At the end of July it will be seven years since I arrived here. I do not count almost three months of a tourist guest visa, when I decided to tie my further life to Ivan.
After the Christmas and New Year holidays I started going to courses in town with enthusiasm, and on the very first day of classes a correspondent of Cambodian origin named Pisyai came to our group, photographed several students, including me, and asked me a question, which I answered “cleverly,” saying I had come at the invitation of a Norwegian friend to study the language, culture, history and customs of Norway. And the next day I found myself on the front page of the town newspaper, which pleasantly surprised me, recalling our saying “live more oddly — you’ll get famous faster.”
The first few days Ivan drove me by car and picked me up at noon. And then I started going by bus, to feel more independent. And Ivan had got a permanent job in town as well. Since I came back from classes earlier than Ivan from work, I managed to cook lunch for the whole family (for now I am describing my trial, tourist period of my stay in Norway).
I understood at once that they would not eat our traditional soups and borscht in this family, so I tried to cook a meat dish and potatoes. The girls politely and silently refused the freshly cooked food. But when Ivan came home from work, he would start bustling in the kitchen, cooking food especially for them. Again in silence they would take the plates to their rooms and “forget” to bring them back to the kitchen.
As a rule, in the evening, after walking the dog, Ivan would collect all the dirty dishes, put them in the dishwasher, switch it on for the night, and after that get ready for bed. Since our house was a long way from town and from the schools where the daughters and their friends studied, Ivan constantly had to take them somewhere or fetch them from somewhere and drive friends home. And I knew that for him the most important thing of all was my presence in the car.
To be continued….