Immigrant!

I do stuff like….

Wake up in the morning feelin’ like P Diddy (just kidding, it’s a song mom). But really I woke up in the morning and headed out for a morning stroll to downtown. We had yet to get our passports signed so we had to go back to the police station and wait in immigration. One thing I’ve learned here is that you don’t actually really need to understand the language, if you just observe the people around you and their behavior you can catch on pretty quick. So we followed a foreign woman with her stroller up to the fifth floor and into the immigration office where we pushed a blue button and pulled out a little receipt with a number on it. I glanced down at mine, 33, ok great I have no idea what number they are on but they only opened an hour ago so I figured they were speedy. Well I figured wrong, about 45 minutes later Kayla and I went and sat on the floor in the hall because all of the chairs were taken. I’m just slouching on the floor thinking about my day when I feel something hit my foot; I quickly look down and see a little Arab boy just smiling up at me. Oh he’s adorable I thought, and then I realized what hit me. The child is using my foot as a soccer ball! He is just kicking away at my foot as if I’m not even alive and watching him. I couldn’t help but just laugh and how crazy the child was. So it was then I decided that we should find out what number they were actually on. I crept back into the office away from the schoolboy to find a little black electronic board with the number 18 flashing on it, enjoyable system to have the number on the board so everyone knows. So only 15 more people ahead of me perfect. I go back and sit down to thankfully find the little boy missing. Lovely I cannot be abused for a few moments.

We came that early in the morning thinking that we would have plenty of time then for me to get to school for class. We again thought wrong. I began praying and praying that somehow the next fifteen people would need minimal help and go by quickly. We had to be approved by the seventh day of being here and yep yesterday was the seventh, so note to self, self don’t put things at the “politi” off until last minute. Just as I am calculating in my head how much time each person could spend in there still giving me a turn before I had class, the child comes back. Oh joy, he’s running around in his little snow suit eating a Clementine pushing buttons he should not be touching, turning lights off and on, opening the elevator, and putting little boy hand prints on every reachable piece of glass. He runs between Kayla and I and drops one of his wedges right by Kayla’s leg. He came to an abrupt stop and turned around and stared at it for a minute, he slowly started shuffling back to it so I assumed he was going to be a good little boy and pick it up but wouldn’t you know wrong again. The closer he gets to it the more evil his little grin becomes and then before ya know it he recklessly crushed the fruit under his snow boot and giggled as he waddled away. Ok the child was cute the first time but not anymore. Thankfully his mother came over and wiped it up as Kayla is making sure it didn’t get on her pants. Perhaps it is a positive thing that she didn’t speak our language because we had a few things to say to her about watching her destructive infant.

Anyway I just keep praying that my number comes up soon I only have a half hour before I need to leave to make it to class on time. I’m in a Catch 22 because I have to get registered with the police but I also can’t miss this class because my professor stressed how “obligatory” it was to attend. I just lean back against the wall and figure that both of these things are essential so He will handle it. I go back to look at the board and they are on 23. I now only have a little more than twenty minutes and things are not looking up for me, but I realize that there is nothing I can do but wait and pray, so I do. Fifteen minutes goes by and I’m deciding what I should do, leave and not get registered or stay and miss class. While I’m lost in thought Kayla shoves me and whispers, “aren’t you 33?” Sure enough 33 is flashing on the board and I’m up. I get in there and hand in my papers she asks me a few questions, takes my picture, stamps my passport and I’m out in no time. I’m off to class as a legal resident of Norway. Lets all say it together shall we… God is amazing.