15 Dec 2014

Christmas times

 It's still fairly early to start decorating for Christmas in Norway
 Because you don't take in your Christmas tree until the 23rd
And you don't decorate it until the evening of the 23rd of December
But here in Cali, we've pretty much been living in a Christmas Wonderland (without the winter part) since the end of November. I'm fairly happy with this, since it lets me get in a Christmas mood even though I'm living close to the equator, "cold" means less than twenty degrees celsius, and I'm far away from my family. Sometimes I get in too much of a Christmas mood and I miss everything at home, almost down to the stormy winter weather and the icy, slippery roads. Then someone passes me some Colombian Christmas treat and there's music and people, perhaps some dancing, and general happiness ensues. And that's just a normal day in the office. 

Anyway, I'm enjoying the experience. And the food. And the dancing. 

8 Dec 2014

The latest photos I took with my Nikon

 are over one month old (here: Maria, Stephania and Linda)
 and from the Global Forum of Resilience here in Cali
 with participants from 78 different Red Cross National Societies
talking about how to create resilient communities in face of disaster
And then... I don't really use my own camera much, since we have a "work" camera from the Red Cross, and I'm already carrying around too much stuff to add an extra weight to my backpack every day. It feels odd, because even while working in completely unrelated jobs in Norway, I usually used my camera more, at least to photograph my family and friends, but here I really don't use it. It might be some of the same reason that I am totally neglecting the blog - there is too much blogging, computer work and photography in my day-to-day work already, and when I'm at home I just feel like doing other things to unwind. I'll have to see what I can do about this.

8 Nov 2014

INGRID 25 ÅR!

Represented here with her 17 year old self, with Cecille punting in the back of the boat, in Cambridge 2007

And now one of my oldest friends is finally catching up with my age again (she struggles with this every year). Gratulerer med dagen Ingrid, jeg håper den har vært fin!

7 Nov 2014

Birthday month: Christine




Who gets to be represented by her own awesomeness. Happy 25th Birthday, Christine! I miss you.

4 Nov 2014

Gratulerer med dagen mamma!


My favourite mum is having a birthday today, so I just wanted to post one of the few nice photos I have of the two of us (maybe it's nice because it's blurred? I don't know) and say GRATULERER MED DAGEN MAMMA!

3 Nov 2014

Cartagena de Indias

Totally taken from the Cartagena Wiki

Also known as where I'll be spending New Year's with my dad - he's coming to visit me, and we're going north to the Caribbean Coast of Colombia to enjoy this beautiful city. And it's happening in less than two months!

1 Nov 2014

Tenerife, October 2013

Me and the bougainvillea, taken by my dearest mum

This is actually just a test run to see how my new blog layout works, but hey, this is what I looked like a year ago.

20 Oct 2014

A little introduction to our apartment in Cali

 I hereby present to you my living room
 our dining table with it's normal mess, the hallway and our abnormally large fake fruit bowl
 My bedroom with all the messy parts hidden from view
Me in the living room mirror with my book shelf and our random decorative pine cones in the back
This week, I've gone completely hedonistic and have taken a two day weekend in a country which has a 48 hour working week. Therefore, I've had the time and energy to finally photograph our apartment a bit to show you where I live and exist most evenings and weekends (the rest of my life is at the Red Cross office). The dining table is where I eat, read blogs and watch Eddie Izzard, Dara Ó Briain, and Nicaraguan soaps on my laptop, often all at the same time.

12 Oct 2014

Los Hongos - a film about Cali

or at least set in Cali, Colombia
Man, I'm fed up with computers. And reports, and blogs, and photos. Because this is now what I spend a lot of my days working with. Did I link you to our youth delegate blog? If not, I'll do it later. Now I only have just enough energy to post the trailer to this brilliant film: Los Hongos, which we saw at the cinema a few weeks back. It's all set in Cali, where I live, in this beautiful and somewhat troubled city in Colombia. And the film is absolutely beautiful.  It's already screening at international festivals. See it, if you get the chance.

30 Sept 2014

Simple things that make me happy


 Cali is an incredibly green city. Even the red zones, which we've only passed in vehicles, have a lot of trees and greenery. 
It makes me very happy.

The avocadoes here are giant, squishy, and slightly more fruity than the ones you get in Norway or England.
This is half an avocado on a dinner plate.
Also food related: I was incredibly disappointed the other day, after buying a massive water melon that turned out to be green, because it wasn't ripe. Today I bought a baby watermelon and it was perfect (and I ate from it with a spoon).

Now, all these photos are from inside our apartment, because I haven't yet plucked up the courage to carry my camera around outside (we have had a lot of security training). They are also from my phone, much for the same reason. And they are mostly about food and the view because that's what I mostly do when I'm in the house - if we don't have visitors for dinner or I'm out swimming. I'll try to take more photos with our work camera, which might be slightly better than my phone, and I will show you more of where I work and with whom.

Until then - enjoy dreaming about watermelons and avocadoes!

25 Sept 2014

Extremely awake and incredibly lively

Me, in our house, where we are welcome

The only thing that hasn't been amazing about the past few weeks (because yes, amazing house, city, work place, colleagues and volunteers) has been that the internet in our house (well, apartment) hasn't been working. We'd pretty much stopped believing in the internet ("You'll have it tomorrow! Mañana, mañana, mañana.") when it suddenly appeared today.

So here's an end to facebooking at work (unless it's work-related), and replying to non-work-related emails at work, and reading random blogs at work, because we can do it all at home. And to our defense, we've only been using facebook when we've arrived before everyone else, or during our lunch hour, or after work, which is just plain tiring, really. 

The only downside to this is that I will mostly be available after 18:00 here, which is 01:00 in Norway, or at 07:00 in the morning, which is 14:00 in Norway. 

ANYWAY INTERNET EXCITE, now bed time.

10 Sept 2014

Bogotá, Colombia, we are here!

 View from the hotel, this is Bogotá, or at least part of it
Me, Johanne and Willian (former youth delegate to Norway) who picked us up at the airport and gave us food
 
 
Now: It's morning over here and we are getting ready for meetings, meetings, food and some more meetings.

5 Sept 2014

Co-delegate

 This is my brilliant co-delegate Johanne climbing into a tree

And this is after I used a chair to get up there with her

It always suprises me how quickly you get to know people when you spend a lot of time with them. Johanne and I met for the first time in June, spending a little less than 24 hours together, and then again now, two or three weeks ago, and have been spending the days with ten others, getting to know them as well. This coming year will have us closer than most relationships, and I'm looking forward to finding out how that will work. For now, my hopes are fairly high.

30 Aug 2014

My weeks through phones

 I present to you: Team Colombia! Johanne, me, Franco and Silvia (photo: Franco)
 Team Colombia working very hard on solving some task or other (photo: Silvia)
 One Maja-visit at the hostel (photo: Maja)
And one tea-in-a-bowl at the cafè where my friend Ingrid works

These past two weeks have been so ridiculously packed that I don't even know where to begin. In daytime, there's been Organisational Development, First Aid, Security, Photography, Signing of contracts and so much more, and inbetween these courses we've had long lunches, rushed lunches, energizers, stretches, and getting to know one another. This has also continued on in the evenings, since I've been staying in a hostel with the international youth delegates and two of the Norwegians, and we've been making food from Nepal, Colombia, Lesotho and Norway, and often a bit of a mix. I've met other Oslo friends (including Maja) in the weekends and evenings, but also stayed in or gone out with the other delegates and getting new friends.

Next week is the last week together, where we will be trying to cram as much information into our heads as possible, and at the same time having as much fun as possible with people we will meet again in nine months.

24 Aug 2014

Tromsø Botanical Gardens

 Where I went a few weeks ago with my grandmother and dad
 To look at a flower or two
on a beautiful summer's day

And mostly just sitting down, eating cake and drinking tea and coffee. My word, this is the best thing with slow Sundays. Not really doing much but enjoying the sunshine (and the cakes).

20 Aug 2014

More parties because

 there should always be parties, especially family parties
 because there is so much leftover cake that we're still finishing it a week later

 and I get to be with my sister and nephew
 and one grandmother after another
 Andreas gets to sleep on his grandmother's lap
and practice his posing skills with me (we're both slow learners)

As I've mentioned a few times already, I've been spending more and more time with my family this past year or so. Ah, I suppose that's what comes from being older, and from knowing that you're going away for an extended period of time. 

17 Aug 2014

Leaving Tromsø, also: redcurrants

 I went berry-picking with my dad today
 Or currant-picking, if that word exists
On our own land and our own plants, we got about five or six pints.

And I'm leaving Tromsø today, I'm going to Oslo on the predeparture brief. I'll be back here one weekend, just before I leave properly, but still. I said goodbye to so many people yesterday, and having to say "well, I suppose I'll see you in June 2015" was hilarious in the saddest way possible. Last night, I stayed up far too late, reading webcomics and distracting myself as far as I could. And now I'm saying goodbye to my parents, and I'll see them again in less than three weeks, but this is the beginning of departure, and I'm sad.

So here's to Oslo being a brilliant experience, to keeping busy and not missing people as much, all the time.

4 Aug 2014

One big party, my grandmother's 75th

 we started off filling the table with as much food as possible
 Including my mum's paella and my aunt's couscous salad (not pictured here)
 Before we moved on to cakes and more cakes
 more cakes, and one grandmother Eva
 then, next day, we had more food
 we picked some of the first apples of the season

 and my dad taught his granddaughter how to use a knife to peel apples

I don't have any photos from the two volleyball games we had, or from going to the beach with my cousins, my uncle and Dina to fish crabs and then throw them into the sea again, or from swimming with my niece and nephew, or playing cards with my aunt and cousin, or anything else, really, because I was too busy doing it. This is a good thing. My camera mostly came out at meal times, while we were waiting for all thirteen people to sit down in one place together at the same time. We also had a lot of rain and almost-rain when we stayed inside, getting almost-bored and reading books. Anyway, a good weekend was had by all.

1 Aug 2014

Children and toddlers galore

 Went to visit my sister last weekend, it was scorchingly hot
 So her children were bathing in tiny bowls to keep from overheating
 Then, Dina and I made chocolate fondants (taking the task very seriously)
 While Andreas has grown old enough to waddle around and play with us
And to know how you're supposed to get sound out of an instrument
Listen. Because I'm going away soon, these weeks have been and will be full of family stuff. I'm trying to get a family overload that will last me until next June, which is a long time from now.

This weekend, we're going down to Nesodden to see my mum's family and celebrate my grandmother's 75th birthday in advance. I'm really looking forward to it, expect photos sometime soon.

What else am I doing with my time? Rereading Harry Potter (oh yes) for the first time in years and years. Hanging out with my other grandmother. Tanning in the ridiculous weather. Getting all the certifications, health checks and all the paper work done in time (hopefully). Feeling that strange sense of mixed dread and happiness in planning everything to do with Colombia.