I had a Tatanka[1]
moment when Håkan
answered "No", after me asking if he spoke English. Luckily I have strong arms
and legs so I had my questions with me in the truck of the car. Using tatanka body
language I invited him to the car and showed him the question. It was a second
hand grass-cutting machine that I just both and it needed a transmission belt
to be changed. The question was if they had it in the store, where he obviously
seemed to be employed.
It looked
as if Håkan had a really bad day or it just went bad since the moment I entered
the store. His long sorrow face was expressing all shades of nagging. So I
called Markus my neighbor on the phone and asked him to talk to Håkan hoping
that his friendly voice and perfect Swedish would cheer him up.
It seemed
to have worked and helped Håkan pull his head out from his ass and start
looking for the piece. Luckily he was not alone in the store and his colleague
who at the beginning didn’t speak English started to show a little effort and
explained me that they will have to order it and call me back on which Håkan
had some replica to add but I didn’t understand a word he said so the same
colleague asked him to speak in English.
Håkan’s
face went back to nagging mode and continued mumbling out words out of which I only picked
up few ones that I did understand: jävla prata & svenska.
(fuck/damn, speak, Swedish). I politely thanked to the colleague for the service and information and
showed Håkan the number they were to call me.
His words did annoy me but, after
so many countries I’ve lived in, Håkans are just a part of the drill. I’ve had Håkan's
when I came to Serbia. Over there my accent upset them for being a refugee that
brought them misery. I've had Håkan's when going back to Croatia where my prewar vocabulary clearly stated my serbian origin. I’ve had Håkan's in Spain where I was an immigrant taking
their jobs (which by the way they didn’t wanna do). I’ve had them in Catalunya
for speaking Spanish instead of Catalan….
Some say that it’s not their
fault for being Håkan. But nobody is born Håkan. You become one by the choices you
make. By voting the politics that promise to keep your mind nice and narrow. What
I’ve also learned in all this years is that deep down Håkan are not racists, they are classists. If I was to come to Håkan’s
store in a shiny golden Ferrari, with five Rolex watches (one for each
extremity), half a kilo of gold hanging on my neck and a briefcase size wallet full of cash,
I could've been speaking Swahili with the east Mongolian accent and that wouldn’t
have been any problem for Håkan to understand and work his ass off to assist
me.
But luckily for each Håkan there are
10 000 Mio. (More or less, that’s the convert rate.)
Mio is my neighbor and an awesome
guy who without me even asking for it offered to teach me Swedish and some of
the basic survival tools. So far he had taught me to say flower, stone, pass me
the ball, rabbit whole and on top of that he showed me how to stick my hand
into the whole, and the best way to conserve different kinds of insects in a plastic
bag .
I believe we have made some
serious progress and Mio has been incredibly patient master despite of having a
slow learning student. After all he knows better that it’s not easy to be a kid[2].
So I keep on practicing and having additional
motivation of knowing that the alternative to being a kid is becoming a
grumpy-nagging old man.
Allthough I must admit that Håkan's are absolutely right about the importance of speaking the local language in order to integrate, I also must confess that Mio's methods of integration are far more advandced and way more stimulating.
Allthough I must admit that Håkan's are absolutely right about the importance of speaking the local language in order to integrate, I also must confess that Mio's methods of integration are far more advandced and way more stimulating.
[1] For all of you who don’t know
it, tatanka meens a buffalo and we’ve learned it thanks to Kevin Costner’s
(before going bananas with Waterworld) intent to integrate with the native
Americans (Dances with wolves). In this particular scene the natives were using their index fingers
by putting them next to their forehead as a sign for horns.
[2] Master Mio is 4
years old.
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