Palestinians in Norway

On Monday 9.aug Ward and Loren arrived Oslo Airport, since then they have been in Oslo sightseeing together with Bergen ICY, Oslo ICY and 3 from the YMCA in Sri Lanka.

We have been at the Nobel Peace Center and seen the exhibition about South Africa's struggle for democracy, and the exhibition "A Call to Action" about the Peace Prize laureate Barrack Obama. We have also been at the Norwegian Folk Museum. And eaten srilankan food, which were too spicy for some of us.

And from yesterday we have been at Uvdal for the Challange Course and Global week. Which has so far been really good!

The last day of the exchange

Yesterday was the last day of our Palestinian friends Bashir, Issa and Mariam's visit to Norway. We had talked about the famous (at least in Bergen) aquarium for more than a week, so we decided to go there. Among the many things we saw, the crocodiles, penguins, seals and snakes were probably the most interesting. We even got to feed some super-sized gold fish. After having been at the aquarium for about two hours, we had some lunch, then played some Xbox - or in Mariam's case, chatted on Messenger ;-)

In the evening we went to Magnhild's place, where the goodbye party was held. We ate the delicious Mexican food Tacos, played some games, sung some songs and had some speeches, as well as an evaluation of the Palestinian's stay in Bergen. As the night grew older, it was time to say goodbye to our dear guests. It was very sad of course, but all good things must come to an end. I know that many people have been moved by the stories the Palestinians have told, and we have all appreciated the Bergen-Beit Sahour exchange - hopefully the first of many.

Palestinian evening

Yesterday we arranged an Palestinian evening at Ynglingen. Bashir, Issa and Mariam had all prepared a great program for the evening with quiz, introduction to the situation in Palestine, personal stories, and palestinian food and music. About 25 people showed up, not as many as we hoped but I think they had a really good and experience, leaving with a lot more knowledge about Palestine than when they came.

Prayer for peace

Today we attended the student mass in Johanneskirken. This mass is every Wednesday at 11.30. and lasts for half an hour with lunch after.

We participated with a prayer, both in Arabic and in Norwegian. Bashir and Issa also contributed with an Arabic church song and another song about the life of the Palestinians.

After the mass, we had lunch with some of the students that were there and the university priests.



Pray with us:

Dear Lord!

We ask you for the people who are joinig the service here today to give them joy and good health. We want to pray that they will have peace of mind in the coming school semester, and find time for reflection in between the studies.

We ask you also to help all the people in the world. Help the people who are sick, poor, homeless, and who are lacking safety, to give them the strength to keep hope alive. We ask you to give patience to those people who are working to make the earth a better place to live for all people.

We especcially today ask to spread the seeds of peace in the middle east. To stop the violence, killing and toture. Help the leaders of the world to see what is happening and give them wisdom to find the fair solution.

“We thank you for giving us the opportunity to come to Norway and meet the people who are looking for peace”.

In the name of God, amen.

Sight Seeing

As the fifth day started we went to Floeyen Mountain, we reached the top by taking the wagen. An amazing view was seen from there. Then we continued the tour by walking around for almost an hour. Near the cabin of this mountain we had our packed lunch. Great thanks to Saliba who welcomed us in his appartment for eating some food there. In the evening, as was arranged we went to meet youth from the Norwegian Christian Student Assosiation and to have the dinner with them. Meeting those wonderful and friendly youth has encouraged us to play two Palestinian folk songs, then we performed another song which describes the day to day life of each palestinian family. An unexpected impression was noticed on the faces of the people who were listening.

An evening of culture

After the mobile cafe at the university college and a quiet afternoon at home, the time was come to move a bit and experience some Norwegian culture. As Mari is a folk dancer, she invited our guests to participate in a practice for her dancing group, and the Palestinians and their guides learned both reinlender and pols, with varying enthusiasm, but great success by all. After an hour of dancing and watching, a trip to the cinema was decided on, and the evening ended with just as much laughter as it started.

(Photo: illustration - hardanger fiddle. Photo by I. M. Godeseth)

Mobile Café

We have started the advocacy work.

Today we had our new mobile café at Høgskolen i Bergen/ Bergen University college. After a bit late start we arranged a table, made the sandwiches and poured the coffee into cups. We put a map over Bethelhem and some pictures of the wall on the wall and tried to get in contact with all the students that passed by. It was not as easy as we thought to give out free coffee to poor students, but our main goal was our petition. And some students signed the petition even if they didn't want any coffee. Too bad that it also was people that only wanted the coffee....

The petition is a statment we are going to give to the new minister of foreign affairs after the election in September. We want Norway to put pressure on Israel so that the wall can disappear and the settlements will become history.

Our dreams are big, but we keep on working for it.

Preparation weekend at Stolmen

This weekend Bergen ICY and our guests from Beit Sahour YMCA have stayed at a cabin on the island Stolmen in Austevoll (south west to Bergen). There we have been preparing the program for the coming days, which is looking really good! We also had a lot of fun playing games and experienced the real coastlife by fishing both from the rocky shore and from boat (all together we got 7 delicious fish). The weather has been shifting alot, from nice and sunny to heavy wind and rain, and sometimes it was even hailing!

Tomorrow we are having a palestinian cafe at the University College i Bergen (HiB), hopefully many students will take time to chat with us while enjoying arabic coffee.