København / Copenhagen September 2013!

In the end of September the classes at the Art and crafts course at the University of Agder went on a study-trip to Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark.

I travelled together with a beautiful girl named Marte, who I go to uni with. Ever since the first day we met in class we have been inseparable. We stayed at a hostel right in the outskirts of the city centre together, where we spent our nights sitting and talking in the common room, bonding over some good candy and sodas! It was so great to get to know her some more! And I'm looking forward to get to know her even more during the next few years together throughout the bachelor program!

Marte at the exhibition of art by Yoko Ono

We had some free time the first night we were there and we went in to the part of the city were the law is not that strongly followed so to say.. Christiania is a place where cameras are not allowed and the art of graffiti is widely used to decorate the streets. There are approximately 900 people living there and many more visit the place daily.
The streets in there reminded me of the streets of Ngaoudéré, with stands and shops looking out into the gravelled streets and fires crackling in big barrels to warm the visitors in the small cafés and restaurants.

The trip lasted 5 days and we were all obliged to attend. However the trip was quite fun! And we got to see a lot of cool sculptures, paintings, performance pieces and alternative art there.
We visited several museums and there we got to see sculptures,pictures and paintings done by several well known artists like Pablo Picasso, Frida Kahlo and Edvard Munch!

A painting at an exhibition at Rådhuset

Lis Nogel, Gennembrydning

Idyllic garden by one of the museums

One cool sculpture!

Frida Kahlo by Frida Kahlo

Classmates at the museum

Glass with Lemon Slice, Pablo Picasso

Statens Museum for Kunst

It was a great trip!

Johanne Teresie

Springterm at Hald!

Since we came back from our internship places we have been spending the last 8 weeks together at Hald.
It has been a great time with allot of humour, hugs, excitement, information work, and interesting classes in the Big Hall.

The first week back we had alone with the Norwegian Focus and Connect students, it was a great debriefing week. I remember I was so glad to come to Hald as I was not so prepared to be home at my parents' house for the first weekend. The second week the internationals came back and we got some time before the Act Nowers came back as well.
The time left at Hald this spring was spent preparing for the different theme nights: Asian and Serbian night, South American night and African night. And also the Hald-day had to be planned carefully.One weekend in the beginning of the course we had a weekend together with just the Connectors, and it really brought us closer to each other and I'm really grateful to them for making it an amazing weekend!
We also had allot of time off to spend together. So we played cards and watched films and series on the big screens in the Big Hall. Me and Gregory, the one year volunteer from Brazil, decided that it was time to renew the boardgames at Hald so we went down town in Mandal one afternoon and searched, and came back with a Ticket to Ride game and a Settlers game. And it was a hit! Everybody were playing them all the time after that! And I love the games!

On 17th of May there was allot of activity at Hald. There were many girls with bunad - Norwegian national clothes, and all the boys were suited up. We watched the childrens parade, ate allot of ice cream and ate hamburgers and hot dogs for lunch. We had activities around the school which involved dancing, throwing balls on cans, running with potatoes, and jumping in bags races! It was really fun! We also joined "Folketoget"- commoners parade, where we danced, drove the Strømme Stiftelsen car (a sheep) and played drums. We won the first place with a prise of 1500 kr!! That was amazing!

When the information week started the students spread all around Norway. As we did not leave until the Saturday I spent some hours watching "How I met your mother" with Gregory in the Big Hall while we ate some ice cream from 17th of May. I went to visit Sara-Jeanette in Asker together with JP, Sophie and Henry on the Saturday. There we did some information work about Cameroon with presentations in the schools which her sisters attend. We also had a Cameroon night with some of my friends in Arendal and enjoyed a weekend of summer there.

The two and a half weeks of school after that went by so fast, first we had preparation for the Hald-day then we had the African night, where we all went to the beach where we sat on the sand and all the Africans (Norwegians and international) had made food and prepared a role play for all the others. It was a great night! I had allot of fun!

On the 9th of June many of the students went into Kristiansand and had a stunt there with outfits and placards to get the people aware of the different people in the world and that we should all see each other and care about each other. There were many people who stopped and cared and thanked us for the job we were doing.

On the 13th of June it was time for the Graduation party and the last night we had together. We had a nice dinner together and Åsmund and Namphueng were leading the night with entertainment, speeches and coffee and cakes breaks. It was a wonderful ending to a fabulous year! I will never forget it!



This has truthfully been the best year of my life! I will carry it with me for  the rest of my life.
Johanne Teresie

Kribi and Infield in Nairobi, Kenya

On the 26th of December we went with the train to Yaoundé, starting the long trip to Kribi in the south of Cameroon. When we arrived in Yaoundé we hopped on a bus that would take us the remaining four hour drive to Kribi where we were staying for the end of the Christmas holidays together with the Bischler family and the Aasen family.

Runar on the train

Team picture in the sunset

The first days went by with hanging on the beautiful beach, while sunbathing, playing cards and eating delicious meals that was on the menu at the restaurant and bar of the hotel Ilomba.
The missionaries that had been there before had talked about a waterfall not too far away from the hotel and recommended us to go and check it out. So because the others were too busy being sick or too lazy, me and Kristian went to check it out, and it was beautiful! We decided that the others had to come and see it for themselves too. Therefore on the next day we went over to the waterfall again and even did as the locals did, bathed in the river!

The waterfall we were bathing in

The gang bathing in the river

The stream was strong and you had to hold on to the rocks in the bottom so you wouldn't go down the waterfall. We even jumped in from some rocks above the river! We had seen the locals do it and decided that we wanted to try it out too. So after asking a local guy to show me where to jump, I was the first out into the water. It went perfectly, but the boys were not as lucky. Kristian had a visitor from Norway that arrived the same day and he managed to jump straight on to a rock that was just under the water. And the day after that Runar managed to do the same mistake. But that did not stop him, he talked with the locals too and jumped from a higher cliff beside the waterfall! We were all lucky and got safely back.

New Year's eve

New years eve was spent together with the one-year-volunteers of NMS while babysitting the children of the missionary families  while they were at a barbeque at the beach.
We ate a really good pizza and played cards in the suite before twelve. At twelve there were maybe two or three fireworks, but unfortunately we did not see them, but I had a very good time with the others at the bar by the beach, eating banasplit and playing cards and enjoying a pineapple cocktail before we went up to the rooms at the catholic hostel we were staying at.

On the second of January we travelled back to Yaoundé where we spent a night before me and Sara-J. went to the airport at five in the morning. The aeroplane was (of course) a bit late so we were the last to arrive at the Mission Station in Nairobi for the Infield course with Hald.
It was really good to see the students and teachers again. All the Hald-students in Africa were there so we were a great bunch of people. The first two days were filled with bible classes, and other lessons.They were mostly about information work and what we had done so far and what we wanted to do the remaining period in the countries we are working in.
On January 5th we went on a field trip to the Matareslum and to a school by the slum where some of the Hald students were working. We were introduced to a program for the youth in the slum and were also invited into the homes of some of the youth that lived there.

The Matareslum in Nairobi

The day after we went on Safari, and saw allot of different animals, I have never been on Safari before so this was exiting for me!
But after mostly seeing antelopes all the time the group were tired and some actually slept! But we drove around looking for the lions, and after about four hours the cats were spotted. Lying underneath a bush in the cold there were three lions. I did not manage to take a good photo of this as my camera lived its own life on this trip, and did not want to be turned on...
Infield was finished on the Sunday but we had one more day to spend in Kenya, so together with the girls that are staying on Madagascar we went shopping in the big malls and went to a cinema and watched Sherlock Holmes 2!
The malls were huge! And we almost got a opposite-culture-shock when we went into some of them!
The cinema was big too, and the film was great, but in the middle we were reminded that we were still in Africa as the power went out and we had to wait until they started the poweragrigator.
After a really nice last evening we went back to the hotel and packed the last of our things and said goodbye to the others that were staying for a few more days.

Safari with Hald

This cheeky bugger got into many cars and stole food!

Waking up at four o'clock to get to the airport on the 10th was hard, and it was even worse when we ended up waiting for the plane for several hours. But after about four hours the airport staff apologised and gave us free beverages at the coffee bar outside of the check in. Sara-Jeanette and I played cards and had a chat with a  guy from South Africa while we were waiting. After approximately 9 hours at the airport we were finally on our way back home to Cameroon!

It was really good being back when we finally got to Ngaoundéré the following day, after being away for two weeks! We had missed the people, the language and the red earth that we have here in Cameroon when we were out travelling.

Johanne Teresie