Picking up the pieces

Whether I wanted to or not, I had to move on with my life over the weekend. I had a scheduled excursion to Hallingdal, a town situated in valley at 1,000 meters above sea level. I was still quite shaken up about the experience on Friday, and I really didn't feel like traveling and having fun. Nevertheless, I showed up to the bus on Saturday morning with my broken heart in check.

Our trip took us to a wildlife park, which the owners call a sanctuary for both animals and people. Maybe they were right. There were hundreds of families with small children at this park. I expected that everyone would stay cooped up in their homes after such a tragedy, but I was wrong. As I watched small children interact with goats, elk, and reindeer, I marveled at how little tragedy affects them. Both animals and children are oblivious to the pain that the rest of the world feels. I was comforted to realize that this is not a burden that the innocent of society has to bear.

We stayed at a mountain lodge on Saturday night. On Sunday morning, we were supposed to go out for a hike, but I decided to stay at the lodge to avoid the rain. I spent some time in meditation and reflection in my free time. Between the time I spent alone and healing capabilities of the Norwegian wilderness, I got myself through the weekend without breaking down. The moment I returned to Oslo, however, all of the sadness and solemnity returned.

What happened in Oslo

As many of you already know, there has been a bombing in downtown Oslo. I happened to be near the incident, so I'll share what I experienced. I am still processing what happened.

A friend and I went downtown for a cup of coffee with the communications adviser for the Oslo Center for Peace and Human Rights. He spent 10 years in the media in Oslo before he switched to a public relations role. I asked him many questions about the media here and what his role is like at the center.

In the midst of our conversation, we heard a loud bang. The windows next to our table shook as though they were about to shatter. My left ear, which was right next to the window, started to ring. We were uncertain about what caused the sound. At first we thought it might have been a demolition with explosives. People in the coffee shop stepped out into the street to see what was happening. They were speaking in hurried Norwegian, but I couldn't understand what they were saying.

Haavard, our host, checked his smartphone for more information. No one had posted anything, so we carried on with our conversation. Then I looked out the window and saw hundreds of people running. Many of them were on their cell phones. Others looked like they couldn't possibly run far enough away. One woman covered her face as though she was in shock. This was the point that we knew something bad had just happened.

We decided to end the formal discussion then and there. Curious media people as we were, we walked the 2 blocks to the site of the incident. There was shattered glass all over the sidewalks. Many of the stores were damaged.

We walked up to the police line. A haze of smoke filled the air. I can't imagine what kind of carcinogens I breathed in. Just as we were taking in all the wreckage left over from the explosions, a police officer moved the police line another 50 meters away from the scene. He seemed to be in quite a hurry.

Thato and I bid farewell to Haavard and made our way back to the subway station. Along the way, we started to unravel what just happened. If we had been at a cafe just down the street, we could have had glass shards in our skin. I am so glad we tried to stay relatively close to the national theater station.

A Norwegian man stopped us on our way back. He asked if we were tourists, and I told him we were. He was concerned that we hadn't heard about what happened, so he told us that there was an explosion and that they didn't know what caused it. Even though we already knew what happened, I felt a little bit of comfort through his concern.

When I got back to campus, most people had heard what happened. To many of the students here, bombings are a normal occurrence. They were not that concerned about it because the didn't know anyone who was hurt or killed, and they personally felt safe. Others were glued to their computers.

My Balkans friends tried to tell me to calm down and relax since I am safe now, but it has not been so easy to just let it go. This is the first bombing I've ever experienced. I've been to places where one could expect a bombing. Kosovo is still considered a conflict zone, and South Africa has had some riots and and crime in the last few years. Here, in the "peace nation," I let my guard down. Things are going to change for Norway. We can be certain about that.

Project Update

The clock is ticking until the deadline for my presentation in our peace seminar. I have just a week and a half left. The research process is slow going. Apparently peace journalism is a pretty narrow field for research. There are many papers written by European institutions about peace journalism and its benefits, but it is difficult to find research that has investigated its impact on news audiences and conflict at large. I am finding that I may have to do some empirical research over the course of the next year if I plan to use this topic at the Nobel Peace Prize Forum. Plus, my personal curiosity demands that I look further into this.

I have found some pretty interesting data from the Pew Research Center. I did some research on American opinions about the conflict in Israel and the occupied territories. According to a poll in May, 48 percent of Americans sympathize with the Israelis over the Palestinians. Just 11 percent support the Palestinians more, and only four percent support both equally. If you are wondering why Americans support Israel so much, here is another gem. Seventy percent of evangelical Christians support Israel over Palestine. We're not dealing with the media alone, folks.

Another question gauged Americans' interest in the conflict in Israel. Only 24 percent said they were not interested at all, while 37 percent were somewhat interested and 22 percent were very interested. This leads me to a conclusion that there is space for influencing public opinion through a different form of reporting. Hard news sells. I don't deny that the inverted pyramid is the most fundamental, successful form of print journalism, but I wonder if covering the basics of a conflict in an "objective" manner really does the conflict or the reader justice. Maybe reporters just need to accept that they play a role as gatekeeper, and the information and the angle of every story is subjective in some way.

Herein lies the paradox: News consumers claim they want to know what is happening in places such as Israel, but this is not the news they actually pay attention to. Would peace journalism fulfill their demands for more news about the conflict, or would it just slip behind the blow-by-blow reporting that already grabs their attention? As you can probably see, there are many things to work through.

Just a side note: I have only four followers on my blog, but I am sure there are other people who are reading this. I am trying to cater to my audience as well as write for myself, but it is difficult to do that without knowing who is reading. Could you please officially follow my blog or send me a message on Facebook to let me know? Thanks!

The photos above come from a piece of artwork outside of the Holocaust Center in Oslo. The artwork is meant to mimic a registration card similar to those used by regimes that discriminate against minorities, such as the Nazi regime against the Jews and Gypsies. The categories such as ethnicity, gender, and nationality change every so often. I thought the photos would be appropriate considering the number of Palestinian refugees who have been displaced as a result of this conflict.

Røros

We finally reached the midpoint of our summer school last Wednesday. In the interest of allowing students to travel and take a break from their studies, classes were not scheduled on Thursday and Friday. I had the pleasure to travel to another town in Norway with a friend from the summer school. Lauren is one of the peace scholars from Luther College in Decorah, Iowa. She studied in Norway for a semester, so she knew some people who live here. One of her friends, Marianne, had invited her to stay in Røros with her family for the weekend. I didn't have any plans yet, so she invited me to tag along.

I took my first long-distance train ride on the way to the town. I wish the U.S. had a more extensive passenger railway service because it seems to work pretty well in Europe. The only complaint I have about the journey was that I made the mistake of sitting near the front of the train, and the conductor kept blowing the horn to get animals off the tracks. It wasn't exactly a quiet ride, but it was comfortable.

I was a little nervous to spend the entire weekend with a new friend, in the home of a complete stranger. I had heard that Norwegians tend to be rather private people, and it is uncommon to do this sort of thing. I also felt uncomfortable with my lack of knowledge of the Norwegian language. In large cities, it isn't difficult to find English speakers, but in a small town, you just never know. I was pleasantly surprised by how successful the trip actually became.

Røros is a former copper mining town established by the Danish government in the 17th century. To an outsider, it seems like the town is in the middle of nowhere. Its 5,000 inhabitants live a clearly isolated life, far from the crime and the hustle and bustle of Oslo. Everybody knows everybody, except for the tourists of course. Lauren and I were two of the few foreign tourists in the town. The place was packed with Norwegian and other Scandinavian tourists who were on their three-week holiday. In fact, there were only three people on our English walking tour of the town. Over a dozen went on the Norwegian tour.

As you can see from the photos, Røros still looks like it did centuries ago. The old buildings in the center of town are protected as a UNESCO world heritage site. Many of the old buildings have been turned into stores on the first floor and residences on the second. Some buildings are so small that they have been turned into museum sites. Like many small towns in North Dakota, Røros is not a place where one could get lost. There are just a couple of main streets, and it takes between five and ten minutes to walk from one side to the other. No one looks their door, and some shops don't bring their merchandise in for the night. I felt so comfortable and so distant from the stress that I left in Oslo and, more importantly, in the U.S.

One of the best moments I had while I was in Røros was when I got to sit down and talk to Marianne and her friends. In in the month that I've been in Norway, I had yet to truly have a conversation with a Norwegian. Sure, I've been living here, but I live on a campus with people from 94 other countries. The Norwegians live at home, and I don't talk to them in class. Many of the Marianne's friends were afraid to speak to us because they weren't confident in their ability to speak in English, but they opened up after a couple of drinks. I enjoyed hearing about their lives and their experiences in the United States and other countries. I felt like they treated me like a friend even though we had just met.

Lauren and I did typical tourist activities as well some things the locals do. We did a walking tour of the city as well as a tour of two of the copper mines. Oddly enough, we had the same tour guide for both tours. We also visited the massive sandy area that is left over from the Ice Age. Apparently it is the only "desert" in Northern Europe.

The locals have their own customs. One of them is to travel one hour into Sweden to buy groceries and other necessities (ie. alcohol) because they are much cheaper in Sweden than in Norway. Now, technically I crossed the border without the proper paperwork. I didn't bring my passport because I didn't plan on leaving the country. I fortunately did not have to show my passport on either side of the border. The border between Norway and Sweden is not controlled except for random inspections on the Norwegian side to make sure that people aren't bringing too much alcohol across. I don't know how I would have talked my way out of trouble if I had been checked. Did that make me an illegal immigrant? Oh well. I guess you have to live on the wild side every once in awhile. At the grocery store, Marianne ran into a bunch of people from her town. That store might as well have been the official store for residents of Røros because they made up a large portion of the customer base.

The journey back to Oslo was not as successful as I had hoped. We misread our train tickets and arrived at the train station just as our train took off. Our tickets were non-refundable, and there was not another train until the morning. I needed to make it to my 8 a.m. class since I missed too many days while I was sick. If we boarded the first train, I wouldn't make it to class. So, we had to buy plane tickets for the 6:40 a.m. flight to Oslo. Luckily for me, I got to the second half of class after an hour-long flight and a 40 minute bus ride into the city. My cup of coffee on the flight got me through my morning class, but I crashed afterward. There's nothing like scrambling to get back to campus by any possible method while trying to get that last bit of homework done before class. Before this transportation mishap, my little vacation within a vacation was rather cheap. Now I clearly see the disparity between the cost of the next year at Concordia and my dwindling funds in my bank account.

Doing some research while under the weather

So you might be wondering why it has been a week since my last blog post. Well, it seems Norway has some ambition to punish me. I have been ill for the last week, and there isn't quite an end in sight. I've spent the last few days isolated in my room while the rest of Norway enjoys the beautiful summer weather. I was not unproductive, however. Since I didn't make it out to sight see, I worked on my research project instead. Here's what I'm looking at.

I am looking into the concept of peace journalism, the brain child of Johan Galtung, a famous Norwegian peace researcher. In its simplest sense, peace journalism works as an ethical framework to deal with reporting in conflict zones in a way that not only presents the facts but seeks to be a positive force to end the conflict. There is obviously some criticism of this method. Opponents to peace journalism say that media organizations are stepping out of their bounds by trying to be peacebuilders. The analysis and advocacy required of peace journalists should be done by politicians and other stakeholders. Nevertheless, I am giving this method a chance.

In the interest of making this project more than a theoretical presentation, I am going to focus on a particular conflict and the major news organizations that have covered the conflict as of late. I chose the Arab-Israeli conflict because it is a well-established conflict with plenty of media attention in times of direct action. It is also a place where media has often failed to accurately depict the conflict for a global audience.

Hopefully something good will come out of the time spent on this project. I would like to help my audience, whoever that might be, to put more faith in journalism as a legitimate means to acquire accurate information that can help them in their daily lives. Too many times, I've had to endure conversations about the ills of the media. How the media is obsessed with celebrities. That the media is all about sensationalism. They tell me the media blatantly lies, or that it has its own agenda. Maybe a quick introduction to an ethical form of journalism would change their minds. I plan to look at how organizations like Al Jazeera English have done an excellent job with conflicts in the Middle East, and how their work has actually influenced public opinion for the better. That's quite a tall order for a 10 minute presentation, but I'll give it a shot.

Celebrating the 4th of July like an ex-pat

Independence Day has a different meaning for me than most people. I have spent three out of the last four years in uniform on that particular day rather than with my family. Time spent away over a holiday forces me into a period of introspection and reflection on what the it means to me considering where I am and what I am doing. This celebration is no different in that respect, but it's the first time I've been around civilian Americans in a foreign country in this context. This group of people is particularly liberal and not very patriotic. There are some exceptions like my friend from Georgia (the state, not the country) who has a whole wardrobe dedicated to the red, white, and blue. But as a whole, peace scholars are the most critical of their government and most uncomfortable with patriotism around foreigners.

I have spent enough time away from the U.S. to appreciate our culture and traditions without feeling especially guilty about our government's actions. On the 3rd, I enjoyed just spending time among Americans and friends of Americans as we all enjoyed typical American things. I had a real cheeseburger and potato salad. I listened to a cover band that sang some of my favorite Journey songs, among others. And finally, I learned a new line dance.

At first I felt a little guilty participating in American activities in a foreign country, but then I realized that I was surrounded by thousands of other people in the park who were doing the same thing. In fact, I think it's a sign of progress as a traveler to find a way to incorporate your own traditions in a foreign context. Either extreme - abandonment of tradition or failure to try new things - seems empty to me.

On the actual 4th of July, I went to class as usual. In the evening, I joined a group of students at the gym nearby to learn Norwegian folk dances. I came back to my room, and my German roommate, Eva, gave me a beer. I sat out on the steps and enjoyed my beer in a coffee cup while chatting with friends from all over the world. It was truly a multicultural holiday, and probably the most unorthodox celebration I've ever had.

*In the photo, children up to the age of 7 were about to start a watermelon eating contest. We tried to get some for ourselves, but apparently we are too old. Fresh fruit is difficult to come across. Especially free fruit.

Gronland: Redefining what it means to Norwegian

On Thursday, we toured a neighborhood in Oslo known as Gronland. It was an exercise to help us understand the multicultural makeup of Oslo and, consequently, Norway. As you might have gathered from my previous post, nationalism has been the subject of discussion this week, both explicitly and implicitly. We are studying how nations are created and what their purpose is in the political sphere. Gronland challenges the concept that Norwegian nationality is synonymous with blond hair, blue eyes and a folk history to boot.

I expected Gronland to be more like the ethnic neighborhoods in U.S. cities. In other words, I expected something similar to Chinatown in NYC. This neighborhood is nothing like that. There were as many people who appeared to be of Western European descent as there were people who didn't fit the norm of the rest of Norway. Much of the neighborhood is predominantly residential, and there are small businesses scattered throughout. As far as I could tell, Norwegian was still the most widely used language, and Arabic came in as a close second.

It was difficult for me to compare the environment in Gronland with the other neighborhoods in Oslo because I have only been here for a week, but my general assumption about the place is that it is distinctly diverse but generally Norwegian. Like many other places in Oslo, the sidewalks and streets were used by as many people on bicycles and scooters as people in cars. The neighborhood was not as nice as central Oslo, but it also did not have many tourist attractions. This is a place where people live and work. It's not a huge shopping district, nor is it a national centerpiece. Many people in my class were distracted by the graffiti and the seemingly run-down apartment complexes. What they failed to notice was the mix of modernity and tradition within the neighborhood.

I hope you enjoy some of the photos I took while I was in Gronland. Even without a solid description of each photo, I'm sure you can get the gist of what I'm trying to convey. The man I am standing with in the first picture is a Jehovah's Witness who happened to be in the neighborhood.

Nationalism is a dead cause

This post is a little bit of a departure from my previous posts, but it is still connected to my observation and study in Oslo. Nationalism seems to be the topic of the day for both of my courses. It has actually been a subject of debate and discussion since we arrived in Norway.

There seems to be a strong national identity in Norway, and I will be the first to admit that I don’t buy it. This strong national identity has been threatened by a recent influx of immigrants from all over the world who are attracted to Norway’s thriving economy and peaceful existence on the world stage. I've been told that one in three children in Oslo is a child of immigrant parents. Norway never was a homogeneous nation. While they have been ignored for much of Norwegian history, the Sami people in the north have been a significant minority from the start. Still, this national identity persists even with a non-ethnic population that seeks to be a part of the Norwegian nation.

In preparation for a tour of a Pakistani district in Oslo, we were assigned to read a text that attempts to explain how and why the Norwegian national identity exists. The author points to a mixed response to the other depending on the circumstances Norway was dealing with at the time. Norwegians treated Swedish immigrants as equals and fellow workers in times of prosperity and labeled them as bastards and mongrels when they feared that the immigrants would place a heavy burden on their economy.

There was also a tragic and unfortunate response to Jews in Norway. Even though the Jewish population was less than 2,000 before World War II, many Norwegians feared that Jewish business owners would overrun Norwegian businesses. On top of that, Norway almost never accepted Jewish refugees into the country at the start of WWII. The author suggests that many Norwegians did not want to acknowledge what was happening throughout Europe, and they especially did not want to take responsibility for assisting the millions of Jewish refugees.

On the flip side, my peace seminar reading of the day suggests the ethnicity has nothing to do with the reasons for conflict. In fact, ethnically diverse states are not any more likely to go to war than ethnically homogeneous states. Differences only become important as a tool for political mobilization to conflict. In other words, leaders use supposed injustices against their own ethnic group as a way to motivate people to fight for justice.

With that being said, I struggle to look at the Norwegian nation as a relevant construct in the present era. How can so many people still approve of a categorization that has so often been used to discriminate against others? At its extreme, nationalism has been the very instrument of armed conflict in regions that have not seen war for centuries.

Americans have also struggled with a national identity. I would argue that many of our discriminatory practices against immigrants in the last two centuries have been a result of the very pressures Norway experienced as well. But unlike Norway, the United States has definitive ethnic identity to attach to its national identity.

These are just some thoughts to consider. Maybe it is possible to integrate new members of a state into the nation. Then Norway would surprise me. But as far as I can tell, the current global climate makes it nearly impossible to survive as a homogeneous nation-state, no matter how small the country is. Maybe it is time to put nationalism behind and hold onto the idea of citizenship instead.

*The photo above features the folk choir, Bygdelagskoret, who performed for the ISS opening ceremony on Monday. I placed this photo because I question whether this is really a representative snapshot of Norwegian culture and identity.

Starting out

My roommate, Eva, came in Saturday afternoon. She drove all the way from Germany to get here. We have had a couple of orientation meetings to prepare us for our summer school and life in the dormitories. I can finally sleep through the night. While I was in Lillehammer, I got into a habit of waking up at 4:30 a.m., and I couldn't fall back asleep unless I did something for a couple of hours first. The light Norwegian nights will do that to a person if she's not careful.

We explored the student pub Saturday night because we heard they have the best prices in Oslo. And by the best prices, I mean that the cheapest drink is about $5. We met up with some full-time students at the University of Oslo who are working through the summer. They were already pretty drunk on homemade wine, so they were pretty interesting folks.

Classes started yesterday, and with them came all the homework. Each of my two courses has three compendia, which are books of photo copied materials. I spend pretty much my entire morning and afternoon studying in the library or my room since I have some hefty daily reading assignments. The summer school was a little different than I expected. Both of my professors are American by birth, but they live and work in Norway. My government and politics course is half American and half everything else. I was surprised to see so many people from the U.S. at this summer school.

Last night, the City of Oslo hosted an opening ceremony and reception downtown. They hired a folk choir to sing during the ceremony, and the rector of the university and the minister of education gave their remarks. I was entertained by the murals in the festival hall where the ceremony took place. A select few of them featured people fully clothed, while the others pictured people doing odd activities in the nude. After the ceremony, we walked to the city hall for the reception. The city paid for the food and the alcohol, which I'm sure is a pretty costly venture. My friends from the Balkans tried to out-drink each other with the free champagne and wine. Needless to say, everyone was pretty merry.

*The person standing next to me in the photo above is my roommate, Eva. The other photo features some of my American and Balkanian friends.

Mid Summer Night's Eve and off to Oslo

On Thursday night, we participated in a festival that celebrates the longest day of the year. The tradition of Mid Summer Night's Eve stems back to the times before Christianity. In Lillehammer, they had the party in an outdoor museum that has buildings from the 18th and 20th centuries. Many people were dressed in their traditional costumes which they apparently pull out for special occasions. Norwegians do quirky things like log cutting and polka dances. At the end of the celebration, they lit a bonfire on a small island in the middle of a lake. I knew there was going to be a bonfire. But silly me. I was thinking of an American blaze where people throw tons and tons of wood and other things in a heap and stand around it with beer in hand. The wood for this fire was placed in a neat spiral, and the people watched from a safe distance around the lake. The interesting thing about the Nansen seminar was that we were all foreigners in Norway. I sat with a Macedonian woman at the bonfire, and we were both observing a Norwegian family nearby. All of a sudden, we both starting laughing at how quaint the family was. The three blond-haired children ate their sandwiches from their lunch packets while their mother chuckled as she spoke to her friend. The father casually chatted with his friends nearby. This is a terrible description of how humorous the situation was, but I guess you just had to be there. I think the mutual culture shock among all of the students at the seminar created a tight bond. Most of us felt a little out of place among the picture-perfect families and peaceful culture.

We ended the seminar yesterday with a discussion of the challenges of nation and state. I think we finally reached a point where the discussion could become more difficult. One of the biggest problems in ex-Yugoslavia is that nations are not divided by state borders. People vote based on nationality of the party rather than the political objectives of the party. In a democracy, this means the ethnic minorities are rarely represented fairly in government. Nationalism provides a sense of belonging to a group of like-minded and culturally similar people, but in the Balkans, it often overrides a sense of belonging to a state. Ethnicity comes before citizenship.

I will be interested to see how my friends and I continue to discuss issues such as this one as we continue our studies in Oslo. At first I was unclear that we Americans were going to fit into the conversation at the Nansen Center, but there are many parallels between the conflicts in the Balkans and the identity issues that arise due to immigration problems in the U.S. As one person pointed out, the American students seem to feel extremely guilty for many things in our history. There is a lot to proud of as well, but it is easy to point to our faults as a country when we have so much power. Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations" is happening right here in the United States.

We took a bus to Oslo yesterday afternoon and arrived in the early evening. I spent the night without a roommate. As of yet, I have still not met her, but I came back to find her bags in the room, so at least she is here. I'm still getting acquainted with the campus and the food. I don't eat fish, and I am struggling to find ways to get around it since Norwegians consider it a staple of their diet. The food is getting better, but it is a letdown compared to what we had in Lillehammer. In Oslo, fresh fruit is considered a dessert because it is expensive to import. I am learning to appreciate fruit more than I ever have before.

*The photo was taken at the Mid Summer Night's Eve in Lillehammer. The person in the picture is a grad student from the U of Minnesota who is in Norway because he was working with the U.S. Embassy in Oslo and is now a student at the ISS. The other photo is an example of the huge spread of food at the cafeteria in Lillehammer.

Reminiscing at the Dialogue Seminar

The last two days have been extremely powerful. Steiner Bryn has an ability to bring people softly into conversation with each other. It’s sort of like putting a frog in a pot of water and slowly turning up the heat until the water is boiling. On our first day in the dialogue seminar, we discussed the goals of the program and how to do dialogue. Steiner feels strongly that dialogue is the key to understanding another person. Debate, discussion, and negotiation can only take people so far, but dialogue is an experience that causes people to change. We started with short introductions in small groups and then moved to larger groups. It was really nothing serious. We all knew why we are here. Most of the participants come from places that have been ravaged by guerrilla war and segregation. The rest of us have our own problems in the States because of problems associated with immigration and the three major conflicts we are currently engaged in. For the most part, we didn’t go there. We also had a lecture on the role of religion in our lives. The Norwegians take religion very personally. It’s a private matter that is not easy to talk about. We were forced to break that boundary and share what religion means to us. For some reason, this was a very difficult thing for me. Even though I only had to talk to two other people, I felt awkward talking about such a hot topic that is truly a private matter for me. Our final session of the day was a trip to the Olympic ski jump. Norway hosted the Olympics in 1994, and the ski jump still stands. We started at the top and walked our way down the hundreds of stairs next to the jump. The view was impeccable.

Yesterday was a little more serious than the first day. We learned more about Nansen, the man whose name became famous in Norway and became the name of the academy where we are meeting. We then tested our abilities to engage in dialogue when the subject of the conversation is more serious. We talked about conflicts in our countries. This had the potential to turn into a debate rather quickly, and I was afraid that people were going to ask me about the conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. I usually avoid those topics because I do not have a strong opinion about them. I am a Soldier. I go where I am told to go, but I do not have hard feelings about Arabs or anything like that. My group focused on repatriation of Serbs into Kosovo. I saw before my eyes the concept of parallel truths come out as a Bosnian Serb and Kosovo Albanian argued about what is causing Kosovo Serbs to avoid coming back. They were both right, and yet it is easy to say that one has to be wrong. We finished the day with some free time in Lillehammer and then a barbeque at Steiner’s house.

I expected that my trip to Lillehammer would bring closure to my time in Kosovo. I left my mission in Kosovo with a deep sense of unfinished business. I felt like I didn’t accomplish anything substantial. Yes, my team was one of the busiest in KFOR, but as far as progress on rebuilding Kosovo, I felt like we didn’t do anything. Ethnic conflicts are difficult to the outsider. I as a foreigner do not understand what is holding Serbs and Albanians back from reconciliation. I will never completely understand. So my response to their conflict is one of impatience and insensitivity. I admit that I had moments of misunderstanding while I was in Kosovo. I wanted action, either positive or negative. Soldiers are not trained to deal with the long process of peacekeeping. They are used to being busy. That’s the problem with combat troops. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people say, “I just don’t understand why they don’t just get along already. It’s so childish.” Maybe this misunderstanding followed me home to North Dakota. I started the deployment with a sense that maybe this rotation would be the one that brings peace to Kosovo. And when we didn’t accomplish that goal, I was disappointed.

So when I boarded the plane to Norway, my expectation was to just see some positive work being done with people from Kosovo. If I met just two people from opposing sides who could see eye to eye, then maybe I could close the book on Kosovo and move on to more important matters.

That was not at all my experience. Every spare chance I get, I ask the three people from Kosovo as many questions as I can. I ask about construction projects that were unfinished when I left. I ask about their vacations to the Albanian coast, the food they eat, the clothes they wear. And I find myself getting really excited when they share new things or bring insight into the questions that I never got answered while I was there. Whether I want to close the book on Kosovo and the Balkans as a whole, I can’t. The Balkans is in my blood.

Other people are beginning to notice as well. One student from Holland told me that I really need to do something with the Balkans because she can tell I speak very fondly and personally about the place. Another person has told me that somehow I’ve been given an opportunity as a student and a soldier to understand Kosovo in a way almost nobody could. He told me that I need to do something about this. I’m not sure what that particular thing is, but I have a strong feeling that I will be back to the Balkans sooner than I previously thought.

Icelandair

I just made it through yet another international flight. I have so much to say about Icelandair, but I think the most precise definition is "sketchy." Times are tough for Iceland. The volcanic eruptions in 2010 must have destroyed their airline industry. Now customers have to buy their meals on transatlantic flights. The flight was great if you were a kid. Children get a free meal, free headphones, and a coloring book. Now I see where my/Concordia's money went. I also had water dripping on me from the ceiling emergency exit. I'm not sure how that got through, but again, this airline is sketchy.

I'm about to begin a dialogue seminar that focuses on reconciliation with students from the Balkans. Last night I shared some of my knowledge of Kosovo with our group. I am beginning to realize that certain memories are fading, and I am not as certain about what I know about the place anymore. The academic environment is drastically different than the world in which I worked. It will be a challenge for me to set aside my military perspective when I sit down in conversation with these students. I have so many questions to ask them.

Our peace prize forum group seems to be pretty pleasant. There are many different personality types, so I suspect that we will be able to get along well. I am amazed by the amount of collective knowledge and experience that we are bringing on our trip. Hopefully it will be put to good use.