working on the tae-guks

Check this link https://vimeo.com/82502675

Assistant to the designer in Tribal chic fashion show

I had a very busy Saturday. From early in the morning, I helped the designer Nike Kondakis with the big Fashion show in Tribe Hotel. It was extremely busy and we also had a shop in the lounge after the show. I helped with arranging everything, hanging things for the models, set up the shop and helped customers. After packing and removing everything, it was midnight and I was extremely tired. I got a lot of praise for my work, and Nike will even wright a letter of recommendation for me.

Organising tags

Hanging the outfits for the models

Having a break

Packing

Lucia in the residence and holiday concert

The Holiday concert in ISK happened to be in the same day as I was supposed to help with the hot dogs in the Swedish Ambassadors residence for the Lucia celebration. By sneaking out right after my performance. We came late to the Lucia celebration, but had time to hear the last song.

Watch this Swedish tradition, by clicking the link

This is what it looks like in Nairobi:

The ISK holiday concert:

Drama trip to Turkey

I went to Turkey on the Drama trip and it's been fantastic creative, inspiring and also very much hard work. It was a great trip and I had a lot of fun and learned many things and found new friends from all over the world.

Selling things in the Nordic Christmas Bazaar

Today I worked really hard! We started at 10 o'clock, setting up the tables for Sweden. We were selling candy, christmas bread, pickled cucumber, lingonberry jam and lots of glögg. I started out at 11.30 being in charge of the Glögg selling. We also offered a small mug of glögg and a gingerbread cookie, so I had to warm the glögg too. I continued helping out in the kitchen fixing the christmas plates, selling them for 1300 Kes each. Finally I worked at the coffee and cake table, where all the Nordic countries had contributed with home made cookies and cakes.
Around two o'clock, we sold out on the glögg and we were dead tired. We went home without waiting for the big raffle. The Swedish school was packed with Swedes, Danes, Norwegian and Finns and it was great hearing all the familiar languages. Tons of children ran around playing and people really seemed to enjoy themselves! It was a good day and I can't wait to hear how much money we made for charity in Kenya!

Fixing the glöggbottles

Selling food in the restaurant 

The christmas plate

Selling cookies and cakes

Santa Claus was there and quite popular 

Making Glögg

This year I helped the Swedish Society to make the special Christmas drink that Swedish people really like. The Swedish Society sells this special wine, with extra alcohol and lots of spices in theNordic Christmas Bazaar. All the money we make will go to development projects in Kenya with Swedes involved. I'm also going to help selling Swedish candy and the special Christmas food in the Bazaar.

Divning with the sharks in Dubai

Yesterday I was skiing and today I was diving - in two different malls in Dubai. We had a refresher class in the morning, but because I already have a Padi Junior open diver certificate I didn't have any problems. Due to that I was also allowed to dive for a longer time. I had a fantastic time, but take a look at the grouper that kept on trying to kiss me. His teeth were scarier than the shark. Because of a dive well done, I got a shark teeth from my instructor. I'm going to make a nice necklace out of it!.

training, training, training

This is me training MMA:

Designing a folder for Oakland

Today I designed a new folder for Oakland. Mercy emailed me a lot of nice images on activities they have in the school. They do both sports, drama and reading. They even got a few second hand lap-tops for the students. She is hoping for a larger number of children to enroll for next year, so she can get the economy they need. I hope this folder will help them!

Certificate for Oakland

The Kenyan semester has almost come to a close. Mercy asked me if I could design certificates for the students graduation from Oakland. I know she is very busy, so I printed them too. I'm hoping the students will be happy with this award and that it will inspire the smaller children to work hard. I will also try to visit the school when they start the new semester.

Auditioning again for the major MS play

The name of the main middle school play is "Around the world in 8 plays". I auditioned on monday and was asked to do my piece in a shy and embarassed way. It was very interesting and fun. There were not so many auditioning on monday, but a lot more came on tuesday. On wednesday we got our parts. I'm playing "old lady", "queen" and "wife". We are starting rehearsals on monday and I'm very excited!

Practising for 2:nd dan black belt

This is very complicated! I need to learn two new poomses for my grading in the end of November. Look at the movie where I practise the Koreo poomse with Max:

A week in Masaai Mara

I went on a IC trip with school two last week. We spent the whole week in Masaai Mara, helping 

the Maasai people. During this trip we did many activities but my favourite was building and tree planting. Those where also two of the most physical activities there were on the trip. We also carried water, did some beading and travel to some places around the area. When we went to build it was more pic axing and shoveling than building. The tree planting was quite similar. We pic axed and then we shoveled and planted the tree. In beading Mama Leah showed us how to bead on leather which was lots of fun. We also went to carry water. Me and my partner picked a 20 litre jar to carry 1.5 kilometers there and then back. Wen we traveled we were divided into groups and then as a family we had to bargain for supplies. After that we went to the girls high school where some of the students gave us a tour. The girls who helped organize the schedule their work day which ended up being 17 hours long and that really inspired me to help as much as I can. Their local hospital was the next stop. The hospital was build by only volunteers. The setting was very calm and controlled which I would say is a great thing. Theses are the major things we did during our trip except for the last day which was a walk, weapons training and then spending some time with the school which we were building.

Buying t-shirts for cancer

Salome who works in our local hair dresser shop has started a project to fight cancer. We bought three t-shirts for 3000 Ksh to help her in her struggles.

Blocking with Tora

I am practising blocking with Tora - a Swedish girl in 11:th grade. The trick is to block out a touch on the head. Every touch gives one point. This is a great excercise I often perform with Tom, my trainer - but he is always cheating.

Play at the Swedish society

Today I spent a couple of hours making hamburgers for a play in the Swedish school. It was the play "come we stay" performed by a group from Nakuru called playmakers. We sold quite a lot of hamburgers, bud we only made about 14000 Ksh. All the money goes to projects in Kenya with Swedes involved. It was fun and I talked to a lot of Swedish people who were new to Nairobi. When I told them I was in the Westgate terror attack, everyone was very interested. I enjoyed the theatre play and thought play makers did a good job!

School visit

It felt good to visit the school in Mathare. All the children are very loving and happy and gives us lots of kisses and hugs! They always love to have their photo taken. Unfortunately, moms nice camera was stolen from our car in Westgate, so I had to use my I-phone to take this photo of my mom and a happy student. We brought soap, toiletpaper, notebooks, pens, candy and even a small computer for Dixon, the principal. It was a very nice visit and I felt happy and appreciated going back home. I'll think of more ways to help the school. Maybe go out and read for the small children in kindergarden and "baby class".

A thousand paper cranes

This is me in full make-up. Do I look like a dead japanese grandmother? Due to the terrorist attack, we are only doing two performances. We were supposed to do a whole week, but due to the insecurity right now, we cut back. We also had a few problems in the production. One of our actors got appendix problems and had to go into surgery. Another actor took his part and played it only after two rehearsals.

Terrorist attack in westgate

On september 21, we had a terrorist attack in Westgate mall. I was there with my mother looking for new gym shoes. Luckily we escaped after hiding in our car. Due to this, my cas activity plans did not turn out as I expected. I find it hard to concentrate on anything but the basic school work now, but I keep up both Taekwondo and MMA as well as the theatre rehearsals.

Westgate attack film

Taekwondo

I really need to start training for my 1:st dan black belt, Or I guess it's the 2:nd. I need to review poomses 1-8 and tae guk 9 (a new one). When you're a black belt, it takes a year to do your 2:nd dan, 3 years to take your 4:th dan etc. Now is also the time to start training other people. I am assisting trainer now and are thinking that when I go to college it will be a good job for me. Both earning my points to be able to grade and get payed for it! I'm still training taekwondo three times a week and will be graded again by christmas, so I think I'm in good shape!

New school project

We have come such a long way with our work in Excellent school, so we are starting to sponsor a new school in the same area (Mathare slums). It's not that we are abandoning Excellent, we just feel that more kids should benefit from our fund raising. As before, we are only going to work with building and buying school rooms, black boards and desks. This new school is called Destiny and there are 215 students in the ages of 4 to 13. The school is located in a church that the school board rent every week-day. We know Dixon, the head of the school since his time in Excellent. Many of the children in Destiny have learning disabilities and are orphans. I'm excited working with this project. To see how far my brother got with Excellent, it feels good to have a brand new project of my own.
Here are some photos I took while visiting the school on Saturday:

A good gift from Oakland school.

Today Max gave me and my family a beautiful cake, to thank us for buying them books and toys. I also suspect it was for selling my dads old car to the school to a very good price... It is so encouraging to get a gift like this and I really feel appreciated!

Origami

I did origami and tried to fold a paper crane inspired by the play. It was really hard, and I had to follow instructions step by step from the internet. We need a few as decorations for the stage, so I guess I need to keep on practising. This is my first try:

Auditioning for the school play

I have been ill for a couple of days and needed to stay home from school. On Tuesday I went to school only to audition for the Middle school play "a thousand paper cranes". I was given the role of the grandmother, even though I didn't give my best performance due to fever. Rehearsals starts next week, and the schedule is going to be tough because we don't have so much time.
A thousand paper cranes is about a 12 years old when she died of leukemia. This was due to the radiation from the atomic bomb that wagirls dropped by an American pilot in her hometown in Hiroshima, Japan during World War II.

I'm not going to be able to do so much taekwondo and MMA during rehersals, but I will do it on wednesdays and sundays.

Getting back into shape

To meet my trainers Max and Tom again has been very good. I made hard punches, but my stamina was not the best in MMA. In taekwondo I needed lots of stretching. I got very stiff over the summer.

Punching and kicking Tom in MMA

Stretching with Max in Taekwondo

Creativity in Kitengela glass

I made a visit to Kitengela glass to get some more inspiration to make jewellery and buy beads. I've wanted to go there for a long time to see how they blow glass. This place is quite far away and hard to get to, but it was worth the long trip. It is a very inspiring place that makes nice things from recycled glass and other material. I got some nice glass beads and rings to use for my projects.

Volleyball tryout

This summer, I played volleyball with a bunch of people in the island where our summerhouse is. All the people were very athletic, and many of them were in the swedish national skiing team. They were all very nice and told me that I was really good. I really enjoyed it, and are now thinking of trying our for the ISK volleyball team. My mom promised me that I could audition for two drama productions this year (last year, she only allowed me to participate in one play), so I'll make a decision later, but I think I'm at least going for the handball tryouts.

Gifts for the children in Oakland

I bought a lot of things for the children in Oakland. This way I will give them some Swedish culture too. The books I got are very famous childrens books in Sweden and written in the 1940 and 1950. My parents read the books for me when I was a baby, and even my grandmothers read it for my parents. One is about a really strong and powerful girl, Pippi Longstocking and one is about Emil, a crazy kid in Sweden a long time ago. The last one is very poetic and rhymes, but still beautiful and very creative (there are wholes in every page so you can see images of how the story is getting more exciting in the next page). It is about the Moomin troll and my brother wanted to name me after a character in that book, "little My". Luckily, my parents went for Ebba. They are very old, but still very good. I also got big lego blocks for smaller kids. Max told me they wanted that for the kids, because they love to build things. I hope that they will enjoy them, and I hope I can personally give my gifts to the kids in Oakland.

Action in Stockholm

To do any training in Stockholm is not easy. We tried to get access to a boxing club, but it was just too expensive. To not do anything did not feel good, so I started jogging in our neighborhood. It is hard to believe, but the images below is from a park just a few blocks away from our apartment. They have lots of old houses and try to keep them for cultural reasons. Only actors and artists are allowed to live in the houses and some does not even have running water. The other good thing with Stockholm is that you can walk a lot and I did. When you get tired you just get on a bus back home. Below you can see where I was jogging.

Community service in Sweden

When I came back to Sweden, I realised that all my old clothes in our house in the Island were to small for me. I packed everything in large plastic bags, because I knew that in the city there was a place called stadsmissionen. They accept old clothes and things, sell them and give the money for shelters for homeless people. They also go to streetcorners and give them food. I like that my old outgrown things can come to use for people less fortunate than me. My mom has told me that their store are considered quite "trendy" and that lots of people go there and shop for vintage. I like that even more! I think I made a good decition, giving them all my old clothes.

Creativity over the summer.

I went to quite a few museums this summer. One that I enjoyed very much was the exhibit in the architect museum about the designer, Jean-Paul Gaultier. I spent a whole day with my grandmother in both The modern museum and the architect museum. One day I spent in The photographic museum (I visit it every summer) and I had to teach my grandmom about surrealism. I was very proud to be able to do that. This is something I know from my brothers Higher level IB class in drama. I helped him a lot during his plays and managed to learn about surrealism.

The Jean-Paul Gaultier exhibit was very creative. Every mannequin had a filmed face displayed on their face. It made it feel like the mannequin was watching you. They were talking too.

Helmut Newton did a lot of advertising and photo shoots. He also took photos of a lot of famous people. 

This is made by a japanese photographer called Motohito Odani. He was the surrealistic photographer and inspired by nature and natural catastrophes. A very strange, but beautiful exhibit. After visiting the Jean-Paul Gaultier exhibit, I spent the rest of the day in the Museum of modern art.