Are you leaving?

Mye jobb og lite skriving for tiden, men jeg kan dele et nytt kapittel fra forrige NIF-rapport med dere. Dere som har bodd et år med en vertsfamilie har kanskje kjent på de samme følelsene:

“Are you leaving?”.

Musonda had snuck up on me while I was packing my bags, and now he was standing in the doorway of my bedroom. His face did not give it away, but I could tell by the sound of his voice – the sound your voice gets when you are holding back tears – that he was sad. And all of a sudden, so was I.

Musonda and I sat down at my desk, and I explained to him that I was just going home to Norway for Christmas, and that I would be back in a couple of weeks.

“OK”, he said, but I could tell that he was still far from OK.

We sat in silence for a while, and after a couple of minutes that felt like an eternity, I understood that the reason for our sadness was that we both all of a sudden had realized that my stay with the Simusuka-family is a temporary one. We sat in silence for a few more moments that felt like eternities, then we exchanged our goodbyes and merry Christmases, and as I got into the car, I already began to dread our goodbyes in June.

Før jul fikk familien min møte vertsfamilien min.

Awkward silence

Hvert kvartal må idrettsfredskorpserne gi Norges Idrettsforbund en oppsummering av oppholdet vårt, og innlegget jeg deler med dere nå ble skrevet i forbindelse med forrige rapport. I rapportens punkt åtte får vi beskjed om å:

(...) give an example of a positive experience either from work, the host family or from the community you live in. Please formulate this as a story.

We had just finished training, and as I was about to head home when Francis stopped me:

“No, don’t leave yet. We have something we want to discuss with you”, he said.

I stopped and waited for Francis to tell me whatever it was that he wanted to share with me, but suddenly, Francis seemed lost for words. In the silence that ensued, I realized that all of the players were looking at me, but whenever I tried to make eye contact with someone, they would look away. Have I done something wrong, I asked myself, why is everybody looking at me?

Ghary broke the uncomfortable silence when he shouted something to Francis. It was in Tonga, so I did not understand a word of it, but at least someone had opened their mouth again. Ghary repeated whatever it was that he had said to Francis in the first place, and I could tell by the look of Francis’ face that he was about to translate something from Tonga to English:

“We were wondering…”, a new silence followed while Francis was looking for the right words, “If you would like to coach the team for the rest of your stay?”.

Awkward silence once again, but this time it was up to me to break it. I was surprised – pleasantly surprised – and I had a hard time finding the right words. Eventually I managed to squeeze out a "sure". I remember thinking, I should say something more, and even though I can’t remember exactly what I said, it must have been funny (or silly for that matter), because everyone started laughing.

I have enjoyed my stay in Siakasipa from day one, but the moment Francis asked me to coach the team sticks out as one of the most memorable moments. I would be lying if I said that football had nothing to do with it, because all footballers enjoys getting recognition from other footballers. However, this was about something else.

Acceptance