Natasha, Fall 1997

Our first daughter, Natasha, was born in Aarhus on October 19th 1997, which happened to be our first wedding anniversary and a beautiful fall Sunday in Denmark.

 
She was born at 2:50 p.m. in a big bath tub in the middle of our living room. Here she is just a few seconds after she entered this world. A healthy purple colour, scoring maximum on the Apgar score after both 1 and 5 minutes. She weighed 3600 g and measured 52 cm. Her father, her grand mother, her grand father, her aunt, and Lene, the midwife, all helped to receive her. Natasha completely newborn
Here she is about two weeks later. She is not the type who sleeps 20 hours a day so she keeps her parents more than busy. But all the attention and stimulation she gets by being awake all the time also makes her a very alert and interested baby. She has a good head of black hair, which is envied by the parents of most danish babies. Natasha 2 weeks old
Natasha and Osvaldo in bed

Natasha 6 weeks old

 Here is Natasha playing with her dad in the bed. At the age of 1 month she started rewarding her tired parents with big smiles, and she also started showing interest in advanced technology.

Natasha, Osvaldo, and the laptop

Six weeks old she already weighed 5500 g. Her rapid weight gain and the resulting balloon cheeks prompted the following remark from my uncle Per: "Didn't anybody tell her to swallow the milk?".
Natasha sleeping in the arms of her grand mother Here she is in one of her favourite positions. Her preferred sleeping positions require one moving adult, so it is nice to get some help from the grand mother once in a while. After 6 weeks, however, Osvaldo found out that she can sleep alone too if we put her on the stomach on a lamb skin.

Natasha sleeping on lamb skin
Natasha, Osvaldo and Lykke at New Year 1997 We held her naming ceremony at New Years Eve in Sweden where we were on skiing vacation with the whole family anyway. Here she is in the family christening dress together with her parents, grand parents and aunt.

Natasha and family at naming ceremony New Years eve 1997
Natasha and Lykke in Teide National Park on Tenerife

Natasha developed tremendously during the two weeks on Tenerife. The outdoor life in nice weather and beautiful, interesting terrain together with three adults was, of course, much more interesting than to be home 'alone' all day in cold, rainy Denmark. She slept well at night due to all the activities and new impressions during the day.

She clearly enjoyed that her grand parents had time and energy to play with her.

Natasha and Lykke on a swing on Tenerife

 When Natasha was 3 months old, her father had to go to Brazil to defend his thesis. So Natasha and her mother moved in with her grand parents in Ry. One month later, she went with her mother and her grand parents to Tenerife to celebrate her grandmother's 50 years birthday.

To the left, you see us in the National Park arount the top of the volcano Teide. Below, we are hiking in the lovely mountains on the northern tip of Tenerife.

Natasha and Lykke hiking in the mountains on Tenerife

Natasha and her grandfather playing in the bed on Tenerife

Natasha and her grandfather singing on Tenerife
When Natasha was 5 months old we went to South America to be reunited with her father.

Here is the whole little family together in the Botanical Garden of Rio de Janeiro.

Natasha thoroughly enjoyed strolling down the beaches of Copacabana and Ipanema. She looked like a little angel with her small fat arms and legs and prompted a lot "Meus Deus"s from passing women.

After 3 weeks in Rio, we went to Bolivia, rented a cosy little house, found interesting and flexible jobs at the University, and hired three people to help with Natasha and the housework. Life was very comfortable and we quickly decided to settle down in La Paz permanently.
After a lot of bureaucratic exercises Natasha and Lykke was accepted officially to become Bolivians. A month later we bought a wonderful piece of land where we plan to build our future family estate. See The construction of our adobe house in La Paz.
We have been extremely lucky with the people we hired to help in our household.

Juana came and asked for the job herself, when she heard from the neighbor that I was doing all the housework myself. Natasha adores her and I would gladly have paid her 2, 3, 4, or 5 times as much as she requested (don't tell her that, though). She completely spoils us, and it is wonderful.

Here she is with Natasha dressed up for a wedding party. Natasha is 8 now months old.
And here we are together with the newly-weds: Zoika and Miguel Vera . She is from Cuba, and she had brought a lively bunch of friends and family members, who clearly loved to dance. It was an excellent wedding party.
Osvaldo comes out of a poor family, but was lucky that his father favored a good education above almost everything else.

People with a high education earn around 20 times as much (after tax) as uneducated people, so it makes a huge difference here.

Compared to his family members and many of the people he grew up with, he is now a rich person, and therefore in demand as godfather and sponsor to God knows who and God knows what. Here he has sponsored the outfit for an entire soccer team. I got to choose the colors, as it was really my money that went into it, so now the Catholic University's Cleaning Team is playing in Danish colors.
Natasha spent her 11-month Birthday at the Rio Selva Resort in Las Yungas near Coroico by the end of one of the famous Inka trails in Bolivia. Here she took her first independent steps. But most of the time we had to follow after her providing a couple of fingers for her to hold on to.

The resort is only a three hours drive from La Paz, but the environment and the climate is completely different. A very refreshing change from the dry vegetation and thin air in La Paz. We can warmly recommend the five-star resort, which has a very nice tropical atmosphere and all facilities.

The drive there definitely doesn't support the assumption that people are generally risk averse. It is a narrow, slippery mud-road clinging to the mountain side with a near vertical drop of up to 1000 meters at several places. It is passed by all the trucks delivering goods from Las Yungas to La Paz, so you by no means have the single lane by yourself. It has been deemed the most dangerous road in the World by the UN. We did it in dense fog, which left almost everything to the imagination. Our driver was very experienced, however, so he did the trip at a very fresh pace.

Natasha and Osvaldo by the pool at Rio Selva Resort

Natasha and Osvaldo by the pool at Rio Selva Resort

Time flies: Here is Natasha one year later, a few weeks before her 2 years birthday.

She has slimmed quite a lot and become a handsome little girl, that loves to have her photo taken.

She inherited a lot of clothes after a couple of Danish children, Anna and Peter, who lived in La Paz for a while, and she really appreaciates that and has a lot of fun dressing up. But more than anything she likes to run around naked.

 Natasha 23 months old
Natasha by the front door Natasha in the laundry basket
Natasha posing for the photographer
She has by now become very fond of playing with other children.

Fortunately, we inherited a ton of toys from Anna and Peter too, and all these toys attract children from everywhere, so we don't have to put Natasha in kindergarden to learn social behaviour. We just have to leave the door open.

Here she is with Osvaldo's two younger half-siblings, Elvia and Augusto (her aunt and uncle).

And here she is drawing on the street one evening with her friends, Anita and Fernanda.

 Natasha, Elvia & Augusto in the living room

Anita, Fernanda, and Natasha drawing on the street
Natasha on her potty the month before she turned three Natasha finally became potty-trained the month before she turned three. She just decided one day that she didn't want to use diapers anymore, so it was a whole lot easier than I had expected. The first couple of nights I sneaked on a diaper after she had fallen asleep, but in the morning she complained about it and said that I really shouldn't do that because she is not using diapers anymore.

The first week she didn't want to leave the house because she couldn't imagine what to do if she needed her potty, but now she has learned to do it behind a bush, so that's no problem anymore.

Considering that she does not yet attend school or kindergarden, it is amazing how many stories she can tell about her school. She has a very vivid imagination, and is clearly looking forward to starting in school. She already knows the first letters of all her friends and familymembers.
Natasha started in a bi-lingual (Spanish and English) pre-school (TopKids) just after she turned three and her little sister, Kamila, started half a year later, when she was 1.5 years old. They had a couple of great years there before they switched to the French school in La Paz. Natasha is learning to read and write in her fourth language, which is supposed to be a bad idea, but she seems to be doing fine. I wish I had learned 4 languages by the age of 6, rather than having to struggle with French at the ripe age of 34.  

 

Kamila riding on Natasha's back
Natasha dressing her baby sister

When Natasha was 4.5 years old she got her second baby sister. Here she is helping to dress Raphaela, who is only a couple of weeks old.
When she was five years old she started going to karate, which she found much more interesting and useful than ballet. 

   

 

Natasha doing karate practice
Natasha receiving her yellow belt in Karate

Here she is receiving her yellow belt in Karate after successfully passing the exam.
Class picture, June 2004

Natasha (standing, second from the left) is here together with her class mates from the French school. She is 6 years old and in a mixed 1st and 2nd grade class and very happy about it. Here they are enjoying a Saturday afternoon at a small get-together after playing basket ball at the school.

Natasha, Kamila, Helle and Mathilde in Aarhus, January 2004

Natasha and Kamila served as bridesmaids twice during the year 2004. In January for my sister in Denmark, and in October for Carmen Julia in Tarija.

Natasha and Kamila with Carmen Julia in Tarija, October 2004

 




Here is Natasha with a friend from school in the bar at the Rio Selva Resort near Coroico. It is only a three hour drive (on the most dangerous road in the world) from La Paz and our favorite place for a quick getaway. Whether planned or not, we always meet good friends there.

In November of 2004, Natasha's class made a wonderful and varied choir presentation at the French school. Natasha is the small one in the corner.

 

 

 

 

The French school in La Paz puts a lot of emphasis on sports. Here Natasha is competing for the Blue team (Los Azules) in 60 meter sprint. Although she is a bit slow at getting started, she did win a silver medal, which she wore round the clock for several days.

 

 

 

Here are Natasha and Kamila at their joint 8 and 6 years Birthday party in our garden. I think the woman standing behind them is the magician, since I was attending conferences in Europe at the time. 

 

 

 

 

For Natasha's  9th Birthday (and Kamila's 7th) we held a Harry Potter party. It took us a month to prepare all the decorations (origami owls, floating candles, wands, capes, the wall at 9 3/4, Diagon Alley, castle cake, ghost piņatas, etc), but it fun and the party was a big hit. 

 

 

 

 

 

When Natasha was 9 years old, we went to New Zealand to join the family on the sailboat, Roselina, which is doing a tour around the World.

For more pictures from that amazing trip please click here.  

 

Roselina at Great Barrier Island, New Zealand

Christmas in Denmark 2007

Christmas of 2007 took place in Denmark, with a real Christmas tree that we had cut ourselves, and decorated with real candles and antique crystal balls inherited from my grandmother.