It’s a microcosm of the world. There’s Yitzhak from Israel, who
works in a graphic design company and is married to a Norwegian
journalist;Teresa from Poland who works in a kindergarten; Nathalie
from Mauritius Island who does shifts in a care home for the
elderly.
I am a French journalist, but lived nine years in London before
moving to Oslo last March.
We are just the tip of the iceberg. My school alone runs dozens of
classes, day and evening, every weekday. It is one of the many language
institutions across Norway.
Walking the corridors of my school, it would seem that an
ever-increasing number of us are jumping from one country to the next,
easily swapping one job for another or moving abroad to live with one’s
partner.
There is some truth in this. With the general decrease in air fares
these past few years, an increasing number of us fly more often and to
more places. Among other things, it makes it more common to maintain,
say, a long-distance relationship.
I myself moved to Oslo to live with my partner after close to four
years of constant commuting between Britain and Norway It would never
have been possible if Scandinavian Airlines and Norwegian hadn’t
offered reasonable fares. 1000 kroner is a lot of money when you fork
it out every other week.
Or take my classmate Jessica from Peru: she met her Norwegian
husband at a wedding in Lima. He was so smitten with her that he flew
regularly from Oslo to woo her; while she would take the bus from her
hometown of Arequipa to the Peruvian capital to meet him.
They are now happily married and she works in a bank. It is an
extreme example, but reflects a situation that would probably have
never happened thirty years ago.
However, this does not mean that you can pack up your bags and move
in a heartbeat. To a great extent, only a privileged few are able to
“cross-country” in comfort.
Working in a trade that is in demand in your new country is
essential; having gone to university definitely helps; but most
important of all, is the support from closed ones in your new nation.
When the going gets tough, they are the ones who really help you
through it.
Of course, some people who do not have any of the above do move to
Norway. But it comes at a great personal cost. One Ukrainian classmate,
who is in her early twenties, last saw her parents more than a year
ago. She works as an au-pair; so she cannot afford to visit her family,
a working-class family living in a rural part of the Ukraine.
Similarly, another classmate, a cancer researcher from Nepal, has not
seen his wife and toddler son for over a year.
And countries are not exactly falling over themselves to open their
borders. Just take Norway – even though EU citizens have the right to
live and work here, we must explain why we come here and prove that we
can support ourselves – having 100,000 kroner in the bank is
recommended. And that process is repeated every year. By comparison,
Britain does not ask of any paperwork from EU nationals.
And the situation of EU citizens in Norway is a piece of cake
compared to what non-EU nationals have to go through. At least, we hold
on to the reassuring thought that it is more than probable that we will
get that all-important residency permit.
And there’s one last determining factor: as long as new immigrants
do not become fluent in their new language, it is next to impossible to
find a good, well-paid job. There are a few exceptions, such as oil
workers in Stavanger, IT employees whose working language is English,
or journalists who write for foreign media.
But as long as they cannot speak fluently, immigrants will be
attending language classes two nights a week, determined to improve
their faltering Norwegian.
