Dakar, 3/19/1937
Now we have received all the money and also the radio etc., we have also got Marie’s long letter which we were very happy for besides of the regular mail a complete surprise and also such a long one where I also noticed that it is not quite right with your fingers. Many thanks for it! It was easy to read the writing, Valdemar had of course something written about Kai’s (Marie’s brother) honeymoon and second time around but we didn’t know that it was Thyra again, but now we are up to date with that.
We send our congratulations and wish all the best for the new marriage and you are going to a big wedding in Aarhus that could probably be a joy, expensive and nice. Here you could buy a lot of wedding presents, here are people from India with elephants, Tenerife table cloths and Arabian things, I get tempted when I go to town, we have rationed ourselves with a leather bag which is used with a camel ride to cut out coconuts, one ostrich egg and also we have an ash tray where there is a little copper figure standing on, one of the natives grinding corn. Frederic is expressing himself as usual I didn’t get a letter from him for Christmas but it’s good that there are others who write a letter to us. We got a letter from different uncles and aunts and the aunt in Nykobing wrote that my cousin the rich Edward’s wife had said “I wish it was me who could sail around like that” but Frederik apparently did not talk with her, yes, it’s not all sisters and brothers who love each other as much as the Moberg’s, too little and too much spoil the soup. The difference in our ages might make some difference. Lars and anna play good together except once in a while so that you can’t imagine that there could be something between them when they get bigger, but it’s the same with Jutta and her brother, they never see each other except when they come to visit their parents. You can understand what Muse says, the other night she woke up and after several suggestions that she should lay down and sleep she said, ”The mouse doesn’t want to.” She got spanked from Peter and then she started scolding, “Papa must not hit mouse.” She said to Lars, “The mouse is not Papa’s mouse, the mouse is Mama’s mouse.”
Well, now back to the radio etc. Cur new gadgets include a wind charger that is a machine with a propeller which when it gets pushed from the wind it turns a dynamo which can load up the batteries for electrical light and the radio, the light and the wind charger we already bought from our money here and it functions very well, the radio we got yesterday and that we still have to try. Apparently it is good. A radio telegraphist from a German steamer has said so. It has got 6 lamps although it is not strong enough to pick up Copenhagen with long and short waves and the new construction without dry batteries has been used for 3 months and cost 250 Krones, then you will have to imagine the rest. We can receive Skambebeck, England, Germany, America, Honolulu!
Otherwise it’s still going on with the partying, yesterday we went to dinner by the supreme courts justice the day before yesterday we were for afternoon coffee and dinner on a German steamer and the captain had ordered 2 big whipped cream cakes, how it tasted! Tonight, we are going to the military movies. now we will see how the kids stay awake from the included you can see what they import from Sweden here, souvenirs and other things made in Germany, we know, but that the negro girls are not real is at least a big disappointment for Peter. We don’t take the steamer from here but follow Peter to the Cap Verde Islands. When? we still don’t know we are far from ready for the sea and not ready with the visits. Now we must wish you a happy Easter vacation with sunshine and warmth as revenge for all snow and ice you have had this winter.
And now many loving greetings, yours admiring
Lars, Anna, Peter, and Else.
address still Dakar.