CHAFF News

The CHAFF meeting on Sunday 4th November was a small affair with Ildikó, Ilari, Burcu, a group of Indians and myself overlapping time between 12:30 and 15:00 hours at The Coffee House.

The CHAFF Meeting next week (11th November 2007) will be at The Coffee House at 13:00 hours next Sunday. As many have committed late night programmes on 10th November, Rotary International, Diwali Celebrations, it may be a rather stunted meeting. But the regulars will be there - rest assured of that.

Ildikó thought it may be nice to have the meeting on Sunday 18th November at the Goreme Restaurant in the Ranta-Kastelli Shopping Centre. Time, as usual. will be 13:00 hours.

I spoke with Hasim and Kasim, the owners, and they are excited to have us there. It is the very best Pizzeria and Kebab Restaurant in Finland and they have excellent fresh bread and great garlic butter.

I will try to persuade Hasim and Kasim to offer us the traditional Turkish Group Meze. (Remember that registration is mandatory.) I will ask them to cap the price at € 7 per head and € 3.50 for children between 5 and 12.)

Watch out here for more news on this.

You can be sure we will be greeted with great enthusiasm as Hasim, Kasim and Mehmet are ardent supporters of CHAFF but their life style has made it impossible for them to attend meetings.

If you have a problem to reach the location, please let Ildikó or me know and we can organise transport to the restaurant. Hasim even said that he can organise a bus to get us there!

It will be a great lunch meeting - that I can assure you.

I hope you do make it to the exhibition of Turkish Glass at the City Library. Although it is a very small showing, and as I was informed by very knowledgeable Turks, not very representative, it was certainly eye-opening to see such wonderful pieces of Art Glass on display.

Annikki and I are lovers of Art Glass and we certainly appreciated the quality of the pieces on display at this exhibition.

Indian contingent due in Oulu

Posted on Jacob's Blog and the Oulu CHAFF Blog.

November 2007 will see a large increase of the Indian engineer population in Oulu. There is a contingent of 20 Indians some with wives and children due to arrive in Oulu during the month.

The first group of 5 are already scheduled to arrive on the 1st of November. The others are waiting for their visas and other papers to arrive.

They are looking for houses, furnished if possible, to rent.

If any of you have any offers to make, please get in touch with me and let me know, as I can put you in direct touch with those arriving.

If they are unable to get furnished appartments, they may need furniture and other household equipment. If you have any, please let me know as I am compiling a list of stuff required against what is available.

Kamu just informed me that he has a good dining table with 4 chairs available for under € 100. We were able to provide a tv, coffee maker, toaster to a young student last week from our existing stock. We still have lots of cups, saucers, glasses, from the summer flea market remains.

This week's CHAFF meeting will be at the Coffee Shop, entrance on Isokatu as well as from the Rotuari Square. Those attending will probably be there after 13:00 hours.

One of the questions that we may discuss this week is the setting up of a Kindergarten, especially for the children who may have to go back to the Indian Education System, which can never be from a Finnish run Play Schools.

This is an enormous social issue and one which needs to be taken very seriously. If there are enough people interested, then we should take it up with the companies, especially the Indian companies, who are deputing their personnel to Oulu.

My recent discussion with the Oulu City Manager for International Affairs was rather disappointing on this front concerning one child, who, because of the pressure we put, will now get admission into an English Platy School by January 2008, after having had to languish in a Finnush language Play School for over a year.

Let it be understood that Oulu, although it claims to be an International City, is far from being International, and the City Authorities neither have the resources or the will to help out those who need their help. They may write nice letters, but that is just not enough!

As was so correctly put by one family (to the City Manager of Oulu International Affairs) which has gone through misery and from pillar to post:

"Thanks you for your understanding.

Teachers in xxxxxxxx Kindergarten asked us to give an application to the yyyyyyyyyy kindergarten.  We gave the application. It was in fact the same application which my wife gave to yyyyyyyyyy in Nov 2006.

They told us that there may be openings in 2008 only.

I think this is too late for us.

We have severe problems with Language issues already now.

Since our native language is not Finnish and our stay in Finland is not confirmed to be permanent, we want to pursue our daughter's studies in English. We are unable to help her with her simple questions due to the language issue. This is getting worse day by day.

May you please expedite this matter and help us in getting some place in yyyyyyyyyy sooner than 2008.

Thanks again for your time."

To solve these problems, yet to be able to meet the requirements of a short stay in Finland, it is imperative that the Indian Style Kindergarten has to be started in Oulu. Annikki and I are willing to help, but the onus must lie on the Indian Companies who are deputing their staff to live and work in Oulu. Expect nothing but lip service and a lot of red tape from local authorities who are just not in the know of what an international environment demands!

Blogged with Flock