Tuesday, February 12, 2008

AWCO

I just returned from my first meeting with the American"s Women's Club of Oslo and I'm happy I went. They meet at the American Lutheran Church which is super close to our apartment. Today was a Valentine's luncheon which included a talk on Third Culture Kids. For those of you who don't know what the means: third culture kids are children who grow up in a country other than where they are born. Sometimes these kids may live in several countries during their childhoods depending on what their parents do for a living. The woman who spoke was Norwegian but she grew up in New Guinea. Her parents were missionaries from Norway. She grew up inn New Guinea and lived in several villages and attended various international and boarding schools. She said she spoke English better than Norwegian so when she returned to Norway as a teenager she was suppose to repeat a couple years of high school. Well, she decided to attend university in the states instead. She is definitely a TCK.

Listening to her made me realize that so many people have such a variety of backgrounds and just how colorful some lives really are. Kayleigh isn't a TCK but she has moved a lot for a kid her age and has attended a lot of different schools. Hopefully, she'll pick up some of the positive aspects of the TCK like being flexible, showing empathy to others, and living in the "now"... I think she already does these but I think I need to become a TCK!!!

The women in the group are mostly married to Norwegians so most of them have lived in Norway for some time. I met a Texan, two Minnesotans, a woman who is here starting a Baptist church with her American husband, an American History professor at the University of Oslo to name a few. There was even a woman from Waco, Texas that I didn't have the chance to meet. (I lived there a long time ago when I first taught school.)

They are starting up the wine club again so I look forward in participating in that. I also found out about a knitting group at the church. The library looks promising too.

I had to fly out of the meeting to pick KJ up from school so I had to leave a little early. On the walk up to school I kept thinking about what a couple of the women mentioned during the talk.... home is really where you are with your family. I will make a point to remind myself of that the next time I'm missing Portland.

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