Norwegian for one day!

As the Norwegian readers of this blog know, the big highlight of last week was the celebration of the Norwegian National Day on the 17th of May. Right, now some of you might think “but you are Danish/German Vivian! So why celebrate the Norwegian national day?” Hehe :D 

Well, since I’m working in a Norwegian program, I actually was invited :) In addition to that I wanted to make myself a picture of, how Norwegians celebrate their national day. I’ve been told a lot about their crazy way of celebrating it :D Hence, I took the night bus to Lusaka Thursday night. After not getting too much sleep at the bus and only two hours sleep at the backpackers, I was ready for the big celebrations :) I know, this ceremony was just a light version of the celebrations compared to those in Oslo but it was still great fun and I enjoyed it a LOT :) 

What did we do?

It was a good combination of speeches, marching, singing, playing games, dancing, eating and drinking :D

Here are some pictures

The band playing

Singing "kongesangen"

Getting ready for the march

Place for the speeches

Marching and singing

Me enjoying the day

Nice hot dog

Lina and me :)

children playing

Lina and Johanne getting ready to compete

Lina and me marching

Food is ready :) 

(it was amazing to have Norwegian salmon :) hmm...I miss fish)

All the YSEP volunteers in Zambia

(Hanne, Johanne, Lina, Frank and me. We missed you Terese)

Cake time :)

After the ceremony at the ambassador’s place, we all went home to Mariannes place (she is an intern at the Norwegian Embassy), where the party continued. We all had an AMAZING day and night, and enjoyed it a lot!!!

Frank preparing the meat

Noora and me helping Frank

Getting ready for the dancing

Norwegian buns and home made mojitos :)

Saturday it was time for me to take the bus back to Livingstone and get a lot of rest :) Hence, I spent the rest of the weekend with relaxing and having a good time with friends.

What was going on before I went to Lusaka?

Well, work wise not that much. Only writing reports, doing field visits and planning my workshop I'm having on Thursday. Besides this, I’ve spent time with going to the gym, yoga and enjoying life together with friends :)

Thursday it was time for Terese to go back to Norway; hence we had a farewell dinner for her Wednesday evening. I’m looking forward to seeing you in Oslo :)

Nyarai and Precious cutting the chicken

Waiting for the food to get ready :)

Nyarai, Terese, Anita and me :)

Thanks for a nice evening 

What is going on this week?

Hmmm…believe it or not but this week is my last week at work (next week we, all the YSEP volunteers, are having our end of term meeting). I know, I’ve already said it before but it’s crazy how fast these 10 months have gone. Even though I’ve had some challenges and frustrating times, I’m really going to miss my African life, my friends, work and colleagues. However, I’m also looking forward to going home :) 

So yeah, work wise I’ve only one monthly sports captain meeting and Kicking Aids Out workshop left. After that I’m having the end of term meeting, I’m going to say goodbye to everyone, will have my farewell party, have to finish my exam paper and want to enjoy every free minute with enjoying life with my friends :)