Hvassing.com

For a year now (on the 28^th of November) I’ve been living here in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Attending an English speaking, international school with students from literally every corner of the world, many of which all have English as their first language. I’m one of those who do come from a corner of the world (Narvik, Norway is not really centre of attention), however I am one of those who do not have English as my first language. So far, my first year here has been great, but I’ll be the first one to admit that there’ve been some rather rough moments and bumpy rides. Me being an open-minded and free-speaking bloke don’t really help in that respect.

This is where the problems start; at the «free-speaking» part. I’ve never been one to hold my peace, or to even sugar coat opinions before expressing them.

Most of the time this is not really a problem, as I can say things in Norwegian and after years with tap-dancing in the salad (so to speak) I’ve learned to sail my ship towards land. The same thing in English is a whole different story – in fact, it doesn’t work at all. The vocabulary is one thing; the appreciation of words is a whole other issue, alas the major one. Adding in my ignorance towards religion (Explained further in the following paragraph) you got yourself a nice soup of confusion, sparkled with irritation and seasoned with just the right amount of insult. This dish is best served warm, as the revenge turns out to be rather cold.

My ignorance and complete lack of a religion contributes to making words even more worthless and in particular words people find offending. Let’s take the word «hell» as an example. The word «hell» doesn’t really mean much to me, at most it is a hot place where Christian people don’t want to go and where all lawyers end up, in essence; a four-letter word. The school I attend plays host for people from approximately 60 different countries, this suggest that there will be a rather great diversity what religion concerns. So what’s just a «hot place filled with lawyers» to me might represent the absolute realm of evil and suffering to others.

The result of all this can at times be somewhat undesired, not to mention unexpected.

I served this soup a week ago; the result was surprising, unexpected and highly undesired. The main problem being that I had a) offended a teacher, b) offended a fellow student and friend and, most importantly, c) all this without even realising it. The overall effect of all this is perhaps even more undesired than the result itself. The moment of realisation, i.e. when that friend explains in simple, yet frank words, what you’ve done, seem to bring down the whole word. If not all the way down in ruins, then at least so that it rests on your shoulders. In the end the easiest thing to do is to stop worry about saying the wrong thing, which can be achieved easiest through not talking anymore.

Imagine that a year ago…