First Invitation to Norwegian House

We had been here for more than three months now. We had participated in different programs and gone to the different places to visit but until this Tuesday dated 24th of November, no one had invited us in their home. Ragnar Lundstrøm, who had been to Nepal two times before and was there in our presentation about Nepal, called Durga the day before and invited us in his home. We were so enjoyed with their invitation and after finishing our work with international group and Arendal Youth Group for a Photo shoot to make posters creating awareness of how HIV is transmitted to other persons, we directly headed to our house where he is supposed to pick us up at 6pm. We were a little late but found him waiting for us. He drive us to Hansnesveien 69, there we found his wife waiting egerly for us. A warm welcome and little chat. They also had baked cake with Namaste written in it. Also we had special julebrus along with cake. We had brought Nepali tea leaves with us, so we also made the tea in Nepali style.
There we stayed nearly for two hour and had chat about Nepal and also the cultural differences in Nepal and Norway. We also they showed us the gifts they have brought from Nepal which took me back to Nepal for some time and nearly got lost on them but thanks to Durga for bringing me back to Norway. We were so pleased about that. We left their home with a happy node of meeting again some time and seeing photos of Nepal and listening some of their memories about Nepal.

Strange connections

Before some months, I was struggling to learn to use this machine with my friend Prem Krishna Shrestha. In Nepal, this machine is still in use. Tailors use this machine to sew clothes. From this different designs can be made. Shirts, Pants and also other stuffs. Even in some place they donot have the table portion and they use hand to rotate the ring. Yes of course it is easier to rotate the ring with legs than hands. I was very glad to see such machine here in Norway too. It was placed in Risøya folk hiskole. I thought "oh! they also use such machines, same as ours, to sew the things." I thought this was there just to show students how to sew clothes because i had heard that the school is for those who want to learn other various activities after completion of their school and before going to college. So it was obvious that there should be such income generating skills also. In some places in Nepal we use to provide vocational training of such things so that they can earn out of it. I was in same vision but when i asked about it to one of the youth leader, then he said, "we used to use those type of machines may be 20 or 5 years back. now we use china instead." I understood right way about what he is saying but Durga didn't so I had to clear her by saying that "previously they used such machine to sew clothes but now they import directly from China. and don't know how it is made. It was same like that the Pink Cow of farmville gives strawberry milk, brown cow-a chocolate milk." They don't know how milk with strawberry flavour is made but they just had seen the pack of strawberry flavoured milk with a pink cow painted on it. The reality is that some of them never had seen cow and how milk is collected from cow and what is the whole process.

To import clothes from China is much more cheaper than to make it by themselves here in Norway. So they use the easiest and the cheapest way of having the things.

Now i can also imagine why the stikers of human trafficking campaign are made so that it is fit to a small tin or iron cans.