girls game night

Tonight, while Erlend was out at a guys game night, I had some girls over for waffles, games and chatting. Really enjoyed hanging out and hearing and learning some more about other parts of this country, where two of my friends are from.

precious ladies

 have not played this game in ages

we found a waffle iron in one of the bigger cities - yay!

a parade and a ride

Since yesterday we are officially in the country for more than 3 months so now we are allowed to drive anywhere we want (during the last month we were asked to stay within our neighborhood) - oh glorious freedom!!!

So we drove downtown (at some point I was sure one of the busses was going to hit Erlend - we are living on the edge here :-)) went shopping, to the post office (your package is on its way, Marte!) and watched a parade down the main street. 

we walked down the street to find a good spot to watch the parade from (which we never really found) 

as we heard people calling our names (we were so excited that finally we KNOW people in this town) - it was the ladies who dressed us up as brides last week, now showing off their makeup, hair and dressing skills on themselves

 there were some funky creations in the parade and who would have know that you could meet what looks like a Roman soldier here

 No, it did not rain, the umbrellas are for some much needed shade

we did something that seems to be culturally very appropriate - 

we bought a fried quail egg snack - so good! 

I realized after we had bought it, that only kids seemed to eat it tough… oops! 

 anything to get a better view

in the evening a friend invited us & some other girls to go on a ride to the rice fields - it was awesome! 

bread rolls, a party and a gnome

Today we were invited to a party, so I tried to make some bread rolls to bring. They turned out quite ok, all of them were eaten, as was most of the awesome buffet at the party (there were even things like Nutella cheesecake and bacon wrapped sausages - so basically my dream food and Erlend's dream food).

 it is more complicated to bake, when you have to sift all your flour first, to get all the bugs out

Some of the party guests dressed up and the best outfit of the day was definitely worn by Alia's little friend

after such an eventful day, Alia needed some evening snuggles with pappa

a re-post

I was going through some old posts that I had written during the early states of my language study time in Norway and I read something that is pretty much mirroring my feelings right now - 2 years later...

"Language study - what can I say about it? It messes with your head, your emotions and your life!
One day you feel like you are getting a hang of things and you are making good progress and the next day you feel like you have learned nothing, you sound like an idiot and you wish those stupid people of Babel would never have tried to built that tower - reaching a tower that reaches to the heavens, come on, people, what were you thinking?!?!?! :-)

If any of you know somebody who is trying to learn a language right now, please, give them a break, a hug or a pat on the back, because learning a language is seriously humbling!
Why? Well, while you might be able to sound reasonably smart in your own language, now you sound like a 3 year old (and that would be the best-case-scenario, usually you might be closer to the 1-2 year old :-)). And you are always tired which explains, why toddlers need so much sleep - because they are learning a language! :-)"

yeah, so right now, it feels pretty much like that, plus there are ants everywhere!

So in all of that, it is nice to watch your daughter having a tiny victory moment of her own (since I am for sure not having any right now)... she stood without being held for the first time today (ok, she held on to something, but still...)

can you tell that I am excited and she is scared :-) ?

transformed

One of our friend's friends is studying at a school how to give people "the wedding look". They always need volunteers to practice on, so today a whole group of us went.

For the girls that meant 4 hours of hair and make up, for the guys, just showing up 15 min before the pictures where taken.

the before picture

first they rub your face with an ice cube, no kidding

intense colors seem to be the preference here

and for some reason the eyebrows get painted on like this

feeling like a movie star

trying to document the process

half way done                                                 done   

from the back

 Erlend being helped to put on a skirt by two guys, hm, not sure how I feel about that :-)

what if our wedding pictures would have looked like this? 

Alia was a bit to young to be dressed up as well

 not so this cutie though

the lady who did my make up

the after picture

and then it took 15 min to get all that paint off again - Alia was slightly confused, can you tell?

take a walk

When we went out for a walk in our neighborhood the other day, Erlend thought it would be nice to take some pictures so that you all could "come on a walk with us" in a way.

 Admiring our neighbors 7 birds. Birds are a big thing here, it is important how well they can sing which is connected to how much they will cost (I think). Apparently they have to bathe the birds every day...

 I know it is hard to see, but this is actually a catfish farm

 talking to a friendly neighbor

 the local gas station

 the local restaurant

 the local shop (sometimes we buy ice cream and hang out on the steps in front of it)

 be glad that pictures don't come with smell, because to the right here is a chicken farm...

 buying a special kind of apple from this cute grandma

 jackfruit

our neighbor a few houses up died a few days ago, 

so they put up a black flag outside our house on the street light..

It made me very sad thinking about the fact that the man who died probably had never heard about the Good News that could have saved him. 

What a motivation to learn this language so that we might one day have the privilege of sharing those Good News with people here!

it has begun

So apparently rainy season has officially started...

sacrifices, sightseeing and satay

Today was a long and full day in which we had the opportunity to learn a lot of new things about this culture.

In the morning we went to one of the mosques in our neighborhood because today is the day when they remember Abraham almost sacrificing his son...
From what I understood the amount of animals sacrificed is linked to how rich the neighborhood is.
I did not count but I am pretty sure we saw 3 cows and 7 goats being slaughtered, so I think that neighborhood is quite well of.

 the goats got hung up to be skinned

 believe me, this is one of the less gruesome pictures

Alia did not seem to mind the blood bath around her

the meat gets divided between everybody, especially the poor people get portions

We went straight on to drive to a Volcano center as they call it, which is pretty much a volcano museum and a view point of a volcano which erupted in 2010.

the clouds on top of the volcano are only partly clouds, some of it is smoke, I was told

 Alia did not care about the family picture, the fence was way to interesting

this cutie pie is our friends daughter and she came along for the trip. She behaved so well even though the windy roads did not agree with her stomach

 this guy and his family were the ones who took us on this trip

very cool replica of the volcano in the museum

here is the real thing

on the way there and back we got to enjoy amazing views like this

 on our way back we stopped at our friends friends house, 

much to Ariel and Samson's delight they had a cow living in their back room

our host was a lovely lady who offered us so much food 

even though they did not seem to have much themselves

She used to be a nanny, and I bet a good one - Alia liked her right away

 after 7 hours on the road we were invited to come to our friends house for some goat satay.

I got to watch how the women prepare it

and Erlend watched the guys as they bbq-ed it - yummy!

I am so impressed by how hospitable everybody is here!

So now we are full of new impressions, tired, stuffed

 and thankful for seeing and learning so much today