Questions and a festival!

A lot of people have asked me about this project. 

I feel like I stumbled into a lot of it. For example:

“Why are you studying in Sweden?”

I found an organization that agreed to let me come and research with them!  Which I am incredibly thankful for!

“How did you find SveDem? (The Swedish Dementia Registry)”

Umm, I believe I googled ‘Dementia’ and ‘Sweden’. It was one of the first results.

“How did you find an apartment in Stockholm? There’s a shortage of apartments you know!”

Yes, I’ve been hearing that a lot, and I spoke with a friend that studied in Stockholm a few years ago and she gave me a portal through which I came to find a host.  (To which all of the Master’s and PhD students look at me as though I am the luckiest person alive.)

I stumbled into a lot of this project, but I also did a lot of work to get here.  Okay, perhaps my housing situation was a bit perilous until I got here, but I have a wonderful host family, and could not be happier with how this turned out. 

Today, I got to discuss some of SveDem’s data with my coworker Pavla.  I’m pretty sure she’s sick of hearing me say “that’s so interesting”, but it IS interesting, (the SSI 2013 interns know what I’m talking about!)  To get an intimate view of how Sweden’s healthcare system works is something few new college graduates get to do, especially social work majors, after hearing about how great everything is here.  Things really do work well here.

I leave you with my latest adventure.

“How did you get involved in this ‘Shake’ today?”

So, on my second day in Sweden, I was walking around my neighborhood and stumbled upon Lokalrätten, a coffee shop near my apartment.  I was just looking around when the owner came to open it up for a workshop.  He asked if I was there to participate, to which I replied, “no, but what kind of workshop is it?”

He said it was a “Shake It Collaboration“ and that there would be a festival in a few weeks and included a demonstration against racism. 

I was intrigued, and I went back that night!  There was some dancing, excellent Swedish food and wonderful conversation involved.

On Saturday, I went to the Festival för 17 – organized by an anti-racism group, there is some tension here with some neo-nazism, and this festival was organized to promote anti-racism.   After dancing our way to the festival, and shaking throughout the preceding musical acts, we took to the stage with out colorful t-shirts and confetti cannons.  We danced for a whole 10 minutes before we sent our confetti flying and turned around to spell out “mot rasism” or “against racism”. 

Dancing has the amazing ability to turn strangers into friends and bring an audience together. 

Here are some pictures, I believe there is video evidence of said dancing, and when I find it, you’ll see it. J  I’m the “R” in rasism – representing Xavier here in Sweden.

Hej då från Sverige!