weddings and play parks

Right now we have what they call wedding season here. A lot of people get married these days before in about a week, the month of fasting starts.

Yesterday we went to one of those weddings in our neighborhood. Often their is not a formal invitation, but you are still expected to show up. You will notice that there is a wedding going on by lots of people heading in the same direction, all dressed up in their finest clothes. And if you don't see that, there is always the unmistakable loud blast of traditional music that you can still hear even if you live several blocks away.

 Bride and groom enter (about 2 hours after everybody came)

 sorry, it is hard to see, but this is when the parents (one set of them) blesses the couple who is kneeling before them - I like that

 Lots of singing, this lady had some kind of comedy dialog with the MC-guy, and I did not understand a lot of it (because it was in the local language, not the trade language we are studying) but I am pretty sure they made fun of us (Erlend, Alia and I were the only white people there)

 This is how they make it SO loud, and that is only one of the set of the speakers

 Food being past out after the ceremony - rice and goat meat

 We were not sure how long the wedding was going to last, but after people ate, almost everybody got up at the same time and home we all went.

 Some other things that have happened in our neighborhood lately, 

this is just outside our house - a rooster fight

 the neighbor kids hanging out, coloring. Alia loves when they come around.

Hanging out with my friend Ibu Dati, while she colored the hair of several people. Just black, to cover up the grey ones. Maybe one of the reasons why people look so young here. They other day, I was 10 years off when guessing the age of my friend and I was not trying to flatter her. I thought she was about 35 - she is 46 years old !!!

 We had a very nice family date together when we went to a little play park, where Alia got to ride a horse. I think for now, she actually prefers petting and pointing at the horses to riding them.

There was also a little pool that was too deep and cold for Alia to play in but she was happy enough to splash around in the water that came over the side of the pool.

outing

First let me apologize for the lack of blogging on my part during the last few weeks. I have no real excuse besides being busy with language study and throwing up and when I did not do either of those two things, I was so tired I took a nap.

Thankfully my energy has come back and I don't feel sick all day anymore. According to an ultrasound the baby is 12 weeks old and everything looks fine - Praise the Lord!

Last week our neighbors asked us and two other western families if we wanted to go on an outing with them - a park outside the city. Of course we did!

 everybody brought some snacks and we enjoyed a rather mild Sunday afternoon

 The guys played some football, being inspired by the upcoming world cup

 Alia found a dog (yes, that is a dog, the backside of it :-))

 Our neighbors son found a very tame bird

We all really enjoyed ourselves!