The final, green photos of green things being green in the Amazon

 "Sunni, this is completely harmless. Are you sure you don't want to hold it?" I'm fine, thank you. "It's just a centipede." That's all right, I don't need to. "It won't hurt you, it's not poisonous and it can't bite, are you sure?" I'm fine, thank you please thank you I'm fine let me just take a photo.

 There were trees. They were big.

 My guide, Reinaldo, an indigenous ticuna man who spoke Spanish as his second tongue, and way better than my Spanish (as my third tongue).

 OH MY WORD A TARANTULA but it kept itself safe inside it's den and wouldn't come out. 

I was fine with that.

Me, in my canoe, on the small river that left off the big Amazon, being allowed to paddle along at my own speed, listening to the roaring noise of the toads, the cicadas, the birds and the insects on my last day before returning to the roaring noise of the cars, the music and the people in Cali.

That's it from the Amazon, babes.

Dolphins and swimming in the Amazon

 Don't focus on the boat. Focus on the grey spots ahead of the boat.

 Look, there are dolphins! 

I didn't see the pink ones, but the "regular" grey ones were brilliant and playful.

 "Do you want to swim in the river?" Of course I do. Are there things that can bite me? "No, there's nothing dangerous." But are there no things that can eat me? "No, Sunni, it's safe." But are you saying that it's completely safe? "Yes, Sunni." Okay. SPLASH. Nothing ate me.

 I just have too many photos of this because it was too beautiful.

And the sun set and my heart was breaking with the sheer awesomeness and amazingness of it all.

Creeping things (look away, mum)

 No, just kidding, further down for that. This is me, learning how to make bracelets.

 From a brilliant Ticuna woman who told me that they got this material from a tree, 

and the colours were all natural as well.

 Then I went on a night walk. This is not a spider. Nor is it a scorpion. And it's harmless. "Will you hold it, Sunniva?" - No, thanks. "But it's harmless, Sunni." I'm fine, thank you, Reinaldo.

 Another day, we crossed the river and waved at Peru. 

As you can see, it's a completely different country.

 Then we went to the second largest city in the area, Puerto Nariño.

 A big, big city.

 Amazon! Peru! Excitement!

And every other tourist in the Colombian part of the Amazon.

I was staying at the Yoi Ecolodge, which was expensive, but everything was included, from picking me up at the airport, the boat to the lodge, all the activities and travelling on the river I did while there, as well as all the yummy meals I got. And after all, I was paying to stay somewhere far into the jungle, far away from the towns and cities and people, and the only time I saw this amount of people (see photo above) was in Puerto Nariño and in Leticia, where I didn't stay long. I am absolutely recommending it for anyone thinking about visiting the Colombian Amazon, because it is definitely worth the experience.

Then there were monkeys

 We went to a monkey sanctuary, 

which is incredibly important for the preservation of different species

 Like this babe, after someone shot his mum to provide food for their family, 

and they realized she had a baby and brought him to the sanctuary

 He just wanted to cuddle on everyone's head like he used to with his mum (here with guide Salome)

 And then there was this lady who was not in the best of moods

Maybe foreseeing the change of weather that was coming on in the afternoon that day.

This is a typical issue in many countries - there are new restrictions on how many animals and what kind of animals you can hunt for food purposes, but people live far away from the capital, and they need food, and it's difficult to get them to change the habits of generations in a short time. At least this type of sanctuary is working with people, telling them what species are close to extinction, and making sure to take care of babies like the one above, or others, when they come to the sanctuary. The adult primates live freely in the middle of the jungle, and decide whether they want to come to the sanctuary for food and check-ups, or sleep in a tree close by.

The Amazon is green, and we are all surprised

 I just realised that it's been three months since I left the Amazon. 

 It was ridiculously expensive, but I am so pleased that I did it.

 Just sitting on a boat, hours on end, looking at green things and listening to the noisy, noisy nature.

 Oh, and this is the actual Amazon river. And Peru, over there on the other side.

Hello little monkey. He was a cheeky monkey.

I just want to break everyone's ideas of the jungle right now: It's not serene, peaceful and quiet. It's noisy, loud, and crowded with animals. Not the exciting, big, colourful animals either, but lots of tiny frogs, toads, monkeys, birds, grasshoppers, crickets, and things that make a lot of noise. The peacefulness comes from there being hardly any people, no cars, and the few houses and communities often being half-hidden from view.

Easter holiday (I am very up-to-date)

Xiomara and me in Villa de Leyva in Boyacá

I don't even know what happened to time. I was just on holiday, seeing my friend and former youth delegate in Tromsø, Xiomara, and in the city of Medellin, getting to know all the friends of current youth delegate from Colombia to Norway, Franco. Then I came back to Cali, did some work, went out a few times, went to my language exchange, met new people and old people and WHAT I am almost on my way home to Norway and I haven't even finished editing my holiday photos because of all the activities I want to do before I leave this place.

Some day, you might even get to see more of the Amazon photos.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Birthday food

 A few days before my birthday I invited my friends for tapas - i.e. bring small dishes and eat them and enjoy

 On my birthday itself, I'd decided to make Rondon

 A Caribbean coconut stew with a lot of vegetables

 And usually some kind of fish on top, I chose halibut because it's my favourite fish

 And then made rice'n'beans with coconut milk on the side

 And ate it with my housemates, including Elise

The next day, I went to my parents and had a brilliant spinach and chickpea soup. And cider. And happiness.

I've been wanting to make that coconut stew since last year, but never got round to it until now. Rondon is very important to the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua traditionally, and has now become the meal that is served at any official gathering or ceremony. It used to be made with leftover food, trying to use the most of your fish, and now it has become a signature dish.

Back in Nicaragua

Bosawás

is where I've been this week. Nadia, one of the girls from my group, came up from Oslo, and we spent two entire days locked up in my family's house in Tromsø, working on choosing images for the photo-book we'll be making and also writing texts and making postcards for our information work.

I've also held two trainings for my Global Dignity volunteers, and will be doing more this coming week. We went to a moustache themed party. I've been to a small festival arranged by the city's oldest bank, been to a book swapping event, a vintage fair and a second hand market, I've watched too many films, too many QI reruns and just enough Friends reruns.

Life is being very busy right now. I'm hoping this will right itself in a little while, and it can go back to just being a normal sort of busy.

Bosawas/Musawas

And then, more about this place I mentioned weeks ago.

One Sunday in May, after the longest bus ride in history, one night of sleeping in a parking lot, one night of sleeping three in one bed, and plenty of long meetings, we walked three hours into the woods and up the mountains in this beautiful natural reserve of Bosawás, to the village of Musawas, where the indigenous Mayangna live. We were supposed to have a meeting with the village, or with one board, or with another, and we spent two hours listening to them discussing in Mayangna about whether we were allowed to have a meeting, and with whom, and why we were even there.

They said they are now sceptical of people coming from outside to "help", because they have several experiences with those who come, appropriate their culture, and run back home to earn money off what they've learnt.

We ended up taking the meeting outside, because apparently our previous agreement wasn't official enough to have a village meeting in the village hall. We split into two groups: one sat around members from the Territorial government, the other around those from the local council (unless I am confusing all these councils again). I was with the territorial government.

Both groups could tell us that yes, they had problems. Mestizoes from the west and south were moving into the reserve, cutting down far too much wood, working for profit rather than survival, and not respecting that it was a reserve, that the indigenous people had the right to use the forest as they had traditionally, but noone else should come and ruin nature. The territorial government people were quick to point out though, that they had done something to prevent it. That the state was completely on their side, all they needed was a little time and these migrants would be kicked out. No problems here. - "But we heard there was an assassination of the past president for the territorial government?" - "NO. Accident. Accident, it was."

Certainly. The people in the other group said clearly that the former president had been killed. Two very different versions. They were also clear about the fact that they do actually have problems, people are still cutting down rain forest, and it's not going to go away just like that. I'm sadly going to believe the most pessimistic view of this last group, which some of the girls got to hear while the rest of us were sat discussing problems with people who claimed not to have any.