Love in the time of cholera

- Do you love him?
- Yes
- Does he love you?
- Yes
- SO WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!

Afra is again source of my wonderful (South) African experience and is extremely surprised by the fact of how long Norwegians can be together with someone without getting married. In Sudan, if a man likes a woman he should ask her family as soon as possible if they can get married, and it can happen in anything from ten days and onwards. I ask Nuha if people won't see such a wedding as a bit rushed, but she rolls her eyes at me with a smile and says "Insha'Allah, insha'Allah." If it's God's will, they will have his blessing.

I haven't told them about the latest romantic news from Scandinavia, but the fact that Crown Princess Victoria, after eights years with the same man, made her engagement to her personal trainer official today have made the Swedes very happy. Good for them, because they will most likely loose the MGP to us after our very own teenybopper Alexander spellbound the Norwegian population with his folk music inspired violin performance and song about his ex. She has been hunted down by the Norwegian media today, and although getting hitched to a totally different guy, at least he can comfort himself that his now famous fiancée's 15 minutes of fame, probably will only last for 15 minutes.

But wait, there is more love news on Dagbladet today (it's not by chance I've referred to them as "the bad" in the link list to your right), they tell of Mikkel Gaup's very short romance to some sexpert, which could have been a PR-stunt from start to finish as well as some TV-show which appearantly have made rural Norwegian women hurry home from their holidays only to get married in a rush. Couldn't have waited just a few days could it?

A quick reality check from BBC tells us, that, phew, other things are happening in the real world today. They report (although less happily) that the US recession will last well into next year, North Korea plans a rocket launch and NASA's first carbon dioxide measure rocket crash landed into the Antartic sea. It was supposed to pinpoint carbon naughty hotspots around the globe. May I suggest a huge red area just over the launching area? Does NASA offsets its greenhousegas emissions by the way?

But as cholera is strucking Zimbabwe in what is the deadliest outbreak since 1853, at the same time as Mugabe is celebrating his 85th birthday with 8000 bottles of champers and Russican caviar, one wonders whether really all is fair in love and war.