Snapshots from Hald so far

As part of the year at Hald, there is a 6 weeks course both before and after our stay abroad. This takes place in the small city of Mandal in southern Norway. Here, all 70 students (30 internationals and 40 Norwegians) are gathered to prepare and learn from each other before heading off to our respective work sites all over the world. You can see where my fellow Norwegian students' are going by clicking on the links to their blogs on the right. The internationals are from the organizations that we're going to, and getting to know them has been a great way for us to learn more about their respective languages and cultures. When the Norwegians leave October 1st, the internationals will go to their placement sites all around Norway to work in kindergardens, churches, youthgroups, etc.

We have been at Hald for about 4 weeks now, and it has been a fantastic experience so far. We've had classes from 9am to 4pm pretty much every day, learning about everything from microfinance, to leadership, to gender and climate change perspectives on development, to cross cultural communication, and personal growth, just to name a few. Outside of class, we've had lots of fun adventures including:

- trips to the beautiful nearby beaches, where many of our African students corageously learned to swim in freezing Norwegian sea water.
- fun danceparties, where our Brazilian friends have introduced us stiff Norwegians to a whole new world of ways to use our hips!

- a weekend trip to the mountains, including some trusting activities, like being blindfolded while walking through muddy paths, rocky hills, and crossing small rivers -- which was not made any easier by the language barrier!

Included below are some pictures my fellow student Helge Lauvsnes (who is going to Tanzania) has taken so far. Enjoy!