Dating on the Net

This summer I will go on two dates. One from Norway and the other from England. I have chatted with both on MSN, and we have decided to meet IRL. Both communicates in Sign Language, one with Norwegian Sign Language, and the other in British Sign Language (BSL).

Is Sign Language international, maybe you ask now?
No, Sign Language is not international. Every country has it own Sign Language.
As you know, Switzerland even has several languages: German, Italian, French and Romanch, if I remember it right from my school time.
It’s the same with Sign Language. In Switzerland there are French and German Sign Language.
In Sweden, we only have one Sign Language – the Swedish Sign Language - thank goodness!

Sign Language is different in every country. Some examples:
In Sweden, we sign the word “yes” by signing the alphabeth letters “J” and “A”.
But in Norway and England they sign ”yes” different from the Swedish Sign Language.

Sweden: “Yes” in Swedish Sign Language, but in England this sign means ”stop”.

Norway: This Norwegian sign for “yes” means “maybe” in England, and “childish behavior” in Sweden.

England: “Yes” in England, but in Sweden it means “nodding” or “pretend to understand” or “be deceived”.

Confusing? No, not if you have learned to understand the different Sign Languages.

I have learned some BSL (British Sign Language) but not the Norwegian Sign Language. I think we can understand each other well even thought I don't know Norwegian Sign Language.

After the ordaining

Many people came to Johan's ordaining to priest, I heard it came about 300 people. I haven't been there myself, but those who have been there told me it was a beautiful and a great event. No music or psalm singing, but dance and deaf poetry instead of music. The bishop had learned some sign language, and signed to Johan on the ordaining.

You can see some pictures from Anne-Maj's blog here.
She also signs about this day in her vlog and she shows more pics in her video.

First deaf priest in Sweden

Johan Selin from Harnosand, Sweden, will be ordained to priest on Sunday 11th June. This is a great event, because Johan is the first deaf who will be ordained to priest in the Swedish Church.

Anne-Maj write more about this in her blog. If you know Swedish Sign Language, you can read it here. She has interviewed Johan Selin, and he told her that he used to play priest when he was a child. Later, after his one-year work in Tanzania, he decided to study to priest, which he has succeded at it now. Johan did his studies in Uppsala, near Stockholm, which is far away from his wife and two children. But he could to go home on the weekends, and came back to the studies on weekdays.

Johan wanted to change the church for deaf people, and raised a debate about Sign Language in church services. The priests had too little knowledges in Sign Language by then. Now, the hearing priests have got further training in Sign Language, and now signs in the church services.

We can also learn from Anne-Maj's blog that in U.K there are 3-4 deaf priests, and a couple more in other places around the world. But here in Sweden, Johan is the first deaf who will be ordained to priest.

Congratulation to Johan Selin!

A talking cake

Last year in May, my friend from Stockholm sent a MMS to me. It was a birthday-greeting from him to me, a picture of a birthday cake with the text "Happy Birthday to you!" (in Swedish of course). My friend found the cake on three:s homepage and sent it to me. That was a funny cake.
Later in the summer, my sister had her birthday in July. I sent the birthday-cake as MMS to her, with same text and congratulated her on her birthday.

Some minutes later, I got a text message from her, saying "Happy Birthday on your 39-years day? I am only 36 years!" What? I haven't written that! Where did she get that from?

My sister explained to me, it was the birthday-cake that talked and said that. Oops! I didn't know that the cake talked too! Because I'm deaf, I didn't heard that.

But my sister understood that I couldn't hear what the cake said.
She was happy anyway. :-D

Strawberry-cake

My strawberry cake from last year,

taken with my mobile cam.

Soon it's my birthday. My wishing list? I don't know what to wish, I think I have everything I need...

Now I know what to wish!

- Eat strawberry-cake.

Fresh strawberries are usually not available in shops up here in north during the winter and most of the spring. The strawberries usually come to the shops in the end of May.

So I have made it to my own tradition to always have strawberries on my birthday cake. And it also become a première to eat strawberries on my day.

Strawberries....yummy!

The tourists are here now

Yesterday morning, when I walked to work, I saw a group of Indian men walking in front of me to city. They had just arrived with the train and were walking from the train station to city with their luggage. Probably tourists. They were wearing typical Indian clothes, Indian "skirts" or whatever you call it, those clothes Indian males are wearing in India.

It was cold outside + 4 C in the morning.

Poor guys! They must have been freezing when they got off the train!
How will they manage in Sweden? :-D

Where is the summer?

Went out for lunch today, and what did I see?
It was hailing outside.
And cold + 3 C.
Where is the summer?!?

A forgotten boat

Somebody has forgotten his boat.

It's been here on the shore during all the spring.

Spring picture

An ordinary three up here in north. No leaves yet.

+ 9 C degrees and sunny today.

I have been unfaitful!

Yesterday I went to an another hairdresser than the one I usually go to. My friend told me, one of her students in her sign language class work as hairdresser. I didn't know about that hairdresser before. So I decided to go there and try her.

Great to communicate in sign language with the hairdresser! Unusual to meet an "official" person who know sign language. I hope that more and more hearing people learn sign language, to be able to communicate with deaf little easier. And it is so fun to learn something new!

And about my hair? Yes, it was alright, I cutted my hair little shorter and it looked good.

Big Brother

I haven’t watched Big Brother at all this spring. Before my travel to Laos, I watched Big Brother every day. When I was in Laos for almost 2 weeks, I had a break in watching. When I came back home, I forgot to watch BB and lost interest.

But when BB did an exchange with Thailand’s BB, I started to watch again. Boo from Thailand came to Swedish Big Brother, and our Swedish Anton travelled to their Big Brother in Thailand. Very interesting to learn about the Thai culture! When Anton came back to Swedish BB, I stop watching it. Mainly because it is not subtitled.

My favorite is Anton, even thought I haven’t watched BB for months. The other people in BB are just embarrassing.

Hottest spring ever

The summer is finally here!
Last Sunday was beautiful and nice weather. Sunny all day. About 15 C.
Feels strange to wear summer clothes when the ice is still there in the lake near my home.
But it is warm enough to wear summer clothes.

Last year, same time, it was cold in the air, but the ice had already melted away.
This time, the ice is still there and it is really warm weather.

Strange weather… but I really appreciate to get rid of my winter clothes and start to wear summer clothes!

More pics from Laos

I saw this calendar hanging on the wall in many laotian homes, in restaurants and many other places. The calendar is from Thailand. This one I photographed in a restaurant. Notice the year 2548, it is the Thai year.

The Thai people count their years from when Buddha was born, which is year 0 for them. Buddha was born on 543 BC. So, when we say year 2005, the Thai people say year 2548.

Why was it year 2005 on the calendar when I was there in 2006? Old calendar? No, that’s because they celebrate their New Year in April month. So they didn't changed year yet when I was there in February month.

Bridge between Laos and Thailand

We visited this bridge near Savannakhet (a city in south of Laos), they are building a bridge between Laos and Thailand.
You can see Thailand on the other side of the river. When I took this pic, it was evening about 5 am (11 pm in Sweden).
This bridge was delayed due to an accident. A construction worker on the Thai side of the bridge fell and died. So the work on the bridge stopped for a couple of months. Maybe they have started working on the bridge again, I think.

Holy basil - Laos

I eat this food in Laos. It was called "Holy basil". Found it in the menu at a restaurant in Vientiane, and I was curious at it. What is so holy about this food? Choosed it only because of its funny name.

"Holy basil" is the one in the middle of the menu.

It was actually good, but very spicy. Now I understand why it calls Holy basil. It is so spicy that you become almost holy. I drank a lot of water. But it was good food!

Some pics from Laos

Tuk tuk in Laos, a taxi. The cost was 7 000 kip/person from our hotel to city. 3 years ago it was 5 000 kip. We often went to city, because there was no mobile coverage at our hotel. In city, near the river was/is good coverage, so I could send and receive text messages to my family and friends back home.

Food in Laos - they fry grasshoppers and eat it. It taste like chicken.

A toilet in Laos - there is no toilet paper and no soap... so I had to bring my own toilet paper (taken from my hotel room) and wet tissues to wash my hands. You do not sit on this toilet seat, but you stand with your feet on the seat and squat.

My Laos travel

I have been to Laos, and have come home safely. I was planning to write about my travel in this blog when I was there, but I didn't. Busy with meetings and other things (other things=night life).

It was a good trip. Nice people and warm weather. Great to get away from our winter for a while, I travelled for two weeks in February. I know, been lazy to update this blog...
I tried to get a tan. When we were outside and waited for the meetings to start, I turned my face towards the sun to get some tan in my face.

Surprisingly, the weather in Laos was really pleasant, in spite of Laos beeing a tropical place. It was about 25-30 C, almost like a really hot Swedish summer day. For them in Laos it was cold and winter, but for me as a Swede, it was really hot.

Before I travelled to Laos, I was worried that it would be too hot and humid there, but it wasn't. I have been there once before, in September 3 years ago, it was toooo hot (about 40 C), humid and muddy roads. My feet and shoes got all dirty from the muddy roads, and the cars had a hard time to drive on the roads.
This time in February it was better weather, dry and the cars could drive on the roads without problems. And I could keep my shoes and feet clean.

I got the chance to ride a moped and that was great! I didn’t drive myself, I sat on the back seat or whatever you call it when you sit behind the driver on the moped. There was a group of nice deaf girls who offered us to ride on their mopeds.

I saw one thing which made me a little upset. There was a guy, a deaf man from Thailand who visited Laos for a couple of days as a tourist, and he joined us for dinner in the evenings.
He walked straight to one of the girls, told her to get off her moped and let him drive. He didn’t ask nicely, but told her in a rude way. She tried to protest, but too weakly. He didn’t listen to her and whisked to her to get off the moped. Finally she got off her moped and he drove it.
There really is a need for fight for equality here!

Anyway, I hope to return to Laos again. Depends if my deaf association send us there again for volontary work.

An embarrassing thing

A small embarrassing thing happened to me the other day.
After work, I walked home as usual, and when I turned my key in the door lock, I couldn’t open it. Strange… The lock doesn’t work? Tried again to turn the key. The door didn’t open. Started to sweat and panic a little.

Then I saw a sticker on the door. What? I don’t have any stickers on my door, why is that sticker there? Started to think, and suddenly looked at the name on the letterbox. My name wasn’t there, but an another name was there. I had walked to the wrong door! This is 2nd floor and I live on 3rd floor.

Took the key out, and ran up to my own floor. Phew! Luckily, nobody saw me and the guy who live on the 2nd floor didn’t seem to be at home at that moment. If he had been at home, maybe he would think it was a burglary. He he
That was embarrassing, and when I came inside my own apartment, I laughed a little for myself.

Such things happen when you are absent-minded!

Text telephones in England

I will write a little more about my visit to England.

Text telephones in England are different from Swedish text phones. Most things are same, but some things are different. When we write "come" or *, they write GA instead. When we finish the phone call we write "kl sl", they write SK instead. "Kl sl" means "over and out".
They have special keys for GA and SK, which we don't have. On Swedish text phones we must write c-o-m-e or "kl sl" with the ordinary keys.

And they have another special key, which don't exist in Sweden. That is the emergency key. If something happen, like burglary, fire or abuse, you use this key to give alarm to the police. Wow, we should have something like that for deaf in Sweden!

But sometimes mistakes happen. My friend told me, one day he was dusting off his phone. He touched the emergency key by mistake, but he didn't notice it. After a little while, when he sat in the sofa and read a newspaper, the police came into his apartment!

The police had a copy of his apartment key, so when they got the alarm, they went to his house and opened his door and walked in to his living room. My friend was very surprised to suddenly see two police men standing in the living room!

The police asked my friend if something have happened. No, he said. But then he remembered that he had dusted off his textphone. The police understood it and said to him, next time he clean the phone, he must pull out the plug cord to not start the alarm again by mistake.

Interesting with English text telephones!

One day in London

I have been to London between Boxing Day and New Year 2005 to visit my friend there for a couple of days. One day I wanted to go shopping, but my friend couldn't follow me, he had to work.

So, next morning, we took a bus from his home to the nearest Tube station. He explained to me which bus to take, how many bus stops there are and where to get off the bus.

Ok, so far everything was clear to me.

At the Tube station, my friend showed me where to take the bus home to his house. This bus stop is not at same place as the one we recently got off from the bus. One bus stop is on one side of the Tube station and the other bus stop is on the other side of the station. Very confusing.
Anyway, my friend dropped me off at the tube station, and I went shopping at the Christmas sales.

Later that afternoon, I went back to the tube station with full loaded shopping bags. I walked to this bus stop my friend had showed me earlier. I even hopped on the right bus, I checked the bus number very carefully.

It was dark out now, and it was hard to see the bus stops. I counted the bus stops, there would be 6 of them, as my friend told me earlier this morning. At the 6th bus stop, I hopped off the bus. But it didn't seemed right. Where is that small shop where I bought my one-day bus card? And where is that hairdresser salon next to the small shop?

I quickly walked back into the bus, walked to the bus driver and asked him: "Excuse me, but I think I have missed my bus stop." I told him where my bus stop is and asked him if he know where it is. He said something I didn't hear, but I think he said that I should have told him before, so he could show me my bus stop. I told him "I'm sorry" and asked him if I should take another bus back?

Now he got very angry and shouted at me, and said lot of things I didn't hear. I was surprised. I don't know why he became so angry. He shouted a long time. Another passenger, a woman, pointed to a bus stop across the street and told me to go there. I thanked her and got off the bus. This was embarrassing. Everybody in the bus was looking at me and I felt ashamed.

I waited at the bus stop for about 10 minutes until the next bus came. This time I asked the bus driver (not same bus driver, this was another one, phew!) to tell me where to get off at the tube station. I planned to go all the way back to the tube station and ask my friend to come and pick me up there.

After 4 bus stops, I suddenly saw "my" shop and the hairdresser salon. I quickly got off the bus. Finally something I recognize! Phew! The rest was easy, walk past the shop, turn right and then to my friend's house.

I texted on the mobile to my sister about what had happened today. She answered back on the mobile: "Don't get lost! You should always follow your friend! Don't mess it up!"