HOLIDAY AT HÅØYA in 2016. When I longed for travelling, and for some reason was stuck at home, I used to empark on a short ride down to Grønland (neighborhood in Oslo); to eat, stroll around or just be in this foreign atmosphere and then travel home again. Happier and more content. So, this horrible thing happened in Norway. The mass shooting and this insane ideology leading up to it. All of a sudden I realized that the majority population had to take some kind of responsibility. We must build bridges was my immediate thought. It felt like a secular vocation.

 

That´s when I met and became  friends with so many people in the Somalian diaspora. Their kids too, born and raised in this country. In the beginning it was hard to explain myself; why did I visit their shops again and again, and pretend I had a right to be there. Who was I? A language teatcher? Police? From the social services to take their kids away? Maybe a spy? I am a photographer, I said, and to some I said in a serious tone: We need to talk! Later they told me how some of them behind my back talked. She must be in some kind of trouble, they said, why else would an ethnic Norwegian middle aged woman have any interest - in us!? One day I was offered some food. Untill now the shop owner had kept a distance, it was her inviting me to share with them. Eating with my hands sits good with me. Then she pointed at my head; "fresh head", she said. And for sure; there was nothing wrong with hers either. I just smiled. Feeling the warmth under her wings, a mother of ten, was like a presious gift.