigrants. It was interesting... but a lot of the same stuff as media representation of blacks in America so... yeah. I learned some interesting things, like how most immigrants move out of what the media calls 'Ghettos' and things like that. It helped me to realize that, yes, things aren't great here for immigrants and there a big stereotype against them... But its no where NEAR as bad as it is in most places... After the panel thing... There was a class dinner... And then I headed home. Yay! Tuesday night was the REAL celebration. Kara, Megan, Gabi and I were all going to go to ice bar. Kara... got pnuemonia and was in the hospital... so she couldn't come... But Gabi made the rest of us dinner (THANK YOU GABI! YOU'RE MY HERO!) and we went to Ice Bar!!! Yay Ice Bar :D As it was Tuesday night... and we went at 9:30 PM... no one was really there... except for us and the bartended. Which was cool. We got awesome pictures of the place and spent a good bit of time talking to the bartender (who gave us all free second drink because it was my birthay :) ) Good times. :) We kept trying to make ice towers out of the glasses (made of ice...) but they kept taking the glasses away... Sooo... yeah. Haha. Great fun.
Me at the Ice Bar!!! Don't you love the awesome parka?
Shika (Deer) Mike sent me! Isn't it ADORABLE?!
Thursday wasn't so exciting. But notable things did happen. I got home from a long day and was talking to Pia, who told me that Amanda had brought the 3 baby rabbits that did not have homes to the pet shop since they could not take care of so many rabbits... :( I liked the rabbits! But anyway, then Pia went on to say how Amanda had started crying because she had to give the rabbits away... And then while she was crying about the rabbits... she had started crying more about how I was going to leave too... :( So, I decided to spend the rest of the day hanging out with Amanda. Amanda and her best friend Anne have started just coming and hanging out in my room with me. Its really sweet. They'll just come and Anne will listen to my iPod and Amanda will video chat with a friend and we'll dance and they'll sing and just chat. Its very nice.
Amanda dancing to my iPod :D
Me and Anne! Shes so sweet!
Me and Amanda and the 'baby' rabbit that she got to keep. Its not so baby any more...
The next day, Friday, was just class and things for the most part. After Migrants, Minorities and Multiculturalism, Gabi asked if I wanted to go to Gammel Torv (the plaza right next to school) with her and another friend to scope out the... INTERNATIONAL FOOD FESTIVAL! So, of course, i accepted. I tried all kinds of sausages and cheese and jams and balsamic vinegars from all over the world! Heh... The balsamic vinegars? They had FRUIT FLAVORS for, like, ice cream. SO GOOD. OMG. Then, I saw a french cookie stand... and looked up... AND THERE WERE GRANDMA'S WAFFLE COOKIES! I just about died. Then droped 2$ on a cookie. It was the classic waffle cookie... but minus the maple topping. But... it was NO WHERE as good as Grandma's. Not even close. It had a funny taste and was harder and more powdery. I'm still glad I bought it though... Reminded me of home. THEN... Crazy things coming up... We passed an exotic meat stand. So, the three of us bought a... KANGAROO BURGER!!! And split it. It was SOOOOOO GOOD. It was kind of like beef... But with more flavor and a little more salty. Amazing though. I highly reccomend you eat some kangaroo. Anyway, after that, I went home and ate dinner... Hung out with host family a bit... Then went to Gabi's kollegium to watch Devil Wears Prada and chat. It was a good way to end the night :)
Saturday I slept in then went to volunteer. I... had an AMAZING time... as usual. It was only me and the instructor, so it was a little crazy. But so much fun. I worked with the same ladies I've been working with, which is really nice because I've gotten to know them a little and build trust. I had a great time. And, with the younger girls, we've been playing a game like tag, only, if you get tagged, someone has to come save you so you can move again. So I've been playing with them. And thats SO MUCH FUN. As I was leaving, Malou, the coordinator kept telling me what a great job I did and how big of a help I was. It was really no big deal. I have a great time and teaching swimming is something I love to do. And I like playing with kids. So... its all good. But it was nice to have the recognition? Yeah. After volunteering, I went to Kara's and we... did homework and ate licorice pandas. They're tasty. Amanda, you might be getting some at some point. Just so you know. :D
Sunday... I skipped volunteering (I told them ahead of time and they were cool with it though.) It made me sad because I look forward to it... But Pia wanted to take me out to a birthday dinner and I wanted to do that and the weekend is the only time when I don't have class or something I can't get out of... So... Sunday it was. Michael and Pia and Anne and Amanda and I all made the 20 minute bike ride down to Pia's favorite restaurant, Jenson Bofhus. Which, she loves for the salad bar (it was weak as far as options... but apperently the best in Denmark! And it tasted good. So hey!) It was good. And I had fun :) But... not really much to say. Just a relaxing dinner with the host fam and Anne :D.
Monday... was INSANE. I had 3 meetings and classes and surveys to give and so much stuff. I had class... then surveyed people... then found out one of my meetings was cancelled and another combined with the other... So magically, things worked out. Which... I was perfectly fine with! The day before I'd had a Thai food craving... So I went to the Thai take away place I pass frequently in my newfound free time... Only to find that its freakishly expensive (13$ for takeaway?) and, upon eating it, I found that it was the worst thai food I've ever had. It... wasn't bad per se. But... I've only had delicious thai food. And this wasn't. But yeah. After that I had a paper topic/class rep meeting with my core class prof. She's amazing. And so sweet! I wish I could just sit down and chat with her about things... not paper or class. Class rep meeting... I just said things that people had told me to say... I like the class for the most part. I just don't really see how it fits in with the program. But thats not her fault at all. Result of class rep meeting?! TWO WEEK PAPER EXTENSION FOR THE CLASS! Do I get gold stars or something for this? I should. But yeah... Then we talked about Kara & I's term paper. Our topic is Second Generation Muslim Female Immigrants and how they reconcile thier parent's identity and their religious identity with their Danish and secular identity... Yeah. Should be... fun. Interesting at the very least. We have to do atleast 3 interviews for it, so we're going to talk to an expert (yet to be decided...) and then do many informal interviews with Muslim women at a SheZone event going on this Saturday. Its a giant festival with workshops that should be a lot of fun :)
Tuesday... Was a good day... Other than that bit where I left late for class... was biking so fast the chain fell off and it was raining and I couldn't get the chain back on so I missed my train and would have been over 20 minutes late to class if I had decided to go... Haha. But, I hear I didn't miss much in class and the rain made my hair damp... which apperently makes my hair dry wavy. Which was really cute. So, no loss there. Classes... were boring. Except for Service Learning class, which, despite not getting credit for at all and basically ONLY taking for the fun of it since Gettysburg doesn't even recognize its existance as a class is one of my favorite classes. I love that class. We always have great discussions and everyone in the class is amazing. I really wish we could have had more class socials or something to get to know eachother. I did, after class, end up going back to the food fair with two people from the class Theresa and Ben. They got kangaroo burgers... then Theresa and I made plans to go shopping the next day as we split a crepe and a strawberry waffle between the two of us. Great fun. THEN we went to a panel debate. It was between... Naser Khader and Henene Mette Brix... Who agreed on many things... (which doesn't really make for a good debate... but... hey.) They were interesting. I really enjoyed listening to their side of things. Naser is the head of one of Denmark's political parties, and a Syrian immigrant and a Muslim (though... some muslims disagree with that last part...) He basically said Islam is compatible with secularism because you can follow the religion while still putting democracy and family first. (He says he loves his family more than the prophet Muhammed. This, apperently, goes against Islam.) Brix... I couldn't really hear very well. But she, I'm pretty sure, said it didn't. But she also mostly only talked about Muslim extremists and things like that... Basically, they were both very extreme and anti Islam in its pure form... Though in different ways. It was interesting to hear their points of view, though I think the best thing that came of it was all of the discussions everyone had about their views afterward, outside of the debate. Through various conversations, I've reflected a lot on what they've said... and what it appears to boil down to is where is the line between "Muslim" and "Not Muslim" drawn? Islam is an 'all encompasing" religion... which is supposed to define every aspect of your life... So, if you don't follow Shari'a law, are you still a muslim? If you put your family before Muhammed, are you still a muslim? Which, seems to be a big discussion within the Islamic community. Another interesting thing about the debate (which has a story that helps highlight it... but in a very negative way so it will come later as to not skew your judgement of this next bit.) is that they both said that discourse is one of the most important things in overcoming these obstacles and THE most important thing for democracy... yet... if you disagreed with their views... You were wrong. Brix at one point explicitly stated, "I feel lucky that we can have a conversation like this about this topic without a fundamentalist in the room!" Which... i thought just didn't fit with everything she was saying. If democracy is all about conversations... shouldn't you be having a conversation with everyone, not just the people you agree with? Nasar said he wouldn't be on a panel with an Imam. A third lady was supposed to be on the panel, a Buddhist who thought religion was a key part of democracy or something like that... But she fell ill. They were both very happy she couldn't come... Which I just think is closed minded. But whatever. Anyway. Crazy thing that happened. The way the panel was set up was that they each talked for 10 minutes, then they just took questions from the audience. Which went well for the first hour. and the second hour... But the time inbetween... Not so much. One guy raised his hand, stood up to ask his question... Kind of rambled for a bit... then got louder and said something to the extent of "have so and so tell your mom she does a good job giving you a blow job." To which... the entire room responded to with 10 second of silence... When Nasar (who isn't really respected by many Muslims since he's abandoned his faith but still claims to be Muslim...) broke the silence with a, "WHAT?! WHAT DID YOU SAY?" then Jakob (my teacher, the moderator) Told the 'questioner' to leave and that this isn't acceptable... Then Nasar's security went and grabbed the guy... He started screaming about free speech and if democracy is about free speech why can't he say this... To which he was told that no, hate speech is NOT free as he was escorted from the room. It was... rather tense and a little scary. But, as soon as the guy was gone... We just picked right back up. Which... I thought was good. Don't give him any attention... I was impressed Nasar stayed around though after being verbally insulted in such a rude and crude way... But yeah. Thats the excitement... :S
Enough of that excitement... After an all too short night of sleep, I had to be back down town at 8:30 to go on our feild trip to Sandholm, the Danish Red Cross reception and departure center for asylum seekers. Its way out in the middle of a military area... surrounded by nothing. Its the first place people seeking asylum are taken... And where they get registered and everything. There are usually about ~600 people living there... And there is a job center and medical center and housing and kindergarten and a cafeteria... All sorts of stuff. We had a breif introduction... Where we learned about how they go there and get registered... then they get sent to another center... then when they get denied refugee status, they come back to Sandholm... but few of them can leave and actually go back to their country, so they end up living there. People have lived there for as long as 11 years... After our introduction, we were given a tour. We started in the kindergarten, which is for kids up to age 6. There can be anywhere from 10-25 people in it... And they never really know how many will be there each day since they don't really receive word as to when the family is moved to another center or when they're sent away from the country... It was a small room, but nice. They only speak danish to the kids to try to get them to learn that, and the kids go there until they can go to regular school. When they reach that age, they can either chose to go to a regular Danish Public school if their danish is good... Or they can go to the Red Cross school if their danish isn't so good... It was a little awkward just crowding in... but then, I started playing with this little girl. She had arrived yesterday and looked rather sad... So I sat and played legos with her and handed her legos and she built a little house and by the end I had gotten her to smile a few times. We didn't speak at all... We didn't need to. Then... we had to leave. :( And that made me sad. I wanted to play with the little girl more! After that we walked past the tiny 2 room family housing... and then to the giant dorm building where mostly single men lived. The rooms... were smaller than many dorms... And 3 men lived in each room. We got to look in at one room... So small. The computer was in a corner... but you had to step on the bed to get to it... Later we found out that we were in the room of one of the three people in denmark who had been accused of attempting to murder the cartoonist fromt he cartoon crisis... Crazy. But yeah... then we went to the medical center... they all get checked out upon arrival... And kids get the same benefits as Danish kids... but adults don't have it so great. They only get surgery that is absolutely necessary... After the medical center, we went to the Job Center. Asylum Seekers can't get 'jobs' out in society, but they can get unpaid praticums or work in the asylum center. Actually, they're required to do that to get their spending money from the center...But they can do basically anything that their intrests lead them too- including writing for the center's newspaper. Then... that was the end of our trip... It was so interesting through. Its definatly a top 3 educational thing from the semester. I think the #1 spot is either Kirtimai or Sandholm... don't think that will be decided ever though. Not that it really matters...
After that adventure... I went completely the other way with my day... I went with some other people and we bought death by bailey's fudge... and OSTRICH BURGERS! So good. The ostrich... can't really be described... its a lean bird type meet; vaugely remincent of chicken... but with a different sort of flavor. Its a little tougher than chicken or turkey. But still very good. Also highly reccomended. Then Theresa, Sarah, Kara and I all went shopping. Sarah got tired and headed home... And Kara didn't buy anything. But... Theresa and I had a grand 'ol time making our bank accounts scream. End of the day? I bought 8 things. Sweater dress, turtleneck dress, purple leggings, purple leg warmers, black and purple polkadot skirt, white cardigan, black plain shirt and a really cute tank-topy dress that I can dress warmer... or wear in the spring :D I think I did pretty well. :D Look for pictures in the future :P
So, 4000+ words later, you've made it to the end. THATS what I've been up to for two weeks. Its been exciting and... fairly work filled (thought I've left those parts out...) If you've made it this far, you should leave a comment. I like comments. Now, I must go write a paper. Enjoy your morning/afternoon/evening/day!!!
1 comment:
Hi Ang, I so enjoy reading about your time in Copenhagen and it really seems like you are having, and have had, a great time. I am thoroughly looking forward to seeing you and giving you a huge hug. I love you very much! Keep on writing! See you soon!! MOM
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