frozen and fever

Alia has been sick on and off for the last two weeks. Her fever comes and goes as it pleases which sure is unpleasant for her and us.

The Medicine that she much prefers to paracetamol is watching "Frozen" and getting to drink her favorite vitamin C juice. 

we went to have some blood tests done and they found out that her white blood cell count is higher than it is supposed to be...

We are praying that it is 'just' a normal virus and that she will be healthier soon. 

play group

Every other Thursday Alia and I get a special treat.

We get to go to play group together. This is a group of mommies and their little ones and we we have story time, crafts, games, a snack or what not.

It is so nice to hang out with people who are 'in the same boat' as us and understand the challenges and joys of cross-cultural living. 

Today was a partly princess themed - right up Alia's alley.

Afterwards games and snack in the 'pool'.

What a treat!

Where does chocolate come from?

These days I seem to be needing more chocolate than other days... I do think my chocolate intake is higher than the average anyways, but it is my No. 1 comfort food these days and for some reason (like transitioning, little sleep, language study) my need for comfort is high right now.

Anyways... the other day our neighbor told me that her husband had gone to pick up chocolate and they were going dry it and then sell it to buyers who then again sell it to a chocolate factory on another island.
I got all excited, imagining our front yard smelling amazing and me even getting to try some of the chocolate?

Well, two days ago our neighbors were laying, what looked like nuts, outside on mats to dry.

Much to my disappointment, chocolate beans that are drying do NOT smell the same as chocolate that we buy in the store. It is actually not a nice smell at all, weirdly enough it reminds me of when Max sweats - same smell - true story - no idea why.

  Did you know that this is were chocolate comes from? I didn't. Learning something new every day.

On a different note, we know we have been very bad at updating this blog lately, but we will try to go back to what we used to do, when it was usually just a short blogpost with one picture every day (if internet permits us).

Batu akik

Almost anywhere you go here in our home town, and I have been told its the same in the whole country, you'll find gem stone markets. It is extremely popular to wear rings or necklaces with anything from normal stones, to quite expensive precious stones.

So to see what this is all about, a couple of friends and I went to have a look.

A guy selling uncut stones 

Both sides of this street was full of gem stone stores

Here's fossilized coral stones

A guy cutting stones with a table saw

More uncut stones

Right in the middle of the stone market, a guy was selling baby rabbits...

Mr. D and Kris checking the quality of a pink ruby

One guy had a few rings where he had simply put a whole, uncut stone on a ring

The fake plastic stuff

What I bought: a small, very cheap ring for Alia, that she already lost... and a fossilized coral ring for me.

I don't think I'll be wearing it much to be honest...

-e-

17th of May in the tropics

The 17th of May is the national day of Norway, and is, as far as i know, one of the most celebrated national days in the world. In every town, and in every village there's a place where people gather to celebrate. Everyone dresses up in their national costumes, best suits or dress, get out their Norwegian flags and celebrate the whole day.

17th of May is actually not Norway's independence day, but it is our constitution day. This year was the 201st 17th of May celebration, even though Norway has only been independent, in modern times, for 110 years.

Norwegians abroad usually celebrate the national day too, I have heard about 17th of May celebrations taking place anywhere from Seattle in the west to Bandar Seri Begawan in the east, so with these things in mind, we Norwegians here (there's 8 + 2 of us here (the +2 are not Norwegian citizens, but they are mothers of Norwegian citizens, and that basically makes them Norwegians, right?) in "Hammertown" decided to get together, and following are some pictures of our celebration

We didn't have a flag pole.... :-S

The weather is usually so bad that it rains sideways on the 17th of May and by now we are so used to it that we just consider it part of the tradition. But here in AP, we had 32 celsius, no rain and no wind.

Good barbecue weather, in other words.

After a while it was just to hot outside, so we moved into the air-conditioned house.

Norwegian (looking) cakes!! They were goooood!

Max' first 17th of May. He didn't get it...

But he liked getting attention

The kids, in their red, white and blue clothes.

Games for the kids is usually a big part of the celebration, the best we could do was let them jump on the trampoline.

All in all it was great to spend a day reminding our selves that we come from that strange, little country in the far north. Even though Norwegians are experts in complaining about our own country, when we live somewhere else, we get all nostalgic and sentimental about it.... 

If you want to read some more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_Constitution_Day

And I also just found out that the 17th of May s also the constitution day of the Republic of Nauru.

We learn something new every day...

Nasi kuning

A couple of days ago our car needed to go to the garage to have a part changed and on the way back Alia, our friend that helped us get back home and I stopped at a warung (small cafe/shop) to eat what is in this town a traditional breakfast.

Nasi kuning means yellow rice, and I guess the name needs no explanation since the rice is yellow...

It comes with a pickled egg, a chicken leg and what is best explaied as shredded beef.

First you wash your hands in the little bowl of water that is provided with each meal

And then you decide to eat with cutlery or to just dig in with your fingers.

Its a nice little meal, and since I like meat for breakfast, I liked this. 

Anne prefers bread with nutella... there's unfortunately no warung that sells that here though...

It is now officially less likely that we'll get killed in traffic!!!

Which means: We bought a car!

First we had to transfer US dollars from our Norwegian bank account to our friends account here in AP. So basically we had to buy dollars with our kroner, and then use those to buy rp here.

Then we went to the bank, and got it all in cash

Its the first time I have been holding that many millions in my hand

When we got to the sellers place, they wanted to count it... we sat there for quite a while watching them trying to count many hundreds on banknotes, before...

...a clever employee (who deserves a raise for this) brought them their counting machine. The machine counted everything in a minute or two, and probably saved us an hours wait.

When the counting was over, the seller probably felt rich and I felt broke, but very happy to have a car because traffic in this town is absolutely insane!
Every single day we see things happening which is just pure luck does not end in a death. Driving on the wrong side of the road is very normal, kids think it is cool to drive their bikes with the lights turned off at night, stopping at red lights seem optional, cars only stop for bikes if not doing so ends in a horrific accident, vehicles in the left lane who are blinking left might actually turn to the right right in front of you, and so on... 

I actually to some degree enjoy the slightly organized chaos type traffic, but sometimes it is just plain dangerous.

 So we decided, and I assume most people understand, driving around town on a motorbike with four people on it was not the way to go, especially since two of those people would be our kids... hence that, we introduce the Toyota Kijang!

For those who couldn't care less about cars; here's a cute picture of Max