INSTALLMENT
#5
[Day 9 - Sunday, July 2, 2000]
Peg & Keith
Wheeler's Norway trip report, Summer 2000
See Photo Album #11
Haugesund,
Karmøy, Slogvik Farm Greeting, Aksdal/Tysvær Emigration Festival Concert - a very special day.
We
were up early with Keith taking pictures of old boats from our hotel
balcony. Soon it was time for a
pleasant breakfast in the hotel dining room where we noticed a lack of American
tourists and English sub titles to the labels on some of the food and
drinks. The goat cheese needed no label
in any language. It had become our
favorite much to the surprise of Norwegians.
Keith's fruit juice from the dispenser turned out to be grape rather
than grapefruit (his language problem, not a labeling mistake). Peg's waffles stuck to the griddle, but that
wasn't the fault of translation. We are
learning.
Einar
picked us up to take us to the "Heather
Nursery" (not to be confused with an old folks home, but that
is another story). This would take us
over the Karmsund bridge [ http://www.haugalandet.net/hgclkbro.jpg
]
to the large island (and kommune) of Karmøy. On the northern end of Karmøy, Einar first took us by the home of
Kjell Ebne and his wife Sigrun (from Høydal near
Flåm) who are serious gardeners. Kjell used
to teach but has become a full-time gardener, nurseryman and plant seller.
Sigrun still teaches. Their garden of
herbs and flowers was a work of art. It
was great fun to walk along and compare the names of the plants. Always the botanical names would help if we
could but remember them. This
delightful couple accompanied us to the heather place (lyngsenter).
No
one could quite believe that Peg was so interested in heather ("lyng"
in Norwegian) - it gave many a farmer a good laugh. It grows everyplace in the countryside there and is considered
almost a nuisance. Keith enjoys saying
it is like someone coming to northern California from Norway and being
interested in getting a start of star thistle.
However, there is a preservation society for heather in Norway -- I
doubt there is such an organization in California for thistle. The Heather Center was on the north west
part of the island of Karmøy. This is
facing the North Sea and is south of Haugesund. They had an interpretive center that explained the uses of lyng,
propagated several varieties, and sold numerous products such as soap, honey,
t-shirts and a surprising "gem stone" of heather twigs that have been
subjected to great pressure, polished and set into findings of pewter. Peg bought a necklace for herself and wishes
she had bought several for friends and family.
It was quite unique. The
principle message of the lyngsenter was to try to re-establish sheep grazing on
the heather since without it, the heather doesn't do as well. Now, there's a different take: someone
actually WANTS sheep to graze something.
Right
next to the heather place was the old copper mine and mining museum. The old Visnes copper mine was closed down in 1972, but its claim to fame was being the source of
the green copper skin of the Statue of Liberty. We were short of time so we didn't visit the museum and only
walked by some of the old equipment and water filled pits. It was now time to go to have lunch with the
Slogviks before the afternoon concert.
What happened
next is probably the single most touching event of the whole trip for Keith. It takes some special introduction and we're not
quite sure how to do that. You have to
realize that up until now, we had no idea of what lengths people would be going
to in our honor and to make us feel welcome and special. We knew they were friendly and helpful, but
what happened next brought tears to our eyes.
Really! We were driving down the
road from Aksdal and Keith was thinking, "This is the country my ancestors
knew so well." We turned from the
paved road down the lane toward the Slogvik farm house. Einar brought the car to a halt
beside "two women" all dressed in long skirts and hand knitted shawls
and raking the grass by hand with wooden pegged rakes. Einar asked them in a loud voice: "Is Jacob (pronounced "Yak
obb") here?"
"Nei, he is gone to
Stavanger with his brother, Knut, to see about emigrating to the United
States," says she. "He has left his animals … (here
she enumerates the kind and number having done her research in the local
history books)."
Rotraud and Sonja, her
daughter, were role playing Slogvik family womenfolk who had stayed behind when
Jacob went off at 18 to join the Quakers on their voyage to
"Amerika." It was all
wonderful fun. Keith got out of the
car, quite beside himself, and greeted them.
For once, he was speechless and brushing away tears. What a thoughtful and touching way to begin
our stay at Slogvik. We walked the rest
of the short distance down to the house, all the while soaking up the view that
we had only been imaging for years. We
learned later that this had been Einar's idea.
< A
Slogvik greeting.
<
In front of the Slogvik home - PC,
Keith & Rotraud with
wooden rake made the old way by Einar's father Edvard. Sadly Edvard had passed away just a couple
of months before our arrival. >
Rotraud
had prepared a wonderful meal of organic ox from their farm. This gave us the chance to sit down together
and meet the family, which also included daughter Ellen, son Terje,
and PC (short for Pelle Cæsar), the family canine (we would meet Ellen
& Terje later).
It
was a pretty tight schedule as we were expected at the concert in Aksdal before long. We were to meet a fourth cousin there, Ingrid
Austerheim, whom Rotraud had contacted for us. We didn't realize it, but we were also to be guests of the
Tysvær Kommune's Mayor, Reidar Pedersen, his wife, and the Cultural
Officer, Ingvar Frøyland, for coffee with Ingrid and the Slogviks before
the concert. This would all take place
at the attractive and modern Tysvær Cultural Center. We also didn't realize that we should have dressed a little less
casually. This wasn't an outside concert (don't know where we got that idea)
and what was suitable for traipsing around the heather nursery wasn't for the
evening concert in the beautiful new community concert hall. This was a major faux pas but there was
nothing for it but to act like Californians, Peg in slacks and Keith in a short
sleeved sports shirt and vest of 100 pockets.
It was not too noticeable until during the program when we were
announced as Sloopers and asked to stand and be introduced by the star of the
program. (For photos of Aksdal, see: http://home.online.no/~eihustve/ht9810ad.htm )
It
was a great international concert. The
sweetheart of Norway, singer Hanne Krogh,
was a very popular feature and MC.
Representing the U.S. were Tom Russell and his partner, Andrew
Hardin. Mick O'Brian from Ireland
played the uilleann pipes (a type of bagpipe that is pumped by the elbow rather
than blown - see:
http://www.aniar.com/pipes.html
for
more information on this unusual instrument) and an Irish flute. An apparently popular Haugesund rock (?)
group named Vamp helped fill out the program. Many of the pieces were in Norwegian, but a few were in English
(for our benefit we later learned).
<
Stars of the concert - left to
right: Mick O'Brian (seated), Andrew Hardin, Tom Russell & Hanne Krogh.
Members of Haugesund group in background.
>
Peg
was especially interested in Tom Russell, an American singer/song
writer who appeared with his "long legged side kick" and guitar
virtuoso Andrew
Hardin, as she had used some of Russell's work in her classes. His songs from his album "A Man From God Knows
Where" are a lot about the immigration period of American
history and are powerful stories about the people who struggled and made the
sacrifices to build a new life in a new land.
She took advantage of the chance to meet him after the concert as he was
autographing CD's and to tell him about how she used his works. He may have been a little taken aback. Maybe it's not a particular complement to
hear some old gray-haired English teacher in California uses your songs in her
high school classes. Not that he was impolite in any way, quite the contrary;
it was probably just an odd response from a fan.
Keith
missed out on meeting the "real" celebrities because he was at that
moment being interviewed by the local press (Tysvær Bygdebad)
correspondent, Martin Eike, a young man all of 16 who was extremely
astute, articulate and asked a number of quite relevant questions. He was clear that he planned a career for
himself that involved journalism and that he had an excellent handle on it
already. After this young man took
photos of Einar and Keith outside of the Tysvær Cultural Center it was time to
leave. (See our Newspaper Articles pages for the resulting article.)
Rotraud
and Ingrid had returned early to prepare supper, and Einar was again acting as
our chauffeur to bring us back to the Slogvik farm. As we entered their home cousin Ingrid was at the piano playing
God Bless America. Rotraud had prepared
a wonderful smorgasbord spread for our evening meal. Einar showed us some of the work he had done on tracing the
descendants of Jacob's sister. Too soon
it was late and time for us to return to our hotel in Haugesund.
What
a wonderful and eventful day! But at
this late hour it wasn't over yet.
Terje was appointed to drive us back to the hotel. This young man, on vacation from college in
Kongsberg near Oslo, spoke English very well, as did most young people we
met. Having gone to school in rural
Tysvær as well as spending time in larger towns and cities, he seemed very
knowledgeable about the activities of his age group. Keith, because of his past professional interests, questioned
Terje regarding drug/alcohol issues in Norway.
Yes, there is a growing problem, especially in the larger cities and it
is spreading out to the smaller areas.
And it seems that the treatment programs for drug addition were not
greatly successful in Terje's opinion.
While this was all very interesting to Keith, of even greater interest
and importance was the form of communication that was going on. Keith was fascinated with what Terje was
saying and fell quiet to listen and to encourage Terje to continue on. Terje, after a while stopped his
explanations and mentioned that we were probably not very interested in what he
had to say. When Keith went up to the
hotel room to get some bags we were going to store at Slogvik for a week, Peg
explained to Terje that Keith was VERY interested in what he had to say. Terje explained to Peg that Keith's
quietness tended to be taken as disinterest.
Terje was able to help us understand one important difference between
the ways many Norwegians and Americans communicate. Where we often do not speak when another is talking, maybe giving
only nods or "um-hums," Norwegian conversations tend to be more
active with the listening person interjecting often with "ya" or
"ya, ya, ya" during slight pauses in the other's speech. What a valuable and interesting lesson! Thank you Terje.
Back
at our lovely hotel room at the Rica Maritim Haugesund with its nautical décor,
Peg and Keith were exhausted but basked in the flood of memories this day had
given them. Yet another spectacular day
in Norway.
NOTE: If you have
any interest in the city of Haugesund or this particular area of south west
Norway, we highly recommend the "haugalandet.net" web site
for a huge number of outstanding photographs depicting this scenic area and the
events and everyday life that take place there. We heartily thank web master Eirik Hustvedt for his excellent
artistic and professional work in providing this, our most favorite, Norway
site.
See Photo Album #11