Losotho visit

Today, we were so lucky to have a visitor from Lesotho in our class. Moliehi Sekese, who is a teacher in Lesotho told us about the circumstances in Lesotho and compared them to ours. Lesotho is one of the poorest countries in the world, and the children in her school are far from as lucky as we are; they only have two computers to use for 700 students, and one teacher to teach a group of 100 students. Their classrooms are only three quarters the size of the classrooms we got, and we're only about 25-30 students in one classroom at the time. Sekese told us that they're in a lack of tables, chairs and books. When she teaches a class she has to write down everything for her, as well as their assignments. There is no possibility for the students to do work by them selves; they're dependent of their teacher. 
Many of the children have to worry about things as if they got enough food, if they have anything to wear ect. There is few places with electricity and running water. They have to walk very far to get their water. I wrote a little poem about my associations to this.

Far far away

Too far to really understand

Just imagine 

A crying child

An empty stomach

A closed door

The sun is heating 

The throat is dry

The people walk far far


Far far in the heat
To the nearest waterhole
Carrying buckets on their heads


Small children 
Only hope for a better life
Is to get an education


Schools without electricity 
Without pencils and books
Depending on their teacher


Children going home
Don't knowing if there will be dinner

 Will mom survive today?


Diseases fighting the population
But there is a hope in medication
A hope in plants


So they plant
They make their own botanic gardens
Where hope will grow


Poem by me

Gran Torino

 Today we saw Gran Torino in our english class. Gran Torino is a movie directed by Clint Eastwood from 2008. The movie is about Walt Kowalski who fought in the Korean war and is played by the director, Clint Eastwood. Walt is a grumpy old man who dislikes(as it seems) everyone, especially Asians, and is not exactly happy when a Hmong family moves in next door. The Hmong people are from Laos, China and Thailand. Two of the family members that moves in are a tough girl called Sue and her brother Thao. While Sue is tough, Thao is quite the coward. He is quiet and insecure.
Because of various incidents, Walt and Thao and Walt and Sue gets to know one and each other and relationships are built.

The movie consists a lot of racism between ethnic groups, especially between "white" and Asians. From my opinion Hollywood often portray people of different races as enemies and there is often a lot of violence, guns and swearing. Kind of mafia like with threatening of families ect. I think Hollywood often overdo it when making movies.. At least so I hope.

It can be really hard to be an immigrant, because you need to be able to become a part of the new society and you're also dependent to be accepted by the new society. It is also very important that you do an effort yourself; to learn the new language for example. Also you have to accept the new society and their traditions and morals.

Megacities

Today's theme in English class is megacities. First of all, what is a megacity? To become a megacity, there has to be more than 10 million inhabitants. In our English book, that we use in class, there is a text about megacities including a quote by Kofi Annan who where the UN secretary-general. Kofi Annan speaks about the problem about people moving from the country and into the cities. The rural population is decreasing while the urban population is increasing. Cities are having challenges accommodating new inhabitants.

Beneath the quote  there are three statics. The first one is illustrating the percentage of the growth of the urban population . As we can read from these diagrams, in 1800 there was a growth of 2% which have increased to 47% percent in 2000. The diagram is also foreseeing the percent in 2015 and 2030. In 2015 it's foreseen that the percent of urban population growth in the world has increased to 52% while it's 60 percent in 2030. That's a huge increase.

In the next diagram we're shown the statics of the rural and urban population percent in different regions in the world. We can see the population statics in 1995 and 2015, a twenty year difference. As we can read from this diagram, the region with the widest rural population is Asia with 2249 million people in 1995 and it's foreseen that this will increase to 2380 in 2015. In 1995 they had an urban population corresponding 1180 million people and 1970 by 2015. As we can see, both the urban and rural population is foreseen to increase. After Asia with the largest rural population there is Africa, and then Europe. In Europe the urban population were 518 million people in 1995 and foreseen to increase to 532 million in 2015, while the rural population which were 209 million will decrease to 188 million people. After Europe there is South America and on top, with the lowest rural population, and urban population matching Africa's there is North America. In 1995 the rural population were only containing of 67 million people and the urban had 231 million people(Africa: 247mill.) In 2015 it's foreseen for the rural population to have decreased to 59 million and the urban to have increased to 301 million people.

What we can see from this diagram is that the rural population in the developing countries is increasing as well as the urban is, while in Europe and America the urban population is increasing and the rural decreases.
This is of course a global challenge because the developing countries has the biggest population increase and then will get, as Kofi Annan said, problems hosting their new habitants, both immigrants and natives.

The third static is showing a rank of the world's biggest megacities. The three biggest cities is Tokyo with 33.4 million people, New York with 24.1 million and Mexico City with 21.7 million people.

a Christmas wish

In English class we are attending a December contest. Link. 

So I chose task 5: [...] write a poem. And so I did. My poem is written with rhymes and is about peace, Christmas evening, family and Jesus. 

The windows are covered with hoar frost

From the radio, Christmas carols fills the air

In the oven the turkey is almost done roast

It's the season for love, joy and care

We will celebrate tonight the evening

When there was born a little baby boy

The son of God came to us without screaming

A king they said, but this did Herodes annoy

He would kill Jesus, afraid of losing his role

But Josef foresaw this in a dream

And escaped to saved his wife and boy

So together they all ran away in the moonbeam

They had to escape to save their own life

So many people have been doing the same

Running away with both housebound and wife

People running away in fear is for mankind a shame

So this night I to the holy spirit pray

I pray to the son, and his father in heaven

That our world will be peaceful and safe one day

And for all our sins to be forgiven

We will celebrate tonight the evening

The evening for love, joy and care

All day I have been washing and arranging

And polished the silver shining clear

All that's missing this December night is some company

They would soon be here with me

The guests are dear friends and family

When they come we'll walk around the tree

The tall and green Christmas tree

Shining pretty and with lots of presents underneath

A knock on the door, could that my guests be?

Come in my dearest family, into the heat

Warmth and laugher makes a wonderful atmosphere

We kiss under the mistletoe and think of how lucky we are

And I wish my words will be heard somewhere

As I make a wish upon the shining Christmas star

For a safer and peaceful world.

Working abroad

When it comes to working in the US and in Britain I think one of the main differences are that they are more "open" and outgoing. They are less formal and I also think Britain is more strict. Of course this varies from where you work. Especially I think you have to be more formal with your boss in Britain than in the US.
I also think there's more opportunities in the US, and harder to earn good money in Britain.

Global Challenge

"What you think might be an important global challenge to work with in class?"

I got this question from my teacher. And I though a global challenge associated with what we are learning in our English class, would be the challenge to understand and respect people from other countries, cultures and believes. That's an important challenge in the world today and an important reason to the wars and conflicts in the world today. I believe if we learned more about each other, both objective (facts about religious beliefs and cultures) learning and subjective (peoples personal opinions) we would also understand better, and hopefully be more respectful. 

You might ask, how is this related to our class? Well, we are supposed to make friends in other countries. And it is easy to misunderstand each other, especially since our ways of expressing ourselves and our views on things might are a bit different. I often see that Norwegians write and speak English differently than others might, and that can cause misunderstandings. 

So that's what I think would might be a global challenge for us to work on. To understand others was of living. 

Bilde link