the classroom which is actually a church

Steven Banda goin thru safe sports

The devilish plan

the volunteers

the bush

Camp Chris, a 1 persons tent with a 4 persons top cover and broken poles. thank you RN for equipment control.

groupwork while the weathergods prepare for war

inserted myself, too curious to take pictures

teamwork at safesports theme

yeah, while certain people try to make contact with the world

never hurts with a smart woman on the team

Lawrence and Favorite under the hanging tree

Making brainstorming in the sweet sweet shade

sometimes the boys need to step up and make sure dinner is on time while the ladies chill in the background

another example of the boys stepping up, and the ladies overseeing

the witch's cauldron

Nshima in the making

work iiit

this little critter came to say hello while i was chilling on my madrass after lunch.

Steven enjoying sausage icecream

jumping games for kids athletics

the ladies bringing the bounce

about to knock himself out this one

crowded

the school = chikolo

some laundry, african style

Clement Nkoma, the funniest volunteer ive ever met.

gasolinedog

nice to know

getting ready for nightly entertainment

the kids love visits

Shutterbug Amon

entertainment is on, this nights movie was madagascar 3

getting down with the locals, and enjoying some dinner

SWOT groupwork (strengts,weaknesses,opportunities, threats)

the ladies getting a hand from the YSEP volunteer Annie for SWOT

Panorama from the classroom

classroom, church, who cares.

The volunteers eagerly paying attention

enjoying my pineapple youghurt

Busy Busy

So this week i have been in the village of Buiketo for Volunteer Orientation Workshop. So the point here is to empower and educate our village representatives that work as volunteers for Response Network.
The subjects were safe sports, kids athletics, sportsprogram, facilitation tips, practical facilitation, edumove, RN policies, roles and feedback of volunteers.
So safely to say it was an eventful week, that went by way too fast. I had a lot of fun, but not without challenges, language barriers and culturally dominant volunteers.

I seemed to when holding the recap for the day before, to forget the morning prayer. I was told once, but didn’t really understand, and suddenly it HIT me, and i was thinking OH SHIT! I played the “Norwegian” card and said that i wasn’t used to this and apologized deeply, and soon figured out that everyone was laughing, so obviously there was no hard feelings.

I don’t really have a good record when it comes to prayers, Once i was forced to hold a prayer in woodlands, and it ended up in me being given a harsh talking to because i didn’t close my eyes when saying the prayer. I did the prayer in Norwegian since i am not a Christian or religious person, and this way they can’t arrest me for cheating my way thru a prayer. So i talked my way thru it by adding some spice in the form of lyrics from some kids songs i remembered spontaneously, some words from saying grace at my buddys house when i was a kid, and i actually attended a Christian conformational camp before getting confirmated, since our familys roots are Christian, but in reality we have no ties or affiliations to Christianity. So i stole some words from what i was forced to learn there, this includes again some words from Jahn Teigen’s “tenke sjæl” (think yourself) and some salms that stuck to my brain from a wedding i attended once, only reason i remember the words from the salms is because i converted them into a story that ended in an explicit movie scene with a slightly religious start, but unreligious ending. Jahn Teigen is/was a famous Norwegian singer in the 90’s, and his face looks like it went thru a meat grinder according to my grandmother.

Another situation this week was that Annie saved me from holding a prayer by saying : NO, not Christian, we as facilitators are here to facilitate, not to hold prayers, when the volunteers simultaneously demanded me to hold the prayer. They accepted this without any further discussion since when Annie says something, that word is law. So i was MOST grateful since my prayerholding record is shady, and it will give them the wrong impression of me, because they need to understand that i respect their culture, but i will not do something i do not feel comfortable with for reasons i won’t mention, and going into this conversation with them about religious views will be a Pandoras box, once you open you can never close it. So in more ways than one she saved my ass! And i am in debt for a long time for that epic save, because i think she saw the panic and the pure fear in my eyes when everybody turned around since i was sitting on the bench in the back. they looked at me and expected me to rock that prayer. So thank you Annie, for that chivalrous save when i was scared out of my mind, it won’t be forgotten.

After the recap i was going to say that the day after tomorrow we are going to do Kids Athletics workshop, and i will be your facilitator. What happened in this situation is that the word for tomorrow in Chitonga(one African language) is “Jonza”. So in an effort to say “ the day after tomorrow” i decided to instead of saying that in English i went for the spicy version and said “Double jonza” instead, yeah, like a mix. And they went ballistic with laughter! They almost fell of their wooden planks(yes we sit on planks). So that’s a thing now, that its not the day after tomorrow, but instead “double Jonza”, and is used frequently to describe the day that comes after tomorrow.

A fun fact i learned when my fellow volunteer Annie asked me why i don’t shave my armpits, is that in Africa the women shave the man’s armpits as a part of tradition and culture. But another thing they do or shave if you will (and some are probably catching on by now) is actually the man’s valuables, or Christmas decorations, ah, there’s many names for better or for worse. In Chitonga they say Ntoni, which means penis. I don’t know if its tonga or Nyanga, but theres also the word Muziko. They say that it makes for, and shows more love. My opinion is that this is risky business! You need to make sure this women is having a GOOD day! She is sitting with all the power in this situation, and i mean that in more ways than one. Shiiit shes controlling your future and your babymaking abilities and opportunities with a ultrasharp razorblade! Trust me, the day before would be very similar to valentines day if i have anything to say.

Some other cultural fascinations is that you are not allowed to hug your parents, no matter if you are a boy or a girl. You will find going to the villages escpacially, but also in the city’s that there is a very formal way of doing things. If a daughter hands the father something she will hold her elbow with her left hand and give with the right hand while she curtsies, and she will do this every time. (never receive or give something with your left hand, always the right! Eventhough i have broken this rule many times by accident, i think i have never been punished because of the color of my skin, and that they assume i don’t know the culture, and therefore give me a get out of jail free card automatically).

Another fun fact is that you are not allowed to be in the same swimming pool as your inlaws. And if your inlaw(s) is walking down the road its very usual to see the person JUMPING into the bush, or start running straight into the bush, and no this is not because they think “ oh shit, fucking inlaw”, as a matter of fact it’s the quite opposite( at least most of the times ive been told). They do this to give way for the inlaw, as a sign of respect!
If your inlaw is in the workshop you are facilitating, then its common curtesy not to talk to her, because she is your inlaw. Fascinating huh? I love this stuff, and especially the one about the woman shaving the man’s Rottweiler (or whatever you wanna call it).

Christmas Eve Shave

I was roadtrippin with Lars and Kris up the east coast of south Africa when we came to a shopping Mall in Plettenberg. Where i in the last minute Christmas chaos decided to force Kris and Lars to wait while i had a shave with an oldfashioned barbers knife. Yes the flashbacks of the movies “Edward scissorhands” and “Sweeney Todd, the demon barber of fleet street” were fresh in my mind. And this guy he was, well lets say he was eccentric, and i was ambivalent in my first impression and affection towards him.
While sitting in the chair, he without really have said anything uptil now, suddenlys asks me:

Him: do you smoke weed?

Me: aaah, no ii don’t.

Him: oh ok, you look like a guy that smokes weed

Me: uh ok, thank you *whispering “i gueess” *giving awkward smile*trying not to get my throat sliced over*

Him: i used to smoke weed, but my girlfriend made me quit, she told me to choose between smoking ganja and her, so now i only smoke sometimes. And im going to my inlaws for for Christmas dinner, she always makes me eat to much, can you tell?

Me: thinking: "this is. So. Weird". me saying: huh? Uuh, no, you look GREAT! (while im thinking: AAAAAAAAAAAHHHH im going to DIIEEEE). uhuhuhuuu*crying on the inside* Ok you’re in trouble, keep smiling, shit that’s not a good idea either, sudden facialexpressionchanges is not advised, literally BAD when someone is holding a jugular sized machete to your main arterie and windpipe. Rapid movements and ultrasharp objects do NOT correlate.

Several times during that short time and shave, that felt like hours in a sweat box i thought : “this is it, this is how it ends”. But it turned out that this guy was good! But strangely enough he told me that he hadn’t had a shaving customer for the whole of December. And this he tells me afterwards of course! This is in retrospect something i am happy about, had he done preshave, then i i would have shit myself.
Lars and Kris i think were expecting bloodgashing everywhere and me doing the headless chickendance in that barberchair, while they were enjoying a cup of coffee and the horrorshow. But alls well that ends well. And it’s the closest shave i have ever had, and kept me well styled and looking smooth until late January.

In other hands, we have had try outs for YSEP program, interview and practicals. And let me tell you, there are some good participants, and there are some BAAAD participants, and names shall never be mentioned, but you got to see the humor in certain things. There was one participant that actually said that it wouldn’t be a problem going to Norway eventhough he didn’t speak any English, so we asked him if he knew Norwegian, no he didn’t, but he knew sign language, so he would be FINE! Needless to say our reaction was that we saved our roaring laughter until he was finished with the interview and had left the room before we released it. Selfinsight (introspection according to google translate) is something they do not possess in large amounts i am afraid, but who does really? But it makes for a good story. The same person performed unsatisfactory, so the schematic that was rated: fair, good, very good, excellent, had to get a new column im afraid. So i scribbled a new one marked BAD. I know, its not nice, but come on! When you go thru 20 questions and youre not even able to understand the questions, and much less answer them, then youre not gonna score excellent are you! Quite the opposite actually, but hey, good try.

Another fascinating thing is how superstitious they can be.
One of the reasons that came up on the workshop i was on for child molesting was that sometimes to get rid of poverty, which is a huge problem in the rural areas, a witchdoctor may tell you that to get rid of this “CURSE”, yes curse! You need to sleep with a small child, and then the curse will be gone forever, and you will no longer live in poverty.

I got tons of stories like this! You want one more?

In my village there is a kid, he’s about 15 years old i think and he’s name is Junior. I met this kid, and i love him, he’s just cool, and gets to you. But unfortunately he is disabled, because on top of having cerebral palsy, he has epilepsy. So not too long ago there was some villagers that tried to kill junior ( im not joking!) because of his epilepsy! They said that he was possessed by a demon, and that he needed to die! This shocked me into my very core. But my father(African father) is an educated man, and aslo a headman in our village, and was able to calm the situation down, come to the rescue of junior and explain that this is a medical disorder, and has nothing to do with witchcraft or demons. So he is still alive fortunately!

I got more!

In a village not far from ours, there was a family, and the son in the family, he killed his father, because the father had started doing witchcraft, like doing spells, chanting, sacrificing animals in rituals, voodoo stuff you know! So the son he actually stabbed his father to death in broad daylight at their house because of this. So its still a lot of ignorance related to this subject around in rural areas, unless you that’s reading this believe in this kind of thing! Who am i to mock your perspective and religion. I myself do not believe, but if you do then maybe you can relate to the son, i don’t know. Its up to you.

OOH! This is a good one! I call it the Lake of mystery.

Theres a guy in Zambia, that has his own marijuana farm! Its in the forest, since growing marijuana is illegal! But the thing is that its situated close to a lake this potfarm. And since they are so superstitious, he has found the perfect cure for people nozing about his private ganjabusiness. He has created a rumor that in the lake there is a mermaid. And i kid you NOT, this is FACT! There are NO locals, i mean NO ONE, that goes there, not even the POLICE!! They are scared SHITLESS!!! So this guy grows in peace and has a good time all the time, haha. Well done son! That’s all i can say.

Language barriers: Amon was holding a workshop in buiketo and i was slippin in and out of attention, and suddenly i heard something that got me to wake up abruptly. It sounded like he was saying: “ you have this fucking shit in your head”. I thought: “ what tha hell?? You cant fucking say that in a workshop Amon”! BUT, as it turns out, i have totally misheard, like i do very often. What he said was : “you have this fact sheet in your head”, and he was talking about our general program. So it wasn’t as serious as earlier anticipated, but it makes for a funny story though.

a scary håkon trying to explain he's wet

unsatisfied with being wet, uhm borderline panic actually

håkon ripped one of the bars out of the fence #nomoreworkoutsneeded

Photosession in the gorge, Håkon trying to make me his dinner

the happy drummer and hungry hunter scenario

aaah, the roles have chaaanged.

macho macho man

thank you a million times Uncle and Antie for the supplies from Norway! Yum yum

The falls

the classic use what you have trick, when it comes to taking photos.

the falls in all its pride

oops, bootyslip ( it happens)

the falls looking awesome

loosing the horsecompetition means business. here is nico helping himself to håkons goodies

playing horse in the pooring rain

he electricity went out the second arsenal started playing, so nico had to turn to meditation not to rip the tv off the wall and throw it in the pool. håkon is obviously also a little disappointed, or nauseous, i cant tell.

storm

getting some help with the frontlight equipment

some just dont care if its bad weather, you love swimming, you love swimming! its that easy.

clearly bumed about the electricity

a little tipsy on wine and brandy in stellenbosch in south africa

siggen rocking the backwheel on the bicycle

how does he DO that?

very disappointed when theres no basket in front of the bicycle we are renting for our winetour. # Pirlo & Gattuso

yeaaah its a party! # hadtoomuch?

oldschoolstyle winetour with the boys

the crew

#drunk & hungry

catching up on some much needed sleep

enjoying wine tour

shit were lost, or is he just stopping for a chocolatebar?

PORKBELLY!

mmmm

yummyyyyy

Ernie Els wineyard!

the longest way EVER from the gate to the actual wineyard...my GOD. here is Tangotrond ultimately satisfies with finishing the unhuman stretch up the hill to the winyard.

heading in to the castle for some much needed academic blood( red wine) when we bicycled us from a bloodpercentage of 1 down to 0.7 (critically low alcoholcontent in the blood at this point)