Mar
25
Where You Go?
March 25, 2007 |
At 36, I am sort of starting to think a little bit about the future. Strange that, as I never have given much thought to it before. Always living by the moment. Tomorrow is another day etc. It is now a year since I first arrived in Asia. In 6 months my contract is finished. Maybe that is why I spend more and more time thinking about what will happen then. But frankly I am not to worried.
This year has been quite wild. I traveled to Thailand, met a beutiful girl, fell in madly in love, had it all come crashing down, got back on my feet and is now throwing myself head first into another relationship kind of thing with a lady that has excactly the same background as the first one. So what is really going on here?
I do not really have clue. So I’ll just enjoy the ride. While trying to navigate as best as I can. And in the months that has passed, there is one thing that has been fairly steady. My determination to hang on to this dream that Thailand has become.
Realistically I can’t live there permanently. I do not have an education or background that will land me a job there. I am to young to retire, and retirement age in my country is 67. Thats 21 years away. I do not have the capital to establish a business there. Basically I have no way of making a living there. Unless of course some day a rich Thai lady should fancy me, and decide to keep me 
Whith that in mind, the wise thing to do would be to get my bum back to the fjords, get a decent job, find a nice Norwegian girl, settle down and forget this whole, crazy adventure. Yeah right!
I’ve been on my way somewhere for most of my life. As a kid we moved around a lot. We moved where my folks found a better job. But always kept the connection with home. Home was my small town in Northern Norway. Where my grand-folks lived. It was where I started school, and where I finally graduated.
And then my own travels started. First with a train journey that ended with me lining up alongside a bunch of other apprehensive young boys to be yelled in the face by an equally young and pimpled faced dude that wanted to inform us that “YOU ARE IN THE AAAAARMY NOW!”. My first days in the army was not made easy by he fact that this squirrel head, was in fact an involuntarily comical figure, and I just could not manage to wipe that smile off my face whenever he was strutting around in front of us, trying to convince us that his 19 year old ass was gods gift to the Royal Norwegian Army. In fact a few times chuckles escaped me more than once, and one time, I openly laughed. I became very good at faking push ups those first few weeks…
Done with with my national service year in the Kings green garments, I went back to my hometown and tried to get a job. It was not so easy so I ended back in school. But motivation was not there. I had actually enjoyed being in the Army. I met some of my best mates there, and forged friendships that have lasted to this very day. I was fit, I loved shooting guns, and once out of Basic we where issued with people in command who actually had a clue about what they where doing.
So when the army was looking for people willing to go to the Lebanon on a UN mission, and the only qualification necessary was that you had done your national service year in the armed forces, without making to much of a mess out of it, I volunteered. We received about 3 weeks of training and briefings about the local culture, tested our kit, zeroed our G3 assault rifles and flew to Beirut and was bussed to a small village in South Lebanon called Ebel Al-Saqi.
The Norwegian Battalion (Norbat) consisted of about 800 men and 20 dogs, and had been there since 1978. It had won the respect and trust of the local population, and the Norwegians where quite popular in the villages and towns we worked in. But there where dangers. Mines where everywhere. UXO’s turned up on the most unexpected places. The IDF (Israeli Defence Forces) and the SLA (South Lebanese Army) where occupying every hill around our area of operations, and where shelling targets every day. What we called Armed Elements, where fighting back, lobbing mortar grenades at IDF and SLA positions, ambushing patrols, shooting Katyusha rockets into Israel, and placing roadside bombs.
But I had a fantastic time in South Lebanon. I loved being back in the army. I was 24, I had money in my back pocket, and I was doing something I believed in. So after fulfilling my contract, I was not happy about going home. At home it was still not easy to get a job. I had the odd short time job here and there, but mostly was on the dole. So after a year I donned the uniform again and went back to Lebanon.
But in the winter of ‘95-’96 things had changed for the worse. Just a month after arrival, an Israeli tank, fired flechette grenades at one of our night patrols, seriously wounding 3 of our men. Just a year before, they had done the same thing, and one ours where killed. Later that winter, Isreali artillery shelled the HQ of the Fiji UN Battalion, killing more than 100 civillian women and children, and 3 Fijian UN soldiers. This episode has been known later as the Quana Massacre. This time I was happy to fly home after the end of my six month contract.
After returning home I soon gave up finding any work in my hometown, and headed for Oslo, where I had various jobs. Telemarketer, Internet helpline, and I even sold fish going from door to door one summer. But it was boring, the money was crap, and Oslo is an expensive place to live. So Once again, it was back to the green uniform. This was in 2000, and NATO had just invaded Kosovo, and Norway had an Infantry Battalion there. I was 30 years old, I had been sitting in an office for 4 years, and was totally out of shape.
But the army must have been desperate, because it hired me as a radio man, spent 3 months whipping me into shape, and sent me off. Kosovo was very clearly not Lebanon. It was another and very boring ballgame. We spent most of our time trying to prevent the Kosovo- Albanians from executing their traditional revenge on the Serbs. Patrolling day and night, we where exhausted, and had to few men. Accidents happened, and we lost one of our guys when the APC tipped over and he was crushed to death underneath. Leon, your mates remember you!
I returned home, spent a few years working in Oslo again, but I wanted out again. But was getting to old to fart about with a rifle along a bunch of 20 year olds. But I got a new chance. There was this dictator down in Iraq who had pissed off the Yanks, and a war was coming. The international organisations was in a frenzy to get idiots like me to go there to help the massive amounts of refugees that where expected to flood into neighbouring countries once the Americans invaded. That did not happen, but I soon found myself in a radio room in South Iraq working for an international humanitarian organisation.
Since then I have been a couple of places in Africa and now in South Asia doing the same thing for various organisations. And I really enjoy it. I get to travel, the money is good, and I get plenty of time off, and now I discovered Thailand…
But where you go!
Hmmm…. good question…
Right now I cant see myself settling down in Norway. The only people I have there is my immediate familly. Yes I am in touch with my old friends now and then. But things are really not the same. They have moved on, have families of their own, and morgages to worry about.
In 6 months my current contract is up, and there will probably be a delay before I can get a new posting. And I dont know where that will be. So the plan right now is simply to work out my contract here, then go to Thailand to wait for the next gig. I don’t want to stay in one of the tourist traps. These places get old fast, and I never was the type to hang out in a bar day after day, no matter how willing and adorable the ladies may be.
So I’ll spend my next trips looking for a place to stay. It will probably be somewhere in the Isaan province. If I cant take up permanent residence in Thailand, then I will simply use it as a base. A place to return to charge my batteries beetween jobs and when on holliday from them. For me that is for sure a far better option than spending these months of waiting in Northern Norway, 600 kilometers north of the Arctic circle, in the most expensive country in the world.
So where you go… hmm… with you Nan?
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Comments
2 Comments so far
I am sure Buriram needs a restaurant that serves up a mean Smalahove or various and sundry preparations of cod.
555,
How about whale burgers and reindeer stew?
But I think fermented trout would be a big hit
Can’t wait to try that in the som tam