My pursual of a midwife and nursing license in Norway came
to a sort of standstill back in May, when the appeals board upheld SAFH’s
decision that I should essentially begin my entire education from the
beginning. Back in June, we were in contact with a former head of a nursing
department at a local nursing college, but the spark from that initially
promising meeting fizzled out over the Norwegian fellesferie (common vacation time in July). Every other Norwegian
that we spoke to has been equally disgusted and disappointed in the decision,
and their response is almost exactly the same: “You need to take this to the
media! That’s how things get done in Norway! Take this to a politician!”
But frankly, I didn’t have the energy to mount another
battle. The process of making the right contacts, assembling the papers and
presenting our arguments one more time was overwhelming. It was summer. I had
just failed two Norwegian exams. I was feeling defeated on several fronts. And I
was juggling two new jobs, a bit overwhelmed in this shift from
stay-at-home-study-Norwegian/mom/wife/home renovator lifestyle to
full-time-job(s)-speaking-Norwegian/mom/wife/home renovator. Not to mention
blogger. I hadn’t forgotten my desire
to blog about this all, despite what you may think.
Instead, the media come to me. Our neighbor, who owns a fat
black lab dog who is Tika’s best doggy friend and invites herself into our home
whenever she has the chance, is a TV journalist for the local news office of
NRK. NRK is the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, a government-owned public
television and radio broadcasting company, and the largest media network in
Norway. After chatting with Erik in a neighborly over-the-fence chat about my
current job situation, he told a fellow journalist about my plight; a journalist
who has some experience investigating the health care system and related
matters.
In mid-August, the journalist came to our house. I presented
my case, summarizing as best as I could what has transpired over the past two
years, trying to highlight our best points and not get caught up in the minor
details. Oh, and trying my best to do this in Norwegian, of course. I handed
her a stack of papers, offered her the 3-ring binder of documents and
correspondence, and gave her a half-dozen names of people who have been “on our
side”. Her response included, “Wow. I had initially thought I could get this on
the air next week, but now I think I’ll need some extra time to interview
people. I’m thinking the nursing and midwife organization, SAFH, NOKUT (the
accrediting agency that has approved both my bachelors and masters degrees),
this nursing instructor, the local midwives, politicians. . . “.
Go girl.
A few days later she was back in our home, with a camera and
microphone to boot. We sat on my couch, and she peppered me with the sort of
“touchy-feely” questions you’d expect them to edit out into 15-second clips to
highlight a few points. It was rather overwhelming. I was very cognizant that
this could very well end up on not just the local “fylke” (county) news program, but on the national news program, and I did not want to sound like a
blubbering, incoherent, grammatically incorrect foreigner who thinks she’s good
enough to catch Norsk babies. But, on the other hand, I also wanted to succinctly
answer her questions, to give her good soundbites, and adequately express both my
frustration and my competence. But, on the third hand. . . sometimes the words
just weren’t there. That elusive word or phrase that would capture my thoughts
perfectly was not in my active Norwegian vocabulary. It was frustrating, and
made me worry more that I had sounded like a simpleton and a
thinks-she’s-entitled foreigner. Had my fluent husband been sitting at my side,
he could have provided a few nice soundbites. He, however, was sitting at an
ecological conference in Sweden.
The filming moved upstairs, where they filmed the typical “at
home with family” shots of me reading a story to Greta in her room. The next
week, they came to the museum shop, and filmed me doing the typical
“underemployed menial tasks” of organizing T-shirts by size; a few days later,
they came to the nursing home, and filmed me doing more typical “underemployed
menial tasks” like loading the lunch dishes in the dishwasher, all the while
asking me loaded questions like, “what is it like to work here, when you have
such a high education?” Honestly, what am I going to say? “This job sucks,
quite frankly. Somedays I cry after work because I think of all that I gave up
to work here.” And piss off my colleagues and boss and get fired the next day? (Because
honestly, the jobs don’t suck. They are just a little. . . you know.) But, is
saying, “this is a great job, I love working here,” going to support their
story—and mine--that Norway is throwing away my competence? It was a delicate
balance. A nuanced balance. One that I can only hope was captured with my
not-so-nuanced “mastery” of Norwegian.
The news report has yet to be aired. The journalist
contacted me last week, and wanted to film me again at home, hopefully with the
whole family. Erik is in the middle of a 12-day trip to France, and won’t be
home until late this week, so the report is at least delayed until then. The
journalist said she has had some “interesting” interviews with the
nursing/midwife professional organization and has others still to interview. I
feel like she is absolutely on my side, as I called her after one episode of
filming and expressed my concern that my response to a question had not come
out as I had intended. She immediately reassured me that she would not use that
particular quote, as it would “not support our case, the fact that you are qualified
and not working at the level that you are educated to”.
Stay tuned.
