Editing my Amazon photos

Look, there's a river. And a rainforest.

I have a startling amount of boring photos from the Amazon. There are lots of trees. A lot of river. One or two not-so-flattering portraits of me doing amazing stuff and not thinking about how I look, courtesy of my brilliant guide Reinaldo. More trees. And then some more river. But some of the river-and-rainforest-photos did turn out all right, like this one, when we were on our way home to the cabins after a day of dolphin-spotting (but really bad photo opportunities), lake-swimming (one of those portraits I talked about) and piranha-fishing (coincidentally in the same lake I had just been swimming in).

The best thing about being in the Amazon was just this - being out on a river all day, only seeing trees and plants and green things all around me, and listening to the deafening sound of hundreds of toads, birds and cicadas calling for attention.

Now I'm off on another holiday (I do work sometimes, I promise), so we'll just leave this photo as a teaser for what I'll upload mid-April. Prepare yourselves for unflattering photos of me doing things.

Sunniva is getting old, again

March 25th, 2010

March 25th, 2015

Look, there's proof, I have changed the last five years! I am getting older! And happier, it seems. But still as awkward as before in taking laptop selfies. (It's my birthday today. I'm 26.)

The last photos from Cartagena

 Everything colonial and romantic

 Within the old city walls everything is too beautiful to be true (and outside it is the opposite)

 But we were living in a fairy tale and drinking tea in luxurious patios in posh hotels

 With all the flora you could imagine, all more verdant than you could capture in a photo

And with all the other tourists from all over the world

Better late than never, eh? And now, almost two months later, I'm on my way on a new holiday. The main reason I do not post here is that I try to keep my work related stuff on the youth delegate blog, and to be honest I don't take that many photos outside of work. Let's see if I manage to get some on this holiday.

The Gold Museum of Cartagena

 Had a lot of gold in it

 Mostly from the Zenú culture 

 The Zenúes were indigenous people, who of course were almost eradicated by the Spanish

 But at least some of their land has now been acknowledged as a Zenú reserve

And we get to know their culture and their art today

The Palace of the Inquisition which also happens to be the Local History Museum

 Where it was slightly absurd to see replica of torture instruments used more than two hundred years ago, and knowing that the instruments were used on all sorts of heretics, including witches and protestants.

 And then walk outside in the peaceful garden, stepping on to the gallows (here you can see the trap-door)

 In the garden, there was also a modern art exhibition

 and views of the peaceful-looking Palace of the Inquisition.

 In the courtyard, there was a long text in Spanish about the history of the house and of the Inquisition.

There was also a dad on the second floor.

Cartagena is one of the well-preserved colonial cities in Colombia, and was one of the most important ports in the country for a long time (actually, it still is). There were, of course, indigenous people living here before the Spanish came, and they were, of course, robbed not only of their gold, but also of their culture and land. Then the conquerers threw in some good old Inquisitioning on top, to bother even their own citizens. I think it's good to remember these things, especially when walking around in a beautiful colonial city - remember just what "colonial" means.

Cartagena (aka My Caribbean Holiday)

 There were beaches: normal beaches, white beaches with blue sea, overcrowded beaches and almost empty beaches (the non-white ones with a slightly less blue sea), and we visited them all

 There were people, vendors, children, and lots of waves and sunshine

There was also a dad, who came all the way from Norway to Colombia to visit me

As my co-delegate Johanne went home to visit her family in Norway for Christmas, I stayed on in Cali, working almost until New Year's Eve. Then I hopped on a plane northwards, met up with my dad in Bogotá, the capital, and hopped on a new plane towards Cartagena. We stayed about ten days in the sweltering heat and absurd humidity, going on bike tours, beach trips and museum visits, and getting to know pretty much every corner (and café) in the old town.

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. 

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.

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!

Birthday month: Christine

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

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!

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!

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.