A day in the life of Petter and Andreas

Every weekday, the boys get up and eat breakfast, sometimes Andreas gets to have chocolate on his bread (picture 1). Then they get dressed and walk to school. On the way to school, they see lots of animals: like chickens (picture 2), sheep and President Obama (Picture 3). At school (picture 4) they play and learn to speak french. After school is over, they walk home again (picture 5) and eat dinner. After dinner they play in the yard (picture 6) until supper. After supper they have a bath and watch tv or a movie (picture 7) before they get in bed (picture 8). Petter likes to get in bed with Andreas a little, but always ends up sleeping in his own bed, at least until he decides to go get in bed with Mom and Dad!

picture 1

picture 2

picture 3

picture 4

picture 5

picture 6

picture 7

picture 8

Back online

Hi everyone!

It’s been a long time since we posted – mostly we have been sick or the internet has been sick. Matthew, Andreas, Petter and Mia have all had Malaria. It wasn’t too dramatic or anything, but just the thought of it is bad enough. Now we are getting back into the swing of things. Andreas is happy to be going to a French school during the mornings. He has started coming home telling us about how he is learning French, and smiling about it! Today the temperature is 94F/34C – not too bad since the humidity has fallen to under 60 percent!

Languages all around (By Matthew)

Today a colleague of mine greeted me in Fulfulde, so I responded in Fulfulde as best I could. The greetings that the Fulani use are longer than most complete conversations one would have with an acquaintance in Norway. Especially when there is a large group of people, greetings can take a while. There’s no way to say “Hey Y’all!” – you say greet everyone in turn. Instead, the person who arrives greats each person in turn – or, everyone starts talking at once. A typical greeting in the morning (roughly translated) would be something like this:

1- Did you pass the night in peace?
2- Only in peace!
1- How is your health?
2- No problems!
1- And your wife?
2- No problems!
1- And the kids?
2- No problems!
1- Thanks!
2- Your welcome!

Remember, I said roughly translated…

We are still really only working with French right now, but it is impossible to avoid the fulani greetings, and everyone seems quite pleased when we get close to getting them right.

After my colleague greeted me, he switched to french, then through in a bit of English and then started talking to another colleague in Fulfulde. Life is certainly not how I thought it would be just a few years ago – but I am sure enjoying juggling languages at the moment!

Here is a picture of Andreas and Mia playing in a tub of water in the sand box (ie. the back yard)