Norway countryside refuge

In spring this year I spent some time with my partner at his parents' place in the countryside of Telemark (that's the South part of Norway). It was my third time visiting Norway and my first time of going further than Oslo - to a small village of farms, sparsely scattered in the forest around a valley. These farms were built in the pre-oil era - a time when Norway was extremely poor and life was hard in the rocky and steep lands and long winters. The houses were small and had little windows. A 90 cm bed was so expensive that one was shared by the whole family, sleeping in sitting position.

During just a few decades, Norway became one of the richest countries in the world. Life became a lot easier in many regards, and the conditions became much more manageable. For an outsider it is interesting to see the contrast of the evolution of technology meeting this (not so) old heritage, but also mindset and culture. Old wooden electricity poles carry the fiber internet cables leading to the farms. In a country of cold and unreliable weather, people (with the help of the government) have invested in heat pumps and well isolated houses long ago. Nevertheless, every house still has a fireplace and people use it. It has been a reliable and indispensable means of survival for generations and the idea to skip it is absurd. Maybe, partly, because it also is connected to many nice rituals like cutting and drying wood and crawling out of bed in the morning at 13° to start a fire for the day. Rituals are a good thing when conditions are rough. They give a sense of steadiness. Community. A certain rhythm in a way of life where every little thing (going to "town" or taking care for the animals) required great effort. They also contain a lot of old knowledge that has long been lost in German city life - how to store wood for example, and how to get a fire burning.

And yes. The toilet might still be an outhouse. Because when your country consists of solid rock, underground water connection gets quite complicated (= expensive). A larger commune might make the investment, but a family living on a farm in the hills often can't afford it... or doesn't see the need, being used to these nice comfy little shacks :]

It was amazing for me to discover this life which for my partner, who spent most of his life at this place, was normal, or hopeless in long phases. We were using the same apps, typing letters onto the screen, playing games, but when we turned away from the screen I would listen to the traffic noise of Strasbourg centre, or rush to catch the train to work. He would see the inside of the little wooden house which was his room since he was a teenager, and the mountain before the window, changing colours from white to grey and back to white throughout the year. He would pass by the boring ducks and chickens on the way to his parents' house and take care to not slip on the frozen rocks. He would fill a tank of water together with his dad if the well of the farm had run dry again, fix problems in the household or sit on the ancient washing machine to prevent it from jumping for a walk. Then he would make black tea, put cheese on a knekkebrød and dip it into the tea. Sometimes he would have a walk on the ever same road along the river and dream about places where people are building rockets next to a highway to explore space. Taking a train seemed like a scary idea to him – the closest station was a 40 min car ride away („Look at a̶l̶l̶ t̶h̶e̶ t̶r̶a̶i̶n̶s̶ the train!“)

Sometimes he complained about the noise. A rumbling from somewhere down the valley meant that people were trying to move rocks. The sheep ring their bells, roaming around down the hill in the forest. The woodpecker pecks on the electricity pole early in the morning and the chickens make weird singing noises while chilling out in the sun at the wall of the house. The waterfall in the distance provides a permanent background noise and on the weekend the stupid neighbour kids drive their cars around with loud music playing in the night. Indeed. Countryside life sounds terrible [:

-------- Explorations --------

+ the only road into the mountains. The sign says: Private way, 80kr (8€)/day. Pay here. No barrier on the way, but you see cars stopping to pay. The money is used for maintenance of the road

+ don't step on the snake when avoiding the snow. And don't jump into an anthill when avoiding the snake :]

+ the afterwards-nails. Checklist: Invest in proper hiking shoes

-------- Neighbourhood --------

In the remote areas without great tourism, seeing a new face is a rare occasion. All habitants of the 10 farms of the valley know each other and keep contact. Facebook is a big help for not missing out on how your neighbours' dogs are doing. Other messengers / platforms are hardly in use (even among young people in the city). Life in the farm houses means that there's always something that needs to be built or repaired, some field needs to be cleared of rocks or someone needs a car ride, and people are glad to help each other out. It's always a nice occasion to meet and have a chat - so nice that people tend to skip the effort of sending a message, instead they just drop by, walk into your house and start a chat, no matter what you're busy doing. You welcome them of course. It's very important to keep a good relationship with everyone, even if you really have no use for the candy their family doesn't like and the 6 pairs of socks they have left over - you might need their help at another moment, after all.

One day, I saw a woman arrive at the lower house. Proved that she had an African drum that really needed to be fixed and, somehow, she had got the information that there was a guest who was working with drums or something. I was no big help here unfortunately, and there was no other guest (:

Comfy wool shoes made - and gifted to everyone - by the neighbours

-------- Animals ---------

~95% of the country are rocks and mountains - land which is hard to use for farming corn and difficult to access for farm machines. Farming animals used to be the way to go. Some people still have flocks of sheep and goat which are happy on the steep mountain meadows and are pretty independent in summer.

On the family farm, today there are only 8 chickens and a group of ducks left, plus 2 black and white border collies shooting in happy circles around the grounds like canon balls. Farming is more an expensive (and demanding) hobby than anything else - it does not pay off for common people.

The dad is a kind and funny old man who, despite heavy health troubles, keeps a warm attitude towards life and people. He manages most of the farm work. When he was younger, he kept 300 chickens in the small barn. Their eggs were enough to make a living.

"I thought they were just stupid animals… but they aren't. No animal is really stupid. The chickens are fascinating. They are lying in the sun and singing… The rooster scouts the area and searches for food while the hens stay hidden. When he finds something, he calls the hens - and lets them eat first. I like that the hen is the one who decides which of the roosters fertilizes the eggs. The other roosters might make with her, but she will just discard the sperm. But with the one she likes, she will save the sperm in her body and it might take 6 weeks until she lays the eggs."

He told me that he wished to quit the ducks, though. "I have enough", he said. "They need so much water. And I hate butchering them."

"Why do you do it then?", I asked.

"Because it is food."

Illustration on the door of the weapon closet. Same scene appears in old paintings + wall carpets.

Look how happy the cerf is!

--------- Food --------

Traditional "hill-billy" food seems to be very heavy and contains meat, cream and cheese in sauce. It's also very simple. "Which cheese?" "Yellow." Yellow means: Not the traditional brown cheese (which, among outsiders, is said to be of questionable taste). This is the only distinction which is needed.

Norwegians are modest people and generally happy with simple things, so they can spend their energy on farm and house work and facebook instead. People closer to "town" (one of the four towns of the country) also appreciate easy solutions, because, next to work and family, they tend to have a lot of social activities going on (training, skiing, driving children to training etc.) which don't leave time to prepare food. So searching for food culture in Norway, generally, means pizza from the freezer. And Taco Friday.

dedicated Taco shelf is common in supermarkets

The preference of hard and dry, non-perishable knekkebrød makes sense when the closest store is a 40 min car ride away and shopping is done only once a week. The dry bread is compensated by butter. Butter is on everything, always. On pancakes fried in oil and on waffles.

knekkebrød box

The stabbur was built as a food stock in times before fridges. Every farm in the region has one. They all stand on a bar construction, leaving a ~50 cm gap to the ground. In contrary to walls or stone, a gap seems to be a smart strategy against mice.

-------- Economizing --------

Economizing in Norway, this can mean bringing drinks for yourself to a party and then taking them back home again (alcohol is very regulated - and expensive - in Norway and Sweden). According to a legend, when this (at this point) very poor country found oil and suddenly had money, they did not know what to do with it. So they hired an expert from the United Arabian Emirates for advice (he would know!). His answer was simple: Stocks.

The idea of saving money for hard times deeply resonated in the hearts of the poor people. This is why the country of Norway today owns 1,4 % of word wide stocks, making it the world's largest fund (the country itself. Not a few private people). The people still deal with sparse infrastructure, water tanks and outdoor toilets. The (publicly funded) post service has stopped delivering packages to the door a few years ago, not rentable enough, everyone has a car, right? Just come and pick up your moving boxes at the closest store, 25 km away from you. There's a trend to centralisation and cut of public services - everything must be efficient. Spending a whole day to reach a police station a few 100 km away to deliver a document, for example ("Where is this place? Is it even on the main land...?"). The public "food supervision" used to be responsible for dealing with cases of animal cruelty (animal cruelty = food cruelty, something like that?). It doesn't generate money of course, so they are supposed to work more efficiently when the funds are reduced so that most problem cases can't be taken care of anymore, so we have fewer cases now, right? (NRK). Many political decisions are made in inspiration of great capitalist countries - and then regretted and appealed as soon the people face the consequences (like: joining into the electricity market of Europe in a deal which proves to triple the prices in southern Norway). There's a certain discussion culture in Norway, a lot of try and error, forward and backward, leading to situations where one institution lost track of what the other one says, and people (even Norwegians) are sent in circles to get a document for getting a document needed to get the first document.

-------- Education & culture --------

On the other hand, Norway tries to be technological and innovative and, sometimes, succeeds. Education is probably (among) the best in Europe. Games and movies never get a Norwegian synchronization, so young people are fluent in English by default. Because of the long distances, it's common for teenagers to move to a small room in town for high school and to learn independence in early age. Some people from other countries are concerned that this may result in a very loose family bond, but in my feeling, the opposite is the case. The teenagers are allowed to have some freedom and to figure out life by themselves before family troubles escalate, and - as far as I can tell - most of them seem to find a very good connection with their family as adults.

University is free, and most young people get a degree. Nevertheless, young blond girls might choose to work on a construction side and drive a dredge, or to have their own fishing boat (NRK). Equality and respect of women has a high tradition + significance, compared to other countries.

Life in Norway is expensive from an outside perspective, but inside, the difference in wage between different jobs is smaller than elsewhere and each person in a cleaner's position is said to earn well, to have a life next to their job and to be able to save money, to take a loan and to buy a house.

There's a lot more to say about the values in Norway, about a special culture of trust and respect, community (and sometimes, unfortunately, exclusion) which I hope to get more insight into with the time. But some things definitely work in Norway which fail in the rest of the world. Even if these things come with a price (like: expensive basic living costs, no amazon) I keep reminding the people here to not take things for granted, but to appreciate their exceptional position and to fight against the pressure of globalisation.

Some of my student friends have some frustration with life in Norway, with a government closing night clubs at 3 am, keeping alcohol so strictly regulated (and expensive) and charging 25% tax on imported goods, making all the cool and cheap stuff difficult to get. They are frustrated with the long distances to other towns where things are happening, with the strong society norms and are longing for the weirdness, freedom and anonymity of central European city life. At times they feel distanced and irrelevant for the happenings in the world.

But behind their complains about a situation they never saw from an outside perspective, I get the impression that they appreciate the beautiful, elongated snow globe they live in and don't feel compelled to see life at a place which is more free and less protected. Also, most of these fiercely polite and respectful Viking descendants seem, rather sooner than later, to get busy and happy with so-called A4-life: Job which is secure, partner, children, 2 cars, dog / cat, social activities, gym, ski, vacuum cleaner without cable, weekend at the family cabin in the mountains. It's common for young people in their 20s to talk about prices of houses, to take a loan and to buy (or, on the countryside, to build) a house in the region where they grew up, mostly without even considering to live elsewhere for a while. No raids, no fame or power, no higher ambitions needed.

So beautiful! Almost like Norway! (comment from a Norwegian friend on the only snow picture I took in France in 3 years) :]

-------- Summer in Telemark --------

May is the month where the snow finally melts and gives room to the rocks and spongy moss underneath. Each day we could watch grey spots appearing in the snow cap of the mountain on the other side of the valley. I learned that it's dangerous to go for a hike in this season because the semi-frozen ground under your steps is unpredictable. Streams of water are flowing everywhere. And climbing through the steep woods is more exhausting than you think.

+ large flag on the birthday of a family member is tradition

+ special home made birthday cake, bløtkake = "wet cake"

+ buried treasures found on the fields with a metal detector. The long forms are scythe blades

+ Hakkespett on the electricity + fiber internet pole. The plastic cover sounds like trash but the one who makes the most noise is clearly the best bird!

+ Mars rotating freely in a transparent outer sphere. Inside of the inner sphere is a small motor driven by solar power pushing against a compass needle

+ The red box is a heat pump

The dusk extended to 23:00 and beyond, until the cream-blue gradient on the horizon, finally, ceased to even disappear before the sun rises without mercy at 3 am. The night was blue twilight when we went to sleep, which amazed me every day because it felt like a clear proof that i was, in fact, in Norway. When we climbed up the way between the houses in the evening, I could hear the rippling of the little brook crossing underneath the way, the noise of the waterfall in the distance, and sometimes the markant singing of a bird which I thought was a nightingale. The air was cool and smelled like water and forest.

Time seems to pass differently in these old, wooden houses in midst of nature. It's easy to forget about the phone and to loose track of the days. It was hard to imagine that the hectic rhythm of train departures continued in city life. I was struggling with my health and tried to get things sorted out in a country where the doctor actually takes time to listen, but mostly it felt simply good to share time with my partner after months of talking to my phone.

After most of the melting water was gone, we enjoyed visiting the river close by, climbing over the rocks washed smooth by the water and putting our feet into the cold bubbling pools along the water fall. I picked up reading, meditation and collecting nature sound recordings in this quiet environment. On most of the days I dedicated a few hours to either the (Familiar) board game or writings (Hannua's story). I was not sure where life was heading in this moment… but I was deeply grateful for this time of unstressing, learning, nature, warmth and inspiration. I knew that it was not a mistake to enjoy my time here in Norway at this moment, before obligations or responsibilities would take over my life in one way or another.

------- Insights -------

The Telemark region is well-known for the Norwegian Harding fiddle. It has 4 additional strings below the 4 main strings (=8 tuning knobs) and, apparently, is made of wood which is extra thin.

Grand-grand-dad used to be a good fiddle player. One day, his little sons found this thing on the wall and thought it would make a nice sleigh. Proved that it didn't, it just wasn't very stable.

Kubbestoler are chairs made from one single wood block. Seems that this was considered cozy in the past. This here is a small one, for children. See the white dots on the sitting edge? When children lost their milk teeth, it was tradition to stick them into the chair.

This is a mark, showing the border between the lands of different people