Question

I took this picture in a grocery store today, and my question is, which chicken do you think is the most expensive? The fat ones on the left, or the skinny ones on the right?

Most of you probably guessed it just because I bothered asking the question, and yes: the one on the right costs about 20% more...

Why? According to people we have asked, the higher price, and lower weight, is worth it because the skinny one apparently tastes a lot better.

I still haven't had the chance to compare them, so I guess I'll have to take their word for it.

(By the way: usually you'll find a selection of chicken hearts, livers and feet next to the whole ones)

ikan bakar

Today we went to the beach with lots of friends for a swim and some grilled fish. Its about 40 minutes drive from our house. There are other beaches closer, but this is a particularly nice one.

Just a few meters from the water, we parked all of our stuff and set up camp next to this cafe/kiosk.

They had a cooler full of ice and in there they had fresh fish, shrimp and squid

When we had ordered, they fired up the grill

All the guys, from at least 7 different countries

The finished product, served with rice and usually chili sauce, but not for me... I'm sorry, but I still really don't like chili

Before and after the food we swam in nice, warm water. The snorkeling is amazing, its like being inside one of the tropical tanks at an aquarium. 

Here you can see how close our table was to the beach.

Sooo... does anyone want to come and visit?

Alia, our little traveler

Our daughter Alia has had a life on the move...

Since she was born we have lived in 6-7 houses in 3 countries, and even though she's only 2 years old she has flown 46 times and visited 11 countries.

The good thing is that she seem to love it. When we flew back to Asia earlier this year, we had 4 flight connections, and after every single one, she looked at us, and asked "nohh ma?" In her kind of German that means "one more time?" When we said "yes, we still have to fly again," and went to the next gate, she ran around jumping and pointing at the airplanes outside while singing "fyhh!! fyhh!" (It supposed to be "fly," but, hey, close enough for a two year old) 

And also, for a while after we had moved back to AP, she would ask for "fyh" (Airplane, in her version of Norwegian) everytime we left the house.

Also, when we play volleyball on sundays, next to our organizations hangar at the airport, she jumps and screams of joy every time she sees a plane land or take of, or if she gets to go to the hangar and look at the stuff there.

Today I was showing her a map of the world, and...

She pointed at Australia and said "Alia!" with a big smile.

(She also pointed at Saudi Arabia and said "mama"... not quite sure what that means..

Then, later on, when she was allowed to play with the ipad, she immediately opened her travel app, and is now packing virtual suitcases and helping people through security.

Anne and I are just very happy that she doesn't hate traveling, because we are probably still going to be doing a lot of that...

what a day right now looks like

We arrived in our new home city three weeks ago. We have been busy getting our apartment set up and dealing with the effects of all of us adjusting to being back here (which mostly consists of being tired, sweaty and/or grumpy).
This is just going to be a picture dump of what we have been up to.

A 'normal' afternoon might look like this:

 There seem to be an average of 2-4 power cuts a day here (that means no Air conditioning or fans in 35 C heat, food will rot in your fridge, no internet, in some cases no running water etc.) - so having a generator is great. Our friend's generator has been acting up for some time and after trying many different things to fix it we drove it across town to a specialized generator fixing store.

 Driving here is not anything like driving in our home countries 

and it can cause some serious road rage

the generator store

The guys new exactly what was wrong with it, did not even have to unload to fix it

 We also had to drop by the guy who is building some kitchen counters for us since our apartment does not have a real kitchen

 it is still really challenging for us to communicate complicated things like kitchen design in this language - we hope the counters will fit :-)

 Alia was more thrilled to be in the wood shop than it looks like

We also went to look at a car that we possibly might buy.

Thanks to the Norwegian government which gives money to every child born in their country, we can afford to buy a car here, which is great considering that the alternative would be all four of us on a bike with Max not wearing a helmet yet since he cannot even hold up his own head yet. 

Well, thank you, Norway!

"Fishing" and a very cool dinner

Today we saw something that we had heard about, and that was the "fishing" that sometimes goes on in the... well, ditch, quite large ditch, with a strong current, outside our house.

First we noticed a guy pulling some wires around at the side of the road

So, after parking the car, I went back out there to have a look. I asked if i could take some pictures, and the guys had no problems with that.

The wires the one guy had been pulling around were attached to this little generator... do you see where this is going?

Yes, exactly, they had a metal rod they were sticking down into the water, basically zapping the fish so they would float to the surface.

And when that happened, the other guy would catch them with a little net.

Unusual, but effective. I didn't actually see any of the fish they caught, because I had to get ready to go to a dinner we had been invited to.

We had been invited to this couples house. 

This is a family from a village far into the mountains that had the gospel shared to them by people from our organization many, many years ago. They now have a thriving church and have sent out many missionaries of their own. This couple have moved into town to have better access to the material and help they need to do translation work that helps the outreach program going on.

It is so cool to see these guys serving the Lord, and it is an honor to be able to call them our co-workers, and we hope, Lord willing, to someday be able to help them in their work, we just need to get this language study done. Now how is that for motivation to get cracking on new vocabulary?

First couple of weeks in "Hammer Town"

It is now two weeks since we arrived back in this country, and since we started living in our new home town. Literally translated this town is called "Hammer," but its nick-name is "Generator Town" and we have spent our days finding out why that is... since we came here, we have had power cuts twice a day... So we have already gotten used to living our life to the quite boring background music of a benson generator. But I have to say that is worth it, since it is the ply way to keep our fans and air cons running. People in this town say it is very cold when it is 28 Celcius or lower...

Here are some random pictures from our first couple of weeks here:

When you need work benches for your kitchen, you don't go to IKEA, you draw it in great detail

Then you go buy your sink, and have it tied to the back of a motorbike

Take your drawing and sink to a Tukang Kayu (wood worker) at a place that often looks like this, and there you explain for a very, very long time exactly what you want. This guy had a lot of questions, and a few of the questions he asked multiple times to make sure nothing is done wrong. Which we appreciate.

Here you can see part of our new apartment. Alia, Anne and Max are watching Norwegian cartoons.

Jackfruit! Huge, huge fruits! I have heard that they can weigh up to 11-12 kilos...

We are so thankful to the Lord for these two, and the fact that Alia loves Max. She is so sweet and friendly to him.

"Hammer town" is very dry, in fact one of the driest towns in this country. Here's some proof: dessert climate and cactus. 

One of the first days here we went for a walk with some colleagues to a place just outside of town.

One of the other Norwegians in town. He and his family has helped us a lot. Thank you very much!

It is very difficult to find Fanta with orange flavor here. The most common flavor is "stroberi," which is... not great to be honest. The green one is supposed to be... something... must be an acquired taste I think. I still haven't acquired it.

Common sight: cow in the road, making the absolutely crazy traffic just a little more unpredictable.

I know this was quite a random selection of pictures, and we will post some more consistent post soon.

A re-post

Just wanted to post a link to my sister-in-law's blog.
She posted a blog about our family yesterday and it is so beautiful, I thought maybe you are interested in reading it, too.

So eloquent, so nice.... here it is:

http://www.inthefarnorth.com/2015/03/empty-spaces.html