Førjul

Now it is only two days to Christmas! There is still no snow, but at least there is frost, so it is possible to get the Christmas-feeling. This is anyway by far the closest I have been to "Christmas-weather" in the last two years. One year ago I was in California, having a bizarre Christmas-holiday that turned out good in the end. It makes me think of a Dan Bern song I repeatedly heard while I was there:

She said love, love, love is everything

I said ok, I guess, whatever

She said what does that mean

I said nothin, it's just good to have a backup plan

Thanks Chris and Damian who excactly one year ago provided me with a back-up plan, and a good one at that!

http://www.danbern.com/newamericanlanguagelyrics.html#newamericanlanguage

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Od0IXXqourw

December sun

Walking by Akerselva

Today Ingvild and I walked by the bank of Akerselva, the river that divides Oslo in a west-side and an east-side. The last few days has been under zero, but no snow yet, and it is not likely to come before Christmas.

We walked to the Sunday market by Blå, where local crafts people sell their stuff. I bought some decorations for the Christmas tree, and a really cute present I will not reveal on this blog...

The Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony

10th of December Mohammad Yunus was awarded the Nobel Peace Price, and I was lucky enough to get an invitation to the ceremony, which took place in the city hall of Oslo. It was a very special experience to see all the Bangladeshis with small flags, hear Yunus talk and see the dancers from Bangladesh. I was there with Shaheen, former BRAC colleague who studies in Oslo now, and afterwards we both met a lot of Bangladeshis we haven't met before. It turned out there are quite a few in Oslo after all. Telenor had set up a tent outside with dal and ruti for everyone who wanted to try a Bangladeshi specialty (or at least something that resembled...). There we met two other former BRAC people, Shahjamal (left in the photo) and Milon, who also study here. It is so fun to see BRAC people in Oslo!

The peace prize has created a debate about Telenor's role in Grameen Phone, and sadly it has mostly been on a tabloid level, accusing Telenor of expoiting the poor women in Grameen Bank. It is not a secret that commercial enterprises want to earn money, but it is also not a secret that creating sustainable, profitable businesses benefits the development of a country. Having made that clear, we can go on to discuss how much profit should be taken out, or whether or not the company should be converted into an enterprise where all the profit is reinvested in the company. That is by the way a really interesting model that I would like to learn more about.

Happy Lucia-day everyone!

Køben

Last weekend was like Dhaka moved to Denmark for a little while. Annette, Andreas, Martin and Tom was already there, Sarah and Chad came from Athens and Linda from Lund (Sweden). Friday night was just like the Dhaka days, with Sarah and Annette cooking and I chopping vegetables and staying far away from anything that can have real impact on the food.


The food turned out excellent, duck with orange sauce!

The dinner also turned out to be a real party, with lots and lots of wine.


Chad has already become a bit blurred...






Saturday Martin took us on a tour in the Carlsberg brewery, with beer tasting included in the ticket (this is after all frivolous Denmark).




After Carlsberg we had a pølse, of course, and stopped by a café for a couple of Irish coffees before dinner at a Mexican place and dice playing in a pub run by a sad, old man who had his bed folded up in the corner, his pot of bean stew heating on his radiator and his two canary birds in a cage where they had to stay because we were not to happy about having birds flying around us. Some of us didn't care about either the possible bird attacks or the dice playing (sorry Linda ;).

Sunday we had tropical brunch in a place with tropical heat before Linda left for Sweden, Sarah and Chad left for Athens, Martin left for Amager or some other part of Copenhagen, Andreas left for work and Annette and I did the only sensible thing: stayed in the sofa watching comedies and eating chips and chockolate all day long.

København - Copenhagen

Stories from Copenhagen is coming up, in the meantime check out Sarah's blog.

Friday night: The Sad Beads, capitalism and development

Yesterday I met Åse and Espen, two friends from development studies, at Mir at Grünerløkka to hear "The Sad Beads" play Nick Cave. I got the chance to show off my camera phone, but the result was a bit blurred, as you can see. My flashy phone triggered a debate about capitalism and development. Can my work contribute positively to development, or is all about making money? I think it is both. For a commercial company to take any interest, there has to be money in it, either through direct sale or through reputation as a company with "social responsibility". But it is possible to earn money on selling products that people can use to better their life situation. Getting the right prices on chicken in the nearby market through her mobile phone gives a poor widow the information she needs to know whether the middle man who takes them to market for her is cheating her or not. It doesn't give her the power to challenge him, but at least it gives her facts to base her challenge on, if she will take the fight. And this is only one example. For more, read the short version of Prahalad's "The fortune at the bottom of the pyramid" at http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~brewer/ict4b/Fortune-BoP.pdf

Closing the summer house for the winter

Two weekends ago, my mother, father, brother and I went to our summer house at the south coast to close it for the winter. Luckily, the weather was good. November is a bit late to take up the boat, because there can be some nasty storms that time of the year. The house is the building you see on the right side. It is on a group of three small islands called Lyngør. My grandparents bought the property in the fifities, making their best buy in their lives.

The lighthouse, viewed from outside our kitchen.

The boat that is still on the water is ours, and we are about to drag it ashore with my grandfather's homemade wiresystem.

Cleaning the boat. (Charlene, notice my Joe F. pants ;)

To the right is the beach. The water is quite shallow, so it gets warmer there than on the other side of the house where it is deep.

Come visit me at Lyngør this summer!

Work

I am slowly learning the mysteries of modern technology, after spending my time at BRAC with word pad only. Tonight I have figured out how bluetooth works, and the result you see above! This is the Telenor headquarter. It is, as you see, a futuristic looking building located on the beach. In my mind the perfect combination. Behind the bathing house you can see Oslo, or at least accept that it is there, in between the trees.

Today I came to work 8 o'clock in the morning to hear about the new must-have; a little rabbit you can take home to read the weather forecast for you and wave its' ears when someone is calling (if you for some reason don't hear your phone ringing). The best thing is that it can get married with another rabbit through Internet, and then your rabbit's spouse will wave its' ears when your rabbit does...marvellous!

Oslo

This is it, my hometown. This is the harbour with the old castle where I used to work as a tour guide in the background. Saturday I went shopping for wollen tights and socks with Shaheen, BRAC colleague who has moved to Oslo to study.

I'm blogging!

Hello, everyone! Today I have reached a new stage in life. I've got a blog! Now I just have to figure out how to use it...

For those who don't know, 'pølseveven' means 'the sossage loom', alternatively 'the product of a sossage loom'. If it is not totally clear to you just why I chose this name, 'pølsevev' is more often used referring to 'nonsense' than referring to a woven structure of sossage.

I hereby declare Pølseveven for opened!