Packages

Last week we got some exciting news. Usually the post will send packages straight to our house, but for some reason they stopped doing so a few months ago without telling us about it.

So somehow we found out last week that there were 3(!) packages waiting for us at the post office.

They came on a day we really needed some encouragement so the Lord timed it perfectly.

Our co-workers who are currently back in Norway blessed us with some awesome stuff.

Pretty clothes for the kids, special sweets, cute decorations and...

... lots of licorice for Erlend (he was THRILLED!)

 Alia, Kila and Elisabeth where excited about the special candy necklaces

A sweet family from our church in Germany also sent us a package with a lot of good quality, cute clothes  that their son has out grown. Max fits into most of them already. 

Vielen Dank, Richters!

I am not trying to say that you should send us a package (not saying that you shouldn't either :-)), but if you want to be an encouragement to somebody who works overseas, why not ask them what food or things they are missing from home, put them in a box and send them their way. What an easy way to make somebodies day.

Looking at the town surroundings

A couple of days ago, we decided to go for a drive out of town, just to see something else.

On our little trip we found a few interesting things

Alia standing on a piece of cultural heritage (explanation below next picture)

Far out of town, up in the hills, we stumbled across a open field with, I think, 6 large rocks.

Each one had one single perfectly shaped hole in them. 

Next to them was a sign that explained that this was a protected cultural heritage site, and that the fines for damaging them is pretty hefty.

But there was no explanation to what it was, and so far, everyone we have asked about it have no clue either.

The town we live in is located in the bottom of a bay, and there is a mountain range both on the peninsula west of town, and also on the mainland east of town. Because of this, all clouds get stuck in the mountains, and we can see rain up there at least once a week, but down in the town, it almost never rains. probably only 5-6 times this year, so far.

Because of that, up in the hills we have palm trees, and lush rice fields like in this picture, but down on the plain and in town...

...we only have dust, dry grass, shrubbery and cactus.

We also came across this house... Bright pink, neon green, orange, and red. And people say the houses in Norway are colorful...

These small bridges are quite common outside of town. Better to balance across a slippery log then to walk to the next real bridge 

crazy days

This is an attempt to write down all the things that happened during the last week and especially 24 hours.

On Friday we came back from an exhausting trip to the capital. We had to renew Alia's passport, not because it expired but because she had no empty pages left. (not a typical problem of a two year old).

Since both parents have to be present when applying for a child's passport both Erlend and I had to go and since Max did not want to stay home alone, he came along, too :-).

Both kids had come down with fevers before we started traveling and while Alia got over it in a couple of days, Max added projectile vomiting and 24/7 whining into the mix... oh the joys of traveling with young kids.... 

We found out later that most of his behavior was because of the arrival his first tooth. (if every tooth means a week like last week, my every day coffee and painkiller intake will increase drastically).

A few days ago we found out that our co-workers have to return to their home country, due to medical issues. (this is already the second family we see leaving since we came to this region 8 months ago).

We are very sad about the news, for the family who we will miss and the hole they are leaving in our team.

Yesterday our bank card stopped working which is not a good thing, considering that it is our main source of cash. Then I got messages from other European co-workers who also work here, telling me that their cards also didn't work. Great, nothing like not having cash in a foreign country!

Around the same time I got a message telling me that my friend and language helper had a motorbike accident and hurt her arm.

I was supposed to pick up a German family (they are visiting their relatives here) from the airport last night and two hours later another friend. 

As I was about to head out the door, we got a phone call, telling us that the house, all of those people I was supposed to pick up, were going to stay in that night, had been broken into and some things were stolen, so nobody could stay at that house.

Since the guesthouse was full I had to find a hotel they could stay at (which is hard, when no credit cards are working).

Then the other friend (the one I was supposed to pick up from the airport later that night) called me saying that she was considering not getting on the plane since her tooth was hurting (no dentist in our city), and if I could try to get a dentist appointment and book a room for her in the city she was in, but please all of that within the next 10 minutes since she was about the board a plane. 

Then Max started crying and threw up his bed while I was on the phone with the dentist (first call with medical personal in the national language, yay for me!)

During all of this, Erlend was trying to help out with the communication between the guys dealing with the break in, and the foreigner that rents the house. Because he is in his home country right now, it was very hard to find out what was stolen, since nobody really knew what was in the house to start with.

I got the appointment and room booked for our friend and called her back. She had already boarded the plane but got back off so that she can have her tooth fixed today.

Confused? Yes, I was, too.

Aaaanyways, I hurried to pick up the family from the airport. I had never met them before, but I was the only Whitie, picking up the only Whities coming of the plane. Easy!

12 hours later I proudly report that 

- we got the German family settled for the night (and managed to find a card to pay for the room) and this morning on to their final destination, 

- my friend with the tooth ache is at the dentist right now, 

- Erlend is out trying to fix the credit card problem, 

- we are working on finding out what was stolen from the house, 

- and also working on helping my friend with the hurt arm....

Appropriate t-shirts

We went into town to have a new passport photo taken of Alia, and while waiting for it to be developed, we decided to go down the street to a new store we had noticed the day before.

The store is a travelagent-candy-souvernir store, and they have a lot of cool t-shirts.

When we saw the ones in the picture, we just had to have them, because they describe life here for us very well lately...

the normal, the milestones and the waffles

We have not blogged in a while for several reasons, which are total sleep deprivation, bad internet, the feeling that nothing exciting is happening... only to name a few.

But Erlend encouraged me yesterday to just write about the everyday life things that are happening.

We are deep in language study and seem to have hit a 'aaaahhh, why don't we see progress'-stretch (which is usually happening right before you can notice progress).
So nothing new with us, but the kids have hit some major milestones.

Alia is officially potty trained and I never thought I could be so excited about somebody using the (sometimes extremely questionable, public) bathroom.
There were a week and a half of frustration but once we figured out that Alia just wants some privacy when she is using the toilet (who can blame her, right?), things have been smooth sailing.

Our firstborn is learning new words daily. I think she is adding one to each language (all four of them) each day at least. What a drooper!

Many of you know that Max has been sleeping very badly over the last 4 months and we came to a point where we could not take it anymore and tried the (controversial) crying out method.
He seems to respond to it quite well and we have gone from screaming for an hour to only 10 minutes and from waking up 20 times a night to one or two times.

Another big thing in Max's life - he got is first (really bad) haircut. I didn't realize how hard it is to cut a little boy's hair who will not sit still for one second.

Oh, yes, and he is crawling, pulling himself up and almost standing unsupported.

 Celebrating potty training and a bad first haircut with our favorite treat - waffles!

Opa, Bali and Independence Day

Internet has been horrible lately so here just a few pictures to sum up the last month.

Opa came for a short visit, which we were all thrilled about.

We hope that he got a good look into our every day life, the good, the bad and the sweaty parts of it.

And he brought lots of goodies from Germany, it was like Christmas and our birthdays all in one day!

(Danke an alle, die etwas mitgeschickt haben, ihr wisst, wer ihr seid!)

Erlend had to go to Bali for a week attending a security seminar.

We all got to come along, even Opa for a couple of days.

It is definitely a place we want to come back to, 

when Erlend does not have to sit inside for training 9 hours a day.

Alia was excited to finally be on a plane again.

Since we have moved here has been the longest stretch in her life without traveling (6 months).

Our home town from above.

 Just a few days after we came back, our host country celebrated their independence day and we went to a flag raising ceremony. 

Looooots of people wanted to take pictures and the Junior High School students in this picture tried to practice their English.

 Alia thought these soldiers were pretty cool.

But they had a hard time standing still, not look or chuckle at the white girl who spontaneously broke out into dance when they played the national anthem :-).

Wow.... it's been long since we posted a blog

...But there are reasons!

We have been gone for over a week, we have had guests, and last, but definitely not least: our internet connection has been horrendous...

But! there is a blogpost on the way with pictures of Opa's visit and our trip to Bali, so don't give up on us yet... please