Not everything that shines...

As I have previously mentioned, this is my third year of education in Sweden. Until now, I attended mandatory courses, common for the whole biology program. This year, the courses I take are only the ones I want to take.. which means a lot of genetics and no ecology or botanics. So, during those first two years we were more or less the same main group of students, with some newcomers and some interrupting or giving up for their own reasons. My closest colleagues were all with southern backgrounds: a Syrian, an Iranian, a Salvadoran, a Kurd girl. Together we were "svartskallarna" or the black skulls.. meaning we all had dark hairs, in contrast to the fair-headed vikings and valkyries. Well, actually, I was the only one with chestnut-brown hair, their were all black... so I was something like a honorary black brother. (I hereby want to ask any Afro-American readers.. though I seriously doubt there are any here.. not to take offense at this pun.)

This year at the immunology course there are only two people from the whole bunch of Swedes I used to study with.. and the whole black skull gang. The rest we had never seen before. We felt somehow isolated from the rest during our freshman years, therefore we wanted to mingle with the natives. As the result of a brilliant enlightening, we decided to seek contact with the blond and blue-eyed ones.

My first encounter was what you can call a lucky one. In my lab group I was assigned to work with a German girl and a short-haired blond human, whom I could not decide about: was that a soft-featured male or a masculine-faced female. Then I heard her speak and that dissipated my concerns. She turned out to be as pedantic as a Swede can be but I still think we can work nice together.

Today, during the 20 minute break we had, me and Peter, my best buddy at the university.. that he is a black skull goes without saying.. were standing in the cafeteria, wondering where to sit. An extremely blond girl and a guy of equal blondness, both attending the same course, invited us to them. In a couple of minutes Carlos, the Salvadoran, and a Swede joined us and we started a discussion. The first order of business were the recently passed elections. Now, I do not care at all about Swedish politics - as long as they leave me to finish my higher education without problems, the government is fine with me. Plus, as a foreigner I do not get to vote. The others were all Swedish citizens, however (some of them with non-Swedish backgrounds), so the discussion was really a lively one, even without my contribution to it.

Then someone mentioned the Christdemocrats which turned the conversation into the depths of religion and Christianity. The official religion of Sweden is Lutheran (a part of the protestant family) which included 78 % of the population but as it turned out, only one girl at the table was a Lutheran. I was starting to wonder if the aforementioned blonds were actually Swedes. Yes, the conversation was in Swedish but that did not tell me anything, even I can speak Swedish fluently by now.. though with a certain accent, especially when I am tired.. and my black-haired friends have been living in Sweden for more than fifteen years... more than enough to lose any accent.

So, our small society turned out to be extremely multifaceted - Peter is Syrian, Carlos is from El Salvador, the Swedish girl, myself - the Bulgarian... and the blond Ivana from Croatia and Adam from Poland. Discussing Swedish internal politics... I guess, yeah, not everything that shines is gold, respectively blond and Swede...