Hva er nakenhet?

Hege i Thailand skriver:

Før vi dro ut til dette landet var jeg nervøs for hvordan det ville være å ha på så mye klær i den varmen som ventet oss. Jeg spøkte litt med thaiene som var så faue at de måtte dekke skuldre og knær. Det er visst like dumt som å vise andre kroppsdeler. Dette gjelder særlig kvinner, og skuldrene er verst.I Phibun hadde vi hus med hage som var ypperlig til soling. Men da var det viktig å låse porten slik at ikke hushjelpen plutselig skulle komme å se oss "naken". For det er sånn det føles nå. Disse "absurde" tankene om å dekke til skuldre og knær har blitt en del av meg. Selv om jeg kan bruke singlet her i Bangkok, skjer det sjelden, og det ville aldri skjedd i Phibun.På hotellet ved kysten i dag, fikk jeg sjokk over hvilke friheter turister faktisk tar seg. En vestlig dame i femtiårene sprader selvsikkert inn i lobbyen, kun iført bikini! En bitteliten bikini som dekker det alle nødvendigste. Av og til lurer jeg på hva thaiene faktisk tenker om oss hvite rike. Blir de vant til disse halvnakne menneskene? Eller er det like pinlig hver gang de ser dem? Det stritter jo helt imot deres kultur.

Dataundervisning på Centre Socio Menager

Helene storkoser seg i Kamerun:

Her underviser vi jenter som aldri før har rørt en datamaskin. Vi har brukt tid på å bli kjent med mus og tastatur. Tenk så fasinerende det egentlig er: at når du flytter musen til høyre, så er det en pil på skjermen som gjør akkurat det samme! Og at du kan trykke på bokstavene på tastaturet, og så kommer både tall og ord opp foran deg. Og ikke minst: at du kan lagre det du skriver, og deretter finne det igjen neste uke!! Moro!
Skolen har nå 5 maskiner, og jentene er veldig ivrige og engasjerte. Jeg storkoser meg hver tirsdag og torsdag på CSM. Utviklingen er enorm! De lærer fort, eller, relativt fort.. Nei, de lærer fort!! De kunne jo ingenting. Og nå kan de masse. Jeg er stolt av jentene på Centre Socio. De er flinke. Det er givende.

Les mer

Skiing

Edson from Brazil says:

I will remember: February, 9th and 10th, 2008. Maybe 21 is a good age to try ski for the first time in life. It was for me! Together with my Norwegian family, I could understand and be introduced to the famous ski.Gullingen (western part of Norway) testified my first experience with ski. The place was whitely covered with snow. Some small hills, some trees without leaves and, luckily, few people are witnesses of those first and funny falls I have experienced by learning how to ski.To start, I walked three hours. The effort is nothing comparing to breathtaking views along the way. While looking and admiring the landscapes, I could relax my legs.Speaking on legs, I need to say: ski is a kind of sport that uses our whole body. From head to toes, everything is important to ensure balance and movement. As a beginner, I can not deny: a soft pain comes the day after in your legs. But it does not prevent you of accepting one more time in order to experience another kind of ski.That’s what happened: I tried “slalåm” (in Norwegian) that means “downhill ski”. We use different equipments: shoes and skies are specials for this mode. To me, it is not possible to try downhill without an instructor. And, thanks God, I had one. When I got up in the mountain I asked him: “Wow! Do we need to take this slippery way to get down?”. With his instructions, bit for bit, I could go down slowly. When the speed increased and I could not manage to reduce, my solution was to sit down.Normally, it takes less than one minute to go downhill. I can remember a little boy – about 9 years-old – passed by me three times. My first experience with downhill took around 10 minutes to get back down from the hill. Is this a record in the sport?Surely, it was remarkable

The power of the white human being

Inki in Madagascar tells a funny story, meeting the police in Madagascar:

We are white. It is so obvious. As if it wasn’t enough getting glances and comments on the streets because our skin colour is so noticeable, the police have to stop us too. One Saturday Eline and I got to borrow the Norwegians’ car. We were so ready for a road trip to Ambositra (1 hour North), where we would buy each other birthday presents and have a nice restaurant meal. It was a long time since we’d driven a car, so we were quite nervous and very excited.When we were driving home from Ambositra, we got pulled over by the police. This isn’t just peanuts, because in Madagascar the police have huge rifles on their back. You have to fear them for them to get respect… As it was my turn to sit behind the wheel, I was quite nervous as I rolled down the window.this is a nice road in Madagascar!“Salama tompoko,” I said politely and smiled. Could he see that I was nervous? Apparently he didn’t care. He had stopped us for private reasons. After having flattered us with compliments about our appearances – and found out we teach English – he explained that he’d like to learn too. Trying to impress us with the knowledge he already had, he said “I love you” and hoped for a positive answer. What to do?! He was the police, so I had to act in a proper way. Eline and I couldn’t help but laugh – and that saved us from the awkward moment. At the end he asked me for my driver license, indicating it was ok if I had left it at home. After having seen my name and the date of birth, he used the information to get to know me better. Luckily we got away soon enough. “See you, mademoiselle Swan,” he said at last. Well, we’ll see about that…We had to be stopped twice again by different police on our way back. These smelled of alcohol and had the same purpose as the other one, but we got away safely and somehow managed to avoid giving them our number…

Read more about Inki's experiences

Infield in Thailand and Brazil

Gunhild in Brazil says:

(...) Men jeg hadde det utrolig fint i Rio. Var kjempe koslig aa treffe Synnove, Kjetil, Agnar og Oystein igjen. Det aa vare litt norsk igjen var deilig!! (.....)

Miriam in Thailand says:

Last week we had visitors. Inger Johanne and Monika, our teachers at Hald, came and had a course for the Hald students from Thailand, Laos and Serbia. It was great to see both the teachers and the other students again. We did a lot of serious work like evaluating our stay so far and making goals for the rest of the stay.
However we had much sparetime too. Elephant tracking was one of the things we did.

22 22 63 71

Yaoundé er hovedstaden i Kamerun. I Yaoundé ligger det et trivelig hotell. Det hotellet heter Hotel Tango. Oslo er hovedstaden i Norge. I Oslo ligger det et trivelig bakeri. Det bakeriet heter Baker Hansen. Hva har Hotel Tango i Yaoundé og Baker Hansen i Vogts Gate 68 i Oslo til felles bortsett fra at det er to trivelige steder plassert i hver sin hovedstad?? Ja, nå kan du lure nå...
Men det har seg nemlig slik at de har det samme telefonnummeret! Tro det eller ei.Tlf nr. til Hotel Tango er nemlig 22 22 63 71, og det er det sannelig til Baker Hansen i Vogts Gate også. Snakker om sammentreff. Så nå er det bare å slå på trå’n :)

Hentet fra Helene's blog

Brown Cheese

Reflection of today by Glad:

It's cheese but brown. Well just like how it's called. The norwegian people, they think, or they say it's sweet. And maybe some international people, but hehe, I think it's kinda in between sweet and salt. Anyway, I wanted to through up when I first tasted it, a few months ago, but now, seems like I cannot eat breakfast without it, what a spell!!!!!!

Read Glad's blog