It was dawn Mondays 9th of March,2009 when five African NUCOOP members,four colleagues and I met at the first flour in student's lodging in Lillestrom(Norway) in response to the NUCOOP colleagues at HIAK, Trond and Johan to take a trip up on Kongsberg's mountains. We set out at seven twenty am, on foot targeting a nearby subway station and were there at quarter to eight. My journey mates were able to take the seven fifty train which I unfortunately missed in thought to be waiting for the two delicate sex(female) colleagues who actually took the same snake shape's thing somewhere back along the track. Facing the reality of being left behind roaming the station in vain and knowing that the bus taking us to the mountains leaves at eight thirty am, added extra stress on me while staring at screens for the possible express train to Oslo with my eyes almost missing everything on them in spite of their being wide open. By the time I was begining to lose hope in catching up with my colleagues in Oslo, my eyes happened to catch a train leaving in two minutes time, then mindessly run up to the track and fortunately managed to through myself in five seconds before the automatic door could block me out. I was able to catch up with others ten minutes ahead of the bus to leave thus marking the next phase of our journey. The bus taking us to our unknown part of the world set off on time taking a winding road up hills in almost a four-hours two-days trip to one of the European highest plateau in Norway, in which we changed our means of transport twice and ended up completing the last part of our journey in two smart 4WD saloon cars one of which was Johan's who was waiting for us at a certain station along the road. We took a spiral road up hill, and in less than thirty minutes couldn't believe our eyes when the vehicles sudenly came to an halt at a crystal high land with small Inn surrounded by ice. Our excitement began shortly after checking in where we were asked to put on extra warm clothes, ski shoes and check out for skiing. Fitting in skies wasn't an easy task at all let alone trying to practise skiing, however with Johan's and Trond's help we were able to fit them and be introduced to the world of skiing. Not knowing what lies ahead, we began practising skiing in funny ways with different falling style in a friendly soft snow ice.That scene marked the end of an outstanding funy day in which we've learned new and reliable survival skills on the mountains, draw more confidence and clear vision on how the next day would be.Tuesdays afternoon was a shining lovely day which we all admired despite of its being a little bit chilly. Frankly speaking, some seven degrees below zero was the temprature when we left our hotel in what can be termed as a cross-country skiing adventure for amateur to Johan's cottage up on the mountain in a hundred and twenty minutes two- ways trip on skies. we're almost freezing when we got there,but with Johan's wife warm welcoming and an outstanding hospitality, we'd quickly recover. After enjoying typical norwegian mountain's winter delicious meals, we set off downhill back to the hotel and next morning to Oslo bringing our two-days excitement to an end. We 've enjoyed the company of our norwegian colleages as well as the most wonderful sites we've ever seen.
Vocational wise, we 've learned by doing which I think is an approach that would effectively work and worth being applied at the Upper Nile University TVTE new college.(Malakal)
