Happy Birthday

Mom,

Or as we say here in Norway: Gratulerer med dagen! Hope you're having a great time at Tim and Heather's.

Love, Ashley

Watoto Children's Choir

The Watoto Children's Choir came to Oslo yesterday, these children were so incredible. I've never seen such smiling faces on anyone with backgrounds like theirs. It just goes to show how much God's love can change a person. Watch this video and I'm sure you'll agree with me:



By the way they will be touring around Southern CA late February and March of next year.

So just what is Watoto? Here's some info I snagged from www.watoto.com:

Children brought to Watoto are from the most destitute situations. Many of these children have been abandoned and forced to fend for themselves at a very young age [AIDS and the civil war in Northern Uganda are the two most commons reasons]. Watoto gives these children the opportunity to develop in an environment where they come to understand their value. Watoto is improving the lives of these children. Watoto provides its students with Christian instruction, equipping these children to be Christian leaders and productive citizens of Uganda. This is proven by the hope and confidence displayed by those children who have become part of the Watoto family. Watoto is accomplishing its mission by focusing on the essential needs of orphaned and vulnerable children – specifically the spiritual, physical, educational and emotional needs. We believe that as the children are raised with Christian values, are trained academically and taught to over come emotional hurts, they will enter society equipped with the necessary life skills and moral values, enabling them to make a significant and lasting impact on the future of Uganda.

With over 1700 children in care, Watoto operates Baby Watoto and 3 Children’s Villages. This includes many individual homes in the villages and one large facility for the babies. Each individual home accommodates a house mother and 8 children. The facilities in the home for babies and in the villages have clean water, electrical power and an agricultural project that provides some food.

From the words of Joseph Chegum, one of Watoto's children:
Before Watoto rescued him: “After our parents died, we were the ones who were looking after ourselves. I was living with my older sister but she could not take care of us. We used to pick through the garbage to find anything which we could sell, and this is how we found money to eat."
After Watoto rescued him: "Life at Suubi is much better. I’m not worried about clothes or shoes. I’m not worried about food. It’s all here. At my old school we had to struggle to find money for school, books and shoes but here everything is much better.”

For the rest of Joseph's story click here.

Eurovision Song Contest 2008

Saturday was the Eurovision Song Contest Finals held in Belgrade, Serbia. The Eurovision Song Contest is like American Idol, but only one music group from each country is allowed to participate. Aparently it is a very big deal here in Europe and has been going on since 1956. Also, they have the choice of singing in their own language or English...sadly most were in English. Oh my gosh. I almost forgot the most important information: there were absolutely NO commercials! I wouldn't even be able to fathom what TV is like without commercials unless I had seen it for myself. No commercials was definitely the coolest part, but now for the funniest part. Here are some of the videos that I thought were just rediculous:

Just a note: the volume will probably need to be turned down for each video.

Spain: Rodolfo Chikilicuatre- "Baila el Chiki Chiki"

France: Sebastian Tellier- "Divine" This guy is very French except for the fact that he is singing mostly in English

Bosnia and Herzegovina: Laka- "Pokusaj"

Germnay: No Angels- "Disapear"

Half the people I was watching this with were Germans and the whole night we were making fun of Germany because they did such a bad performance and had no life at all. We all decided that Germany would definitely lose, they came in 3rd to last just in front of Poland and the UK.

And now for some that I liked:

Turkey: Mor ve Ötesi "Deli" The lead singer looks a bit like Spock from Star Trek

Israel: Boaz Mauda- "The Fire in Your Eyes" If you're like me you're probably thinking "Since when did Israel move to Europe?" Well it didn't, but for whatever reason it is in the Eurovision Song Contest.

Finland: Teräsbetoni- "Missä Miehet Ratsastaa"

Denmark: Simon Mathew- "All Night Long"

Latvia: Pirates of the Sea- "Wolves of the Sea" It's the opposite of "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything" by RelientK

Norway: Maria- "Hold on be Strong" They got 5th place and received points from 34 of 43 countries voting, especially the other Nordic countries!

And the winner is...Russia! Dima Bilan- "Believe"

Though I think the only reason they won is because of Evgeni Plushenko, the famous Russian figure skater who gold in the 2006 Winter Olympics. So this is just one more title for him to add to his resumé.

17 Mai, Hurra til Norge!

A bit of history behind the May 17th celebrations:
In 1380 Norway entered into a union with Denmark due to Norway's poor economy and already weak political state. Over the years Norway lost all its independence and was subject to absolute monarchy by the Danish Crown. During the Napoleonic wars Denmark/Norway sided with Napoleon against Russia, Sweden and Germany. At the Battle of Leipzig in 1813 Napoleon was defeated by Sweden and Denmark was forced to give Norway to Sweden, which ended 434 years of union with Denmark. Even though Norway was now in a union with Sweden it was to maintain the status of an independent state, with its own constitution, national representation, its own government and the right to levy taxes. On May 17, 1814 the Norwegian constitution was adopted and was considered to be one of the most radically democratic constitutions of its time. To this day May 17th symbolizes Norway's independence and its democratic constitution.

Norwegians like to dress up for May 17th. These guys are wearing their national costume, called the bunad (note this picture was stolen from the guy on the left...it's not mine).

Side note: a bunad costs about $7000, but I should also add that they are made of wool by hand and have a lot of detail (note the bottom of the dress on girl to the left), they also come with matching jewelry, a shawl and/or purse for the ladies and a hat for the guys. Since the bunad is worn about 5 times a year (May 17, baptisms, confirmations, or weddings) it makes it a very expensive ensemble, but once they have one made they don't buy another (unless they outgrow it of course).

Some girls, also in their bunad.

However, if they aren't wearing their bunad the guys will dress up in suit and tie and the ladies will wear a dress or a skirt. I don't think I've ever seen so many people dressed this nicely in one place before, especially the children.

The Royal Guard

(listen to the Norwegian National Anthem: Ja, Vi Elser Dette Landet)

May 17th is considered to be a day for the children so in Oslo, about 100 elementary schools parade past the Royal Palace with their flags and Musikkorps (marching band)

Often times the high schoolers will help by playing in the musikkorps or baton groups.

The russ even join in on the parades, note the "knots" on the girl's hat.


Looking down the parade route.

They are still coming after 2 hours...I didn't know it could go so long!

So, what did I do for syttende mai (17th May)? After attending the parade in the morning I went to a church service in the afternoon filled with Norwegian flags, patriotic songs and a patriotic sermon (all in Norwegian I might add). Some German friends told me after that in Germany the German flag would never be placed in a church. Which isn't so strange in the U.S., but I think it would be strange to sing "The Star Spangled Banner" in church. In the evening I went to a "17 Mai Fest"The festivities included Norwegian Folk Dancing (below) and swing dancing.

Believe it or not, I even participated a bit in dancing. Shocking I know!

It's Russ Season!

Russ are the graduating high school seniors in Norway. The tradition basically consists of wearing red overalls (or blue, depending on what field of study they were in), completing tasks to get knots for their hats and partying with their friends to celebrate graduation from high school. Partying starts around the end of April and continues until May 17th (the national holiday). In other words its 3-4 weeks of drunken nights and dares to recieve knick knacks to hang from the tassle on their hat. Groups of friends will get together and buy (or rent) a bus, which they paint and deck out with elaborate sound systems, couches, TVs, a bar, ect. and go around town partying and completing their tasks. I'm convinced that one of their tasks is to try to keep me awake at night, since the like to party at the lake down the road from me and keep their music very loud. Some nights I can hear the music until the sun begins to rise in the morning (which right now is about 4:20 AM). It seems to be a pretty fun tradition, although I will admit I'm not a fan of the drinking, sex and other "crazy tasks" (for lack a better word) that go on, but once all that is taken away it sounds like one of the best celebrations I've ever heard of. If you want to know more about the tradition Wikipedia has a great article and Aftenposten (largest Norwegain newspaper) recently wrote an article about the drunken russ celebrations.

Rappelling in Kolsås

Oslo from the top of Kolsås

Kolsås is a mountain ridge on the west side of Oslo in the city of Bærum. The mountain was formed from a volcano that lies somewhere near Oslo, it exploded some thousands of years ago and the lava pushed up all the rock and dirt from that area into a mountain. The mountain is made of different layers of rocks, one of the layers near the top is worth a lot of money in Germany to rock collectors. A rock the size of a couch cushion is worth twice as much as my car. I can't believe something so insignificant as a speckled rock is worth more than the one material object I rely the most (besides my computer). Of course a lot of things are worth more than my car, so its not saying much. Because of all the rock on the mountain it is one of the best climbing crags in all of Norway, in fact it was the very first place people started climbing in Norway. There are about 200 routes on the south face of the mountain. I'm guessing the mountian must be pretty famous because Claude Monet even painted it in 1895.

This is me going down a 32ft drop. Its not as scary as it looks; the rope, harness, and rock clamps together can take about 5000 lbs of weight (basically they could hoist a car up to the top of the mountain). Rappelling, or going down, was the most fun because it takes no talent or strength and is a whole lot easier than climbing back up. The only bad part about rappelling is that you have to climb back up again. I always thought you had to be really strong to go rock climbing, but, believe it or not, the only strength you need is in your fingers. Climbing up was only about 26ft because we started higher than where we climbed down. Rock climbing isn't as difficult as it seems, your toes are what hurts the most because you have to where special climbing shoes that are a couple sizes smaller than your regular shoes so they can fit into really small places. Supposedly the shorter you are the easier it is to climb (finally being short has its advantages!). The basic idea is to use your legs to hoist you up, so finding good places to put your feet is the most important part. Starting off was the hardest because there weren't many good spots my feet could go without slipping. I didn't think I was going to be able to climb up it at first, I thought the only way I was gonna get back up was if I walked up the trail on the side of the rock. I had to get a boost up higher and then it was pretty easy because the rock was more miss-shaped at the top. We only had time to rappel twice and climb once because we wanted to get a chance to rappel a steeper rock that was 114ft to the bottom. It probably took about 3 or 4 minutes to rappel the 114 feet. When we got to the bottom we had to hike back to the trail and passed a guy who had fallen or something, I'm not sure what happened because they were speaking in Norwegian, but I think he hurt his ankle.

The first picture is of the Oslo Fjord, which isn't really a fjord according to Norwegian standards. The second picture is looking towards the northwest at 8pm, even though it looks to about 4 or 5 in the afternoon.