oooo, esss, ahhh

Today was my first Swedish language class, SFI (aysss, efff, iiii - as in tree). I've never been too intimidated by learning the Swedish language - my problem is making it stick. I've had a tourist tutorial since our last trip to Sweden plus a previous edition of the SFI book. I've also been wading through the Swedish online paper for the past year and a half while in America. Class is good because it brings everything into the practical. Swedish for me is like a weak or developing muscle. When it gets a work out it feels good and moments of clarity abound. But somewhere along the line my brain clicks back into English like when I instant message friends in America or listen to English language songs or tv shows. The course's goal is to teach an individual to turn that Swedish switch on and leave it on. And our particular class is full of folks who have some form of higher education so we are in a bit of an accelerated program with daily classes and computer lab homework.

(fast forward two days. blog entry started on Thursday and here it is Sunday) Class has gone well and I'm starting to understand more and more but when the teacher points at me expecting an answer in Swedish my brain shuts down. That and for some reason the teacher keeps calling me Tony accidentally. It's sort of become a class joke. Now I say 'Jag heter Tony'.

After being informed by one of my SFI instructors there would be Iraqis in our class, I was joking with Mon saying, yes it will be me and 7 Iraqi guys. We laughed. Turns out it is me and 8 Iraqis and other foreigners from Australia, Bulgaria, Brazil, Poland, Thailand and the States. The class total is 15. It was a little intimidating the first day walking into class knowing my country is at war in theirs and that the war is the reason why their lives have been disrupted, even shattered and they are in Sweden, a country not their own. I sat at a table by myself but as seats in the class filled, so did my table with three men from Iraq - Ali, Othman & Marwan. One of the first exercises was to introduce ourselves and where we were from, in Swedish. Down the line it was Irak, Irak, Irak, (gulp) Amerika, then Irak, Irak, Irak... Phew. Don't get me wrong, I love my country. I'm just looking at the fruit of our foreign policy in the eye. It's hurtful to think about. So many innocent people hurt. I'm not a politician, so I'll leave it at that.

During one of our breaks I was invited to sit down with Marwan, one of the guys from my table. Turns out he is Catholic and moved he and his family up to northern Iraq to avoid the persecution and violence in central part of the country. He lost his house and contents and his car in the process. He said he narrowly escaped two suicide bombs. The first came as a car in front of his suddenly stopped in traffic. He felt something was up and pulled his car away as fast as possible in the opposite direction. When he was 200 meters away he heard the explosion. Another time US soldiers were on patrol near his home. His 5 year old son was waiting at a bus stop on the opposite side of the street. Marwan said he got a bad feeling and told his son to come back. His son said,'I'll miss my school bus.' His Dad said, 'Come!' Sure enough, his son got safely inside and they heard the explosion. At some point Marwan set out for Sweden with the intention of making a way for his family to come later from Irak. He is an educated man and will likely serve as an Arabic interpreter for many of the immigrants who now find themselves in Sweden. He wants to go on to be a college professor. I have invited Marwan to the house for dinner sometime. I am interested to hear the rest of his story plus it sounds like we both could use a good friend right now.

I gave a ride home the other day to another of my Iraqi class mates named Hussein who lives in Stavsnäs too. His family is here and he has three young kids about the age of ours. He has been here two years and is an artist by trade. Hussein's English is pretty broken but he seems like a nice guy. Most of the Iraqis are awaiting permanent residency but are considered refugees. Not sure how Hussein will be able to use his talent here but I hope he can.

I don't want to be naive. I know there are those in the world who hate America and Americans. Rest assured we're not going to be stupid. But we're also not going to hide and live in fear.

As far as class goes the teacher says we need a couple hours daily outside of class working on Swedish and our success depends on us. The new book also has an accompanying cd to help with pronounciation. All of this has worn out my brain a bit. I know this has been a long post. Thanks for hanging in there. For the next couple weeks we (or rather, I) may not be able to post as often due to class, studying and running kids to school but we'll try to keep everybody up to date.