Skitrip to Gnosjö!

If you saw a messy group of loud arabic speaking girls and guys with huge backpacks and lots of "Willies" paper bags running after the train, this was Tamam junior volunteers going to a 4 day skitrip to Gnosjö. 22 people with the leaders from Lund and Uppsala city arrived to a small, quiet, but lovely place in the south of Sweden on Wednesday afternoon. 

We decided to stay at one of the local and quite centrall churches. There wouldn't be any other perfect place to stay for this trip, because it has large, well furnished rooms, with huge kitchen and gym hall for our indoor activities. I couldn't help catching strange surprised looks of residents in of a small city, because they saw such a "multicultural" group at once for the first time I suppose.
The aim of the trip was first of all to give our lovely teenager participants opportunity to try out skiing. Second objective was to bring along volunteers and participants from both Tamam Lund and Uppsala for teambuilding and strengthening communication.
After a couple of get-to-know-each other games participants seemed to find a common language. Finally we arrived to Isaberg, a skiing place, on the mini van which could barely move. Oh yes, if you saw 5 guys pushing the mini van up the road...this was us again. Everyone seemed so excited. We saw a big hill and happy families that were equipped with skies.  But as more  people stood in a queue for getting shoes and helmets as less our kids seemed enthusiastic. After last efforts to get the equipments on, some participants refused skiing. Others barely could stand on the skies...they slowly and carefully moved after the leaders.

First morning team came back to the church disappointed at some point, because most of them could ride. In the evening we fried hamburgers and together had long evenings full of games and music.
Next day, those who could ski went to Isaberg, and others went to a hill for pulka. Although it might seem not as exciting as skiing, participants were screaming with joy on their way down the hill.

The days past so quickly. It was so nice to see how participants became very close to each other. They were dancing Arabic, Palestinian, Afghan dances. Two wonderful junior leaders Jesse and Afnan were guiding responsibly others.
The last day, participants were given a task to plan next joint trip. There was an interesting sport schedule suggested by first team.Others designed their trips to Stockholm, Göteborg, going fishing and etc.
 There is a big hope that this plans will not just stay on papers... and our participants will make their plans come true.
After another 2,5 hours in the trains we arrived back home. Lund sweet Lund! 

More about Swedes...

I not long time ago became a member in a facebook group for Kyrgyz and Swedish friendship. this is an article of an unknown author about Sweds. Decided that it would be interesting for me and my friends to read in future...
'' A Swede is tall, blonde, blue-eyed and wears a woolly hat in the winter. By nature he is shy reserved, serious, and industrious and finds it hard to laugh at himself. He is also a creature of habit and every morning gets up at 5.30 to give himself enough time to read the morning newspaper before going to work. Since work does not usually start until 8 o clock, this can only imply that a Swede is also a slow reader.

Apart from himself ,his chief interests are money, his job, his home, ice-hockey and his family(in that order). He also loves animals-especially dogs-and spend hours cycling through the town, dragging a huge and ferocious Alsatian behind him on a leash.



A Swede is usually punctual, honest, reliable, clean, has his own teeth and is law abiding. Evidence of the latter is particularly noticeable at pedestrian crossings. No matter what the weather is like, a Swede would rather get soaked to the skin than cross an empty street when a red light was showing.

Similarly, he always wears a seat belt, never drinks and drives, always has a television licence, usually hands in his tax return on time, invariably has a plastic bag in his pocket when he walks his dog and never has a bath after 10 o'clock.

A Swede is also very cautious and rarely does anything on impulse (except perhaps sneeze). To him, all decisions are a matter of life and death. Take a simple matter like buying cheese, for example. A Swede may try at least ten different sorts of cheeses before finally deciding to buy twenty grams of Brie. It is this same sense of caution that prevents him from plunging into marriage straight away. Instead, he lives with a women first, has one or two children, then-if all seems well- asks her to marry him.With reference to marriage, a Swede is quite unlike most European men. Anything a housewife can do, he can do better- from cooking to sewing on buttons. In fact, everything in the home (apart from breast feeding) is shared.

A Swede also likes to think he is well-informed and spends hours finding out all he can about such things as nuclear power, the Third World pollution, South Africa the sexual habits of the centipede, etc. while at the same time paying little attention to unimportant matters - such as the name of his neighbours or whether certain types of beer should be banned or not.



Most Swedes are fanatics when it comes to keeping fit and regularly spend their weekends running through the nearest forest or cycling for hours in the cellar on a bicycle fixed to the floor. With his health in mind, he has also given up smoking, sugar, drinking coffee in the evenings, going to bed after 10 o'clock and mixing with strangers.

But perhaps the greatest thing about a Swede is his sense of equality-of everyone being the same as everyone else. To help this, most Swedes have the same surnames- Svensson, Nilsson, Persson- earn the same amount of money after tax, have the same taste in furniture, dress alike, think alike, drive a Volvo and go to Mallorca in the summer.

A Swede also refuses to admit that he is prejudiced in any way. To him, all foreigners are just the same as Swedes and although he doesn’t actually have any Yugoslavian, Greek, Turkish, Polish, Italian, Finnish or Czechoslovakian friends himself, he is certain there are very little difference between them and Swedes-apart from their names, their customs, the way they grow vegetables in the kitchen, the fact that they carry knives, rob banks, live on social security, pinch their jobs, breed like rabbits, beat their wives and speak Swedish like someone with a gobstopper in his mouth.Finally, a Swede loves the sun, hates queuing, gets a kick out of being first on the bus, detests winter, enjoys sex, cant stand gypsies, believes what the National Social Board of Health and Welfare tells him, doesn’t believe in god, worships Ingemar Stenmark, only gets drunk when he drinks, is patriotic (wears Swedish flag underpants) visits the off-licence twice a week, visits his parents at Christmas, goes to English classes and ,inevitable, is deeply offended by an article such as this one ''.

A journey to Sweden: Internation in the Nation!

A journey to Sweden: Internation in the Nation!: "Yesterday, I have been to the great party organized within the project 'Internationen' of Tamam. The purpose of the project is to make meeti..."

Internation in the Nation!

Yesterday, I have been to the great party organized within the project "Internationen" of Tamam. The purpose of the project is to make meeting places for immigrants and Swedish young people and open up a student associates called "Nations" for non-students. Nation is not a place for some specific nationality, as I first imagined. Originally each Nation represented one swedish city such as Malmö, Lund, Goteborg, residents of which could live and study in that specific nation. But now each nation is open to all the students, and this student association gives place in it's corridor, organize events for only member students. "Internationen" project also aims to open up the nations for people other than students in Lund.
"We plan to form discussion groups , where members can share their ideas concerning next events, and be in touch with new friends "  said Karin, the coordinator of "Internationen" project, and vice president of Tamam.

The party took place in "Kristianstad Nation". When I entered the room I could see many people whom I know, and those whom I never met before. Everyone was talking with each other, everyone was eager to meet new people and friends. The evening was full of very funny games- contests between the tables. It could be easily seen how members of tables felt a team and found a common language very fast.
 "I love "Internationen", because we can meet friends, play games and have nice meals" shared Afnan, a Palestinian active participant.
I could see Swedish people, who were very open and sociable. I could see Arabs, Palestinians, Americans, Russians, Ukrainians, Australians, Indians, Chinese, Germans, British, and many other nationalities sitting together and sharing their personal issues. Some of them are exchange students, some came because of the political situation in their own country, some have Swedish sambo (couples in Sweden,that officially live together).
Indeed I am really full of excitement and impressions of the possibility to get to know such a nice and different people at one place.