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.