It´s amazing how fast people can adapt to different situations. I got a bit of a culture shock on the way from the airport, but soon got over that once I got to the safe haven of our friend Maria´s place. Her brother picked us up from the airport and drove us through the constant traffic jam. The drive takes about two hours although it´s probably not much more than 20km.
On the way we drove through several bairros (neighbourhoods) with crowded streets at 7 o'clock on a Saturday morning. It was a bit weird to drive the main avenue from the city centre where the traffic lights are more modern than in Canada or Iceland and into informal settlements where people live in self-built houses, often with no electricity and running water, but all equipped with satellites of course.
Every morning we get up at 5 a.m. to get a lift with Maria and her husband and daughter to the city centre. We already have a desk at Development Workshop and have been revising some of their reports which are very interesting and very useful for Petur´s research. They have a lot of ideas of projects that I could work on, so I think I´ll definitely not get bored during this year.
After work we get to walk for a bit to the kindergarten where Maria picks up her daughter and then we do the traffic jams all over again in the other direction passing countless informal trades people on the way who are selling everything you might need. My favorite is shower heads and axes, which seem to be quite popular.
When we go out for a walk in the neighbourhood around Maria's house we always get a lot of attention, most of it positive, but also some negative attention. The little ones are often afraid of us whities and some run away crying, while others point at us and yell: "Chinese, chinese, chinese!" because there are quite a lot of Chinese people in this country. The teenagers smile shyly, although some young guys obviously feel like we're intruding on their space and basically tell us to get lost. The old ladies, who are usually carrying a heavy load of water or fruit on their heads, smile with their whole face and say bom dia.
Até logo!
On the way we drove through several bairros (neighbourhoods) with crowded streets at 7 o'clock on a Saturday morning. It was a bit weird to drive the main avenue from the city centre where the traffic lights are more modern than in Canada or Iceland and into informal settlements where people live in self-built houses, often with no electricity and running water, but all equipped with satellites of course.
Every morning we get up at 5 a.m. to get a lift with Maria and her husband and daughter to the city centre. We already have a desk at Development Workshop and have been revising some of their reports which are very interesting and very useful for Petur´s research. They have a lot of ideas of projects that I could work on, so I think I´ll definitely not get bored during this year.
After work we get to walk for a bit to the kindergarten where Maria picks up her daughter and then we do the traffic jams all over again in the other direction passing countless informal trades people on the way who are selling everything you might need. My favorite is shower heads and axes, which seem to be quite popular.
When we go out for a walk in the neighbourhood around Maria's house we always get a lot of attention, most of it positive, but also some negative attention. The little ones are often afraid of us whities and some run away crying, while others point at us and yell: "Chinese, chinese, chinese!" because there are quite a lot of Chinese people in this country. The teenagers smile shyly, although some young guys obviously feel like we're intruding on their space and basically tell us to get lost. The old ladies, who are usually carrying a heavy load of water or fruit on their heads, smile with their whole face and say bom dia.
Até logo!
3 Comments:
Hæhæhæhæhæ!!! Frábært að heyra í ykkur og að allt gangi vel! Hljómar mjög spennandi allt saman, hlakka til að lesa meira!
Farið vel með ykkur! Knús xxxxxx
Gaman að lesa um ævintýralífið ykkar!!! Hlakka til að fylgjast með. Knús, Lilja
Vona að þið verðið dugleg að blogga það er svo gaman að geta fylgst með ykkur. Farið vel með ykkur og hlakka til að lesa meira um ævintýri ykkar.
Kveðja,
Gudda
p.s. fórum í Sandútileguna um helgina og fengum ótrúlega flott veður og eitt enn það var ótrúlega flottur listrænn kamar útbúinn svo fylgist með myndunum hjá Einsa og Hauk eða Ragnari.
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