Speaking of språk

Got a letter in the post yesterday from Vuxenutbildning in Luleå. That's the school for grown up kids. Minus the free lunches. Telling me that the SFI ( Swedish for Immigrants ) evening classes were starting back next week. A new teaching staff list this time around. And they all looked like Swedish names too. Which will be a change from being taught Swedish by Danes and Russians. I wonder how many of my comrades in arms will be returning to the front line with me after 2 months of R&R. Such a motley mixture we were, I suspect we must resemble an international cast of Gilligan's Island. Two Eastern European blackmarket barons, a guy from Congo currently in his 11th year of Swedish language study, a Urkrainian grandmother, a Russian doctor ( and potential registered sex offender ), an Indian guy desperate for love, a Chinese couple hell bent on divorce, 2 French guys who I think simply got lost on the way to somewhere else, and a somewhat cynical Kiwi. All being taught Swedish by a divorced Dane. You couldn't invent such a bizarre group. The real sobering part for me in attending language class, is the great leveller that language brings to people. Here we are, people from all corners of the globe. All with different religious and ideological beliefs. All with different educational backgrounds. Farmers, chemical engineers, company executives, housewives. All of us siting in a small room together at night, twice a week. Stripped bare of status. Everyone of us, exactly the same. We share nothing in common, yet are bound together by adversity. Exactly as Ginger, Gillian, Maryanne, the skipper, the professor, and the Howells. Normally our paths would never cross. By choice. But here we embrace each other. There's a warmth and comfort in not being alone in our struggle. One valuable lesson I have learnt from living in a foreign speaking country, is to acquire a unquestioning respect for those immigrants I had watched struggle in my homeland. I think there's a great truth in the notion that everyone should walk a mile in someone else's shoes. Many people criticise the SFI system. And I think they could do better in their methods. But, for me, being in the company of a group who knows EXACTLY for tough and how soul destroying the road to this new life can be at times. Well, it would not be an overstatement to say that it has saved my Swedish life. On a number of occasions. So to that motley mismatched crew who share the lifeboat with me 2 nights a week, I salute you all.