What was going to be Anya’s first day of school is put off due to her developing a fever. All the airplane and airport germs with the stress of jet lag took its toll. She was feeling physically miserable and emotionally disappointed. Fortunately, she was wise to determine that sleeping to get well was more important than not sleeping to get on this time zone.
When she was in a good place of not fevering and while sleeping, Anya knew that I’d be taking off to walk to town to hit the ATM and the grocery store.
I spent the day (between naps) taking care of Anya, doing some Hebrew review, learning more about residency in Norway, and reading about my PhD adviser, Knut’s, research grant on Maasai biblical interpretation (http://www.mhs.no/?597). How wonderful is my adviser? He gets so interested in my project about the Maasai that he submits and his competitively selected for a research project on Maasai biblical interpretation to the Norwegian Research Council (NRC). The NRC is the Norwegian governments vehicle for funding research, which I hear mostly funds petrochemical and health care research, but has a generously funded Knut’s project on Maasai biblical interpretation. This prestigious grant will fund a PhD student and a postdoc student, who are both from Tanzania, raising up a scholarly conversation group related to my work! While this is Knut’s project and my priority here is research and writing my dissertation, this is tangential support for me and helps position me in intercultural scholarship.
What I learned about Norway today:
- Next time I walk around town in the rain, I’m wearing my rain pants. I’ve seen many Norwegians do this on prior trips, and I packed them along, but didn’t wear them today. Fortunately, my Hot Chilis long underwear kept me dry and warm. (They are even Helly Hansen, a Norwegian brand, that I bought many years ago at REI.)
- For us introverts, Norway is great! Even the grocery store workers in the aisles won’t ask you if you need any help finding anything. I was going to get out without any conversation (though I did reply “Nei” when the cashier asked in Norwegian if I wanted a bag–which you pay for) until the stevia jar I was buying wouldn’t scan on the register.
- In Norwegian news: “It was another challenging day of being prime minister for Erna Solberg on Wednesday: More than a million union members walked off their jobs nationwide in the afternoon to protest her minority government’s work rule changes…” (http://www.newsinenglish.no/). That’s one in five Norwegians! It was focused on public transportation, so being home with Anya meant that I was oblivious to this until I checked the news.