The Sky is Wide

En gång var det en ensam mamma och pappa

2011-11-09T13:47:00.000-08:00

Det var längesedan vi var inne på Kappahl.

Men allt känns liksom bekant. De ljusa ytorna, alla kläder som alltid matchar oavsett vad du köper, för färgerna är typ likadana, fast med små skiftningar.

”Vi kollar snabbt bara om det finns något i storlek 74-80, sen sticker vi!” Säger Johannes och stegar iväg med en ganska stor Ronja sittandes på sina axlar. Hon gapar ett stort leende, två vita tänder glänser till och en stor droppe med saliv kraschar ned på pappas axel, utan att han märker det. Jag promenerar bakom dem, ögnar lite halvintresserat igenom Dam avdelningen. Jag konstaterar tyst för mig själv att av alla otaliga Kappahl butiker jag varit i så är nog denna en av de mer oorganiserade.

Barn och bäbis- avdelningen uppenbarar sig plötsligen, varpå Johannes med en ivrigt viftandes och pipandes Ronja försöker lokalisera de där fina byxorna med hängslen och västen som bäbis skyltdockan hade på sig. Jag tittar runt.

Newbie Kollektionen.

Något rör sig i mitt minne. Det djupa såret. Det där kapitlet i livet som förträngts av bäbisskratt, leenden, blöjor, mat och kladd, och en Ronja som säger pappa, mamma, nej, hej. Bleeeergjagagajjprrrffft…

Jag minns alla pastellfärgade kläder med söta saker på. Ballonger, rosetter, nallebjörnar, hjärtan… Jag minns dessa hyllmeter med bäbiskläder. Gravida kvinnor som förväntansfullt letar igenom dem, stressade pappor med skräckslagna blickar, tysta, stolta mor och farföräldrar som målmedvetet plockar alla de finaste kläderna.

Och en mamma och en pappa utan sitt barn. Ensamma i en stad där allt kändes bländande. Och tomt.

Bland alla dessa bäbiskläder och förväntningar fanns det inga kläder som passade. För bäbisen, hon var så liten. Så jätteliten.

Jag går fram till hyllan, plockar upp en body i storlek 50, för mindre storlekar kan man inte hitta i de flesta vanliga affärer. Det är där de flesta bäbisar börjar sin garderob, vissa med ännu större storlekar ibland. Mitt andetag stannar någonstans, tar en paus. Allt blir så tyst. Den pastelliga, randiga bodyn är så förskräckligt liten. Helt sjukt liten. Och ändå.

Jag kommer ihåg alla gånger vi återvände, för nu jäklar hade vi hittat de minsta kläderna någonsin. Men på vår Ronja verkade allting på något magiskt sätt förvandlas till tältliknande klädesplagg. Jag släpper ut ett långt, hackigt andetag och minns den lilla, lilla bäbisen. Hon som var mer maskin än människa ibland, mer ben och skinn än något annat. Hon som skrek, och kräktes och sov i min famn. Ett litet, litet bylte. Det lilla, lilla hoppet.

Ronja Suyai.

Jag tar ett till andetag. Lägger ifrån mig den mycket lilla bodyn. Ronjas första plagg var storlek 38. Mössan var för stor dock. Alla mössor i hela universum var för stora för Ronja då.

Jag tittar över axeln, blinkar ilsket mina våta ögon och ler åt Johannes och Ronja som förlöjligar några exceptionellt fula barnkläder. Det känns som ett annat liv. Och ändå så vet jag att det hände. Månaderna på sjukhuset. Månaderna av ovisshet. Att möta det absolut värsta tänkbara i hela världen. Att se sitt barn dö. Ronja kiknar av skratt när Johannes studsar iväg och ut ur affären. Jag tittar en sista gång på bäbiskläderna. Nu är Ronja för stor för dessa kläder, för just dessa går bara till storlek 68. En storlek som förut kändes helt omöjligt att nå. När hon väl hade vuxit så pass (efter cirka 3 månader) att hon kunde ha på sig sina första Newbie kläder så köpte vi allt som fanns. Varenda pastellfärgade body, alla klänningar och alla byxor. För nu kunde hon också ha på sig samma som alla andra. Nu var Ronja också en bäbis. Inte ett foster, inkapabel att äta och växa.

Jag sväljer den gamla sorgen i halsen. Tar ett djupt andetag, följer efter min man och min dotter. Hon blundar och skrubbar sig i ansiktet med hela armen, sjunker ihop lite av trötthet och avger ett långt klagande ljud.

Vi sätter oss i bilen. Ronja är trött och lite hungrig och blir arg, men somnar efter en liten stund. Ibland så glömmer jag att hennes början på livet var så kämpig. Ibland så glömmer jag bort allt i blöjhaven och de sömnlösa nätterna.

Ibland så glömmer jag att Ronja är en gåva. För trots allt som skett kommer Ronja få fylla 1 år om bara några månader, och fastän det verkade omöjligt när det var som värst, så kommer säkert hon också få springa runt och leka och ramla och vara en evig fighter, och evigt älskad.

Ut ur dödens väntrum

2011-04-26T09:16:00.000-07:00

Vi kanske åker hem imorgon på permission.

Vi kanske får bli utskrivna på måndag.

Vi kanske får påbörja vårt nya liv, igen, på riktigt, snart.

Verkligheten har blivit så liten, men samtidigt så enorm på ett annat sätt. Allt har liksom stannat av, allt handlar om Ronja. Den fantastiska lilla tjejen som ler sitt tandlösa leende och gör så att hennes stackars föräldrars hjärtan smälter var gång. Det har inte funnits något annat än Ronja, dessa tre, snart fyra månader sen hon föddes.

Vi har väntat i dödens väntrum. Lyssnat på det långsamma tickandet av klockan på väggen. Väntat på obeskrivliga hemskheter, väntat på det slutgiltiga beskedet att nej, hon kommer inte klara sig. Jag har spelat upp det här scenariot för mig själv tusen gånger, ibland flera gånger på en dag när jag inte lyckats värja mig mot mina egna tankar. Jag har velat förbereda mig själv för att överleva en ny död, överleva min dotter, utan att själv förgås.

Tanken av världen utanför har varit omöjlig att ens fundera över. I dödens väntrum finns bara här och nu, det finns ingenting utanför de karga väggarna och de tysta rummen. Bara väntan, på det tillsynes oundvikliga.

Inte ens nu, när allting pekar på att vi är på väg ut så vågar jag hoppas. Jag griper hårdare tag om Ronja, håller andan tills det är över. På något sätt skulle jag tycka det vore skönare ifall hon kräktes upp allt sitt maginnehåll igen, att hon blev så där grå och blek igen, att hon blev sjuk nu, istället för senare, när vi kommit hem, packat upp våra väskor, hälsat på våra vänner, gosat ner oss i soffan. I mitt sinne så vågar jag inte släppa sjukdomen som härjat våra liv.

Kan allt som varit vårt liv, vår verklighet verkligen vara över?

Klarar jag av en vända till av det här, att bara vänta på att minuterna ska gå? Att bara vänta på att få veta om hon kommer att leva eller dö?

Om jag tillät mig hoppas, om jag tillät mig att blunda, luta mig tillbaka och andas djupt så kanske kunde jag tänka, tillåta mig tro att nej, jag behöver inte klara en vända till. För nu pekar ju allt åt rätt håll. Jag ser mig själv stå och samtala med min favorit-barnsjöterska, hör mig själv återberätta kirurgens ord; ”… på onsdag är hon ju uppe i 60ml mat per 3 timmar, och då om det funkar bra får vi ju åka hem på permission. Så enligt hans plan om allt går som det ska kommer vi tillbaka på fredag, tar bort infarten (en slang som tidigare gett henne intravenös näring, men som inte längre används för att hon pallar äta det mesta hon behöver på nappflaska) så åker vi hem över helgen och blir utskrivna på måndag och behöver typ aldrig komma tillbaka igen.”

Jag hör mig själv säga det, ser mig själv le åt barnsköterskan som blir så glad att höra de goda nyheterna, men i mitt inre så vågar jag inte tro.

Är den här episoden över nu? Var allt verkligen bara ett ganska kort kapitel i alla våras liv? Ska det riktiga livet börja nu, även för oss? Jag inser att jag nästan bara förberett mig för att det värsta skulle hända. Jag har knappt ägnat en tanke åt att allt faktiskt kunde lösa sig. Och det är inte det att jag är rädd, eller att jag tror att jag inte kan.

Men som jag tänkt på döden dessa tre månader så känner jag mig nästan bländad i mitt inre av tanken av hur vackert livet är, och kommer vara utan allt mörker. Det är så vackert att jag inte vågar tänka på det, bara utifall att det skulle slitas bort från oss. Och det vackra livet inte blir vårt.

Imorgon får vi nog åka hem. Om allt går bra så återvänder vi på måndag för att bli utskrivna, och har vi tur så behöver vi aldrig återvända till Astrid Lindgrensbarnsjukhus, avdelning Q63, barnkirurgi.

Överdosen

2011-04-25T11:30:00.000-07:00

Det blev lite fel efter operationen och Ronja fick en överdos av typ paracetamol.

Jag fattade inte riktigt vad läkaren sa så det tog mig större delen av en dag innan jag faktiskt förstod att det kunde vara allvarligt. Jag försökte pejla med läkaren exakt vad detta kunde påverka och lyckades efter mycket rotande och försiktiga frågor komma fram till att det bara var levern som var i riskzonen, och motmedel mot överdosen hade satts in omedelbart.

Johannes sprang på sjuksköterskan i korridoren som hade varit ansvarig under kvällen när överdosen skedde. Hon hälsade glatt på honom.

”Vet hon ens om vad som hände?” Sa Johannes irriterat.

Nu nådde aldrig paracetamol-förgiftningen (ordet förgiftning får det att låta som en väldigt medveten handling, vilket det troligtvis inte var, men visst….) en toxisk nivå i Ronjas kropp, som läkaren uttryckte det. Men bredvid flaskan som innehöll paracetamolen hängde ju även en flaska med morfin. Jag är inte en ’tänk om detta hade hänt’ person. Men ändå, tänk om det var morfinet som de hade räknat fel på.

Då hade ju konsekvenserna varit snäppet allvarligare.

Men jag kan inte förmå mig att bli arg över detta. Visst bubblar stressen upp i magen som en dålig lunch med tonfisk i av blotta tanken av alla möjliga saker som skulle kunna gå fel när man har ett sjukt barn som får medicin och som utsätts för alla möjliga saker på ett sjukhus. På något sätt så måste jag ha förtroende i att sjuksystrar, läkare och kirurger vet vad de håller på med. Att de har fått sova. Fått morgonkaffe. Inte är hungriga och har lågt blodsocker. Eller att de heller inte är stressade eller råkar vara på dåligt humör… Alltså att de kan fokusera till 100%.

Men det var ju lite kaos när Ronja återvände till övervakningssalen från Barnintensiven (BIVA) efter operation. Ingen var riktigt beredd på att hon skulle komma tillbaka just då, och det var mitt i skiftbytet så alla systrar som tog emot henne började sakta men säkert bli allt mer stressade allt som tiden gick och deras pass drog över tiden. Samtidigt skulle medicinmängder per timme uträknas, med huvudräkning, miniräknare och papper. Intravenös näring skulle förberedas med en special fettblandning och Ronja skulle kontrolleras, hennes andning, vikt, blodtryck, saltvärden i blodet, syresättning i blodet, etc.

Jag kommer inte ihåg om jag sa det till Johannes just då, eller om jag gjorde det först efter att vi fått reda på överdosen, men när vi satt där och beskådade vår dotter som förbereddes för att inhysas på övervakningssalen så tänkte jag lite bekymrat att något kommer att gå fel.

Men av alla saker som kunde ha gått fel så var väl detta en av de ”bättre”. Eller i alla fall mindre dåligt. För det blev ju ingen allvarlig skada. Bara en trött bäbis som inte riktigt hade lust till något under 24 timmar.

Men jag kan inte förmå mig att bli arg över detta.

Vi har varit här i två månader nu, och det kräver inte många snillen för att förstå att arbetsförhållandena inom vården inte är särskilt bra, för att uttrycka det milt.

Det är bara en tidsfråga innan misstagen begås på ett sjukhus. Johannes är kulturarbetare, ljustekniker på Dansens Hus i Stockholm, och medlem i teaterförbundets fackförening.

Enligt sina avtal måste han ha elva timmars dygnsvila, dvs. att när han går hem får han inte komma tillbaks till jobbet inom elva timmar. Om hans schema skulle bli ändrat eller om han skulle beordras övertid så vore det vara billigare för hans arbetsgivare att fixa dit en vikarie jämfört med det OB tillägg som han annars skulle behöva betala ut till Johannes. Flera gånger har många i personalen jobbat dubbla pass, vilket resulterar i en 14-timmars arbetsdag. Många som avslutat ett kvällspass klockan 22.00 väljer att sova på sjukhuset för att kliva upp och påbörja nästan pass vid 6-7 tiden nästa morgon.

Man skulle ju kunna önska att de som tar hand om oss och våra barn vid sjukdom hade bättre arbetsförhållanden, och slapp ha två jobb för att klara ekonomin. Det är inte sjuksystrarnas eller läkarnas fel när det blir snett, visst någon gång kanske det beror på okunskap men för det mesta skulle jag gissa på att de fel som sker i vården beror på samma saker som andra dåligt fungerande saker i samhället. För däri ligger mysteriet. Borde inte de människor som ansvarar för våra sjuka barn, sjuka vänner, släktingar och oss själva värderas högst i samhället? Visst, en läkare får en ganska schysst lön, men arbetsvillkoren tycks fortfarande skilja sig radikalt från resten av samhället. Det är så där lagom förtroende ingivande när Ronjas kirurg trillar in på morgon med blodsprängda trötta ögon och glatt meddelar att han måste utföra en länge operation som kommer ta hela eftermiddagen och kvällen, men att han därefter kommer ta itu med vår dotter.

(”Gå hem och sov istället!”).

Och fortfarande faller den tuffaste lotten på kvinnorna i vården. Sjuksköterskorna och undersköterskorna. (ja, det finns män också men under mina 2 månader på sjukhus tror jag att jag bara sett en manlig sjuksyster.) Dålig lön, dåliga arbetsförhållanden och all ära går till läkarna som ordinerat och diagnosticerat massa grejor, men sällan utför något egentligen. Varför bryr sig inte samhället om de som tar hand om oss mest, när vi behöver det som mest? Varför får sjuksystrar, sjukbiträden, men också typ lärare alla skit? Är det för att det är ett kvinnodominerat yrke? För att det är låg status? Vad är grejen?

För Ronja gick det ju bra i alla fall, men det sker ju misstag i vården för jämnan. Det är synd för alla iblandande, inte minst för anhöriga när det verkligen har gått åt skogen. Men det är synd om den trötta, slitna och ouppskattade sjukvårdspersonalen också.

Vad säger du om det Filippa Reinfeldt, fru sjukvårdslandstingsråd i STHLM?!

Att vara eller inte vara social

2011-04-21T09:33:00.000-07:00

Vaknade med musik i huvudet.

Följ bilden till youtube. Det är en länk.

Jag längtar efter den riktiga världen, att andas in vårens alla dofter, bli rufsig i håret efter en svettig cykeltur bland fälten, att blunda och känna solens strålar dansa på huden och den där stickiga känslan man får när man blir lite, lite bränd av den. Jag längtar efter bra internet, en bra film, lyssna på högljudd musik och dansa i vardagsrummet när jag tror att ingen ser mig. En bra promenad. En god kopp kaffe. Mat som är så stark att snoret börjar rinna. Jag längtar efter henne. Min dotter. Mitt barn.

Hon som skriker argt när hon inte får mat, för läkarna har sagt att hennes tarmar måste vila. Vi tycker hon kan få bo i deras kontor i sådana fall, så får de lyssna på när hon skriker i två timmar. Ronja, som dräglar på mig när hon sover. Blänger på pappa när han pussar henne på kinden och river lite med skägget på hennes feta, mjuka kinder. Jag längtar efter att sitta med henne på balkongen och plantera grejer. Jag hade ju värsta planen på allt som skulle ner i mina ”krukor”(gamla burkar, glas, osv.). Jag skulle ju anlägga en liten köksträdgård eftersom balkongen är den enda yta där det är möjligt. Ronja skulle ju välta omkull mina basilikaplantor, slita upp min persilja och drägla lite på gräslöken när jag tittade bort.

Jag har ju till och med ett litet växthus som jag skulle förbereda alla plantor i. Men allting behöver ju liksom en massa tid. Att bli frisk, pigg, och glad igen.

Jag träffade flera av mina vänner i Järna. Hade bestämt mig innan att jag inte skulle prata så mycket om sjukhuset, eller om Ronja, men så blev det inte. Och när jag satt på tåget på väg hem till sjukhuset så bubblade tårarna plötsligt oväntat upp och jag fick sitta med solglasögon hela färden till Solna. En hel dag spenderade jag med en sjuk mängd vänner och bekanta. Och jag kan knappt minnas att jag hade mer än två bra konversationer med någon. Bara en av mina vänner ville prata om mig som Amanda. Amanda som gillar grafisk design, och musik och kultur, och att tycka till om allt. Jag insåg det inte när jag stod där och pratade, berättade samma historia om och om igen till 10, 20, kanske 30 pers.

Det är klart att även jag förstår att andra vill förstå. Det som hänt. Men jag var ju på rymmen. Hade äntligen fått en anledning att lämna sjukhuset, lämna Ronja med Johannes. Och jag ville ju vara mig. Själv. Men det förstod jag först på vägen hem, efter en lång relativt jobbig dag. Det blir nog ingen riktigt bra slutsats till det här.

En go’ vän, inför mitt besök tyckte att jag bara skulle vara asocial. Slå bort folks frågor, säga att jag ville vara ifred. Det var ju min plan, men så blev det inte. Ibland är det svårare att hålla folk ute än att släppa in dem. Det är hårfin gräns, det där. Livet.

Kom hem till min goda man som förstod, efter lite pejlande, var jag befann mig. En kokoskaka senare (TACK LINNEA!) plus en cigg var freden återställd i universum igen.

Morgonen hade börjat med att jag hysteriskt nynnat på Hello Saferide låten som jag länkade där uppe. Och när jag väntade på buss 59 till Karolinska Sjukhuset fick jag denna låt på hjärnan istället.

Jag tänker dock för en gångs skull inte överanalysera detta.

Länk ovan.

Glad påsk. Vi firar med naturgodis samt firar att Ronja äntligen vuxit in i storlek 50.

Det lilla hoppet

2011-04-20T11:41:00.000-07:00

“Ja, best case scenario så kanske ni kommer härifrån med en frisk bäbis om två veckor.”

Nä, tanker jag cyniskt. Något måste ju hända. Inte. Kan. Allt. Bli. Bra. Nu. ?

Kan allt verkligen bli bra nu?

Efter månader av, ja, stress, ångest, kaos, som en gigantisk klump i halsen känns tanken av att det kanske är över snart helt otänkbar. Omöjlig. Klumpen flämtar liksom till i min hals. Den tjocka, knutna stressklumpen vibrerar lite, oförstående. Ovan av tanken att inte finnas till.

Kan allt verkligen bli bra nu?

Tanken är bekant. Den har stuckit fram sitt trevande tryne förr. Och den har svikit oss. Inte en gång, inte två gånger, men kanske tre, fyra gånger. Kommer hoppet överge oss en femte, sjätte gång? Klumpen fixerar sig hårdare i halsen, attraherar lite tårar till ögonen där vi väntar. Väntar på att få träffa vår dotter efter operation. Väntar på att få beskåda hur stort ärret på magen kommer vara. Lite skärrad efter bilderna som kirurgen visade för en. Av hennes tarmar och blod. Men cool ska man ju vara, och inte freaka ur bara för en sån bagatell.

Ett par veckor till bara sen kan vi leva vanliga liv med mat som kommer in och ut genom rätt kroppsöppningar, eller eventuellt om vi har lite otur, 3 till 6 månader av intravenös näring och blippande maskiner och trassliga slangar. Hurr. Det var den sommaren.

Jag blundar och försöker tränga bort alla negativa tankar. Och alla positiva tankar också. För att luta sig tillbaka och förlita sig på hoppet känns allt för skrämmande. Hoppet att det här kommer vara över nu, att vi får åka hem som familjen Huircan-Olsson, att vi får kramas alla tre tillsammans i vår stora säng, lyssna på Johnny Cash, gå på promenader i Järna, hälsa på alla goa vänner och farmor och farfar och mormor och moster och allihopa som vi saknat och som saknat oss och Ronja. Och vi ska bara vara tillsammans med Ronja och älska varandra och älska att få vara typ normala. Eller något.

Jag tror inte på Gud eller något överhuvudtaget så där. Men mitt inre ber en desperat bön.

Snälla. Låt. Allt. Vara. Över. Snart.

När Ronja hade fötts, och jag och Johannes satt ensamma på BB utan vårt barn så bestämde vi att hon skulle heta Suyai i andranamn. Vi var överlyckliga över att det barn jag burit var en Ronja, men så kom det till hennes andranamn som vi i förhand hade bestämt skulle vara ett mapuche namn, liksom jag och min syster eftersom vi härstammar därifrån. Och då, innan vi ens visste vad de kommande månaderna skulle bjuda på för utmaningar så valde vi namnet Suyai.

Suyai betyder hopp. (Inte hopp som en kanin. Utan hoppet som vi lever på just nu.)

Kärlek som livbåt

2011-04-19T11:47:00.000-07:00

Vi fick träffa en kurator, inte för att vi höll på att bryta ihop allt för mycket –känner jag mig tvingad att förklara– utan det brukar man helt enkelt få göra om man befunnit sig länge som föräldrar på Astrid Lindgrens Barnsjukhus.

Jag var skeptisk och nervös inför mötet, misstänksam som jag blivit efter möten med kuratorer, terapeuter och andra psykfalls entusiaster som jag arbetat mig igenom under livets gång. Men det var omåttligt skönt att få träffa henne, kan jag erkänna så här på efterhand.

Johannes hade rätt, när han lugnade mig på kvällen innan vi skulle möta henne. Vi kan bära varandra tidvis, eller för det mesta, men det kan vara skönt att också få dumpa alla sorger och små eller stora klagomål på någon annan istället för varandra jämt och ständigt.

Det var förvånansvärt befriande att tala med henne, och få bekräftelse på all ångest och irritation. Ja, de flesta föräldrar freakar tydligen ut för att det inte finns något privatliv att tal om på sjukhuset. (Jag trodde verkligen att det bara var jag som tyckte att det var lite jobbigt med sjuksystrar som traskar in i rummet som inte går att låsa minst var tredje timme och/eller pratar med grannen bakom draperiet i vanligt samtalston när som helst på dygnet. Eller ba’ att det överhuvudtaget inte finns någonstans på hela sjukhuset där man ens får vara lite ifred. Knappt på toaletten.)

Överhuvudtaget tycker jag att sjukhuset borde erbjuda (återigen, bra liknelse till fängelser, tror jag) husvagnar till familjer, eller framförallt par som håller på att bryta ihop. Jag tänker inte kommentera vidare på saken, just putting it out there.

Det mesta kring mötet med kuratorn kretsade kring bekräftelse. Bekräftelse för allt hemskt som sker.

Ja, de flesta föräldrar som kuratorn träffat i liknande situationer som oss tänker vid något tillfälle under vistelsen att deras barn kommer dö. Oavsett om barnets problem handlar om matsmältningsvårigheter eller annat för det mesta rätt ofarliga, eller vilket fall inte livshotande grejer.

Så frågade hon oss hur vi gör för att klara oss, då vi, halvskamset mumlades ner i golvet erkände att vi båda börjat röka rätt mycket igen.

”Gud, va bra!” Utropar kuratorn, till min stora förvirring. Det är jätteviktigt, menade hon, att man på något sätt får utlopp för sin frustration och ångest. Oavsett om det är genom att skrika, gråta, bråka, (blogga) eller röka så är det enormt viktigt att få utlopp för det, även om det kanske kan vara lite onyttigt. Och att jag och Johannes främst röker tillsammans är också bra, plus att man får en anledning att gå utanför sjukhusväggarna.

Vidare observerade kuratorn att jag och Johannes är ganska lika, och att vi framförallt tycks vara pragmatiska människor, vilket jag aldrig riktigt tyckt om mig själv (jag har snarare tänkt att jag nog är en ganska opragmatisk person), men efter att ha funderat på saken lite så tror jag att hon nog har rätt.

Det är ju bara att lida sig igenom den här tiden, för vårt barn är ju faktiskt inte döende, det kommer bara ta tid tills hon blir riktigt bra. Och det är segt som fan, men det kommer bli bra. Det kunde ju faktiskt dessutom kunna vara mycket sämre. Vi bor i alla fall inte i USA. Ronja kan åka på röntgen 5 ggr om dagen och vi behöver inte ens tänka på den troligtvis skyhöga kostnaden.

Jag älskar att betala skatt. Och jag uppskattar Sverige så enormt mycket. Hela situationen kunde ju ha varit så enormt mycket sämre, så med perspektiv på saken är det ju faktiskt ganska skönt att vi är där vi är med så goda förutsättningar. Tacka folkhemmet och det sociala skyddsnätet som omger oss. Om ändå fler människor kunde fatta hur viktigt det är med välfärd.

Vi bokade en ny tid på studs efter det första mötet.

På efterhand har jag funderat mer på hennes sista fråga, hur klarar vi oss? Hon verkade tycka att vi var enormt duktiga, och klarade oss fantastiskt bra. (Visst, jag höll igen viss ilska och sorgsenhet under mötet.) Genom de mörka timmarna när man bara sett svart och tänkt det värsta i situationen, så har jag ändå vetat att det faktiskt kommer att bli bra. Ångesten släpper ju, det handlar ju också bara om tid, och så lugnar man ner sig och kommer ihåg att Ronja ju är världens sötaste, och hon är inte döende. Hon är bara lite jättesjuk, och hon behöver massor med tid för att bli bra.

Men hur klarar vi oss?

Kärlek, sa Johannes till mig igår kväll. Vi har bott 2 månader på sjukhuset, och jag kan knappt minnas nån gång som jag sett några andra föräldrar uttrycka kärlek till varandra, hålla varandra i handen, krama varandra, kyssa varandra, prata lekfullt eller ömt med varandra. En del i hur vi klarar oss så pass bra som vi gör är faktiskt, efter vidare eftertanke, tack vare vårt sätt att uttrycka vår kärlek på. Jag menar inte någonstans att vi är de enda som älskar varandra. Men det är lätt att man glömmer varandra när ens barn är sjukt, givetvis, för det är en hemsk situation, men samtidigt är blir det nästan dubbelt så viktigt att också fokusera på varandra än mer under denna period.

Att inte glömma varandras behov, av närhet och omsorg nu när det är som svårast och behövs som mest. Hålla handen, kramas i hissen, kyssa varandra när vi sitter bredvid vårt sovande barn, trängas i en liten säng bara för att få vara nära varandra, stjäla ögonblick under dagen då det bara är jag och han.

Ronja är sjuk och hon är vårt allt. Men vi är också varandras allt. Jag tänker att för att orka med att ta hand om ett sjukt barn, måste vi också vårda varandra, och vårda relationen.

Man kan aldrig kyssas för mycket, eller berätta för många gånger hur mycket man älskar någon. Hur orkar man med livet utan kärlek? Utan att få hålla varandras händer, dansa när bara du ser, viska ord bara du hör.

Husvagnar till långtidsvabbande föräldrar till allvarligt sjuka barn alltså, någon politiker snälla lägg in en motion, vi får inte ha något privatliv här!

Jämförelser och jämställdhet

2011-04-18T12:46:00.000-07:00

Jag vill inte jag vill inte jag vill inte jag vill inte.

Så känns det i mitt inre, och det är med nöd och näppe som mitt verkliga djupa inre tar sig förbi min yttre inre ångest, tvingar sig att beskåda undret Ronja och suckandes vika sig inför hennes skönhet, och säga, ”jag älskar dig”, mitt barn.

Jag läser många mamma och föräldratidningar. Tanken är väl att man ska finna tröst och intresse i dessa blaskor, men jag brukar mest bli mer nedstämd. Det är något som är alldeles för rumsrent med dessa tidningar. Jag irriterar mig på att läsa på om svenska kändisars okomplicerade familjeliv. Jag blir så oerhört, obeskrivligt provocerad av att läsa om mammor som spenderar både graviditet och mammaledighet på NK. Om mammor som klagar halvseriöst om att ha gett upp fester och champagneflaskor för att vara gravida.

Om mammor som klappar sig på axeln för de gick ju inte upp så mycket i vikt, och lyckligtvis hade de ju en egen träningscoach eller tid för att träna bort det kvarliggande mammafettet. Själv gick jag ju inte upp mer än 5 kilo eftersom jag började graviditeten med att gå ner 2.5 kg, och 4 av dem försvann så fort Ronja var ute, resterande försvann tack vare stress och bara det faktum att jag aldrig tycks få i mig mer än två mål om dagen.

Sen så har ju mitt ångestdämpande rökande också stigit några grader.

Till och med jag som förbittrar mig över denna jämförelsetävling som startar så fort man ens nämner ordet barn, känner mig nästan tvingad att poängtera att jag faktiskt inte gick upp så mycket i vikt och det var ju inte alls svårt att tappa. Jag hade hellre gått upp 30 kg om jag fått en frisk dotter på köpet.

Nej men dessa föräldratidningar ger mig ingen ro. Jag hoppar bistert över ett långt kapitel om ditt barns utvecklingskurva, sneglar lite på den bara för att notera att Ronja avviker helt från kurvan. Nej, jag tror inte riktigt på att hon att gett mig ett leende ännu, fast det går tre månader. Nej, hon kan inte riktigt nå sina fötter ännu. Nej, hon kan absolut inte vända på sig själv, hon är inte ens i närheten. Jag är glad när mitt barn orkar lyfta på sitt huvud för att titta en stund in i mina ögon. Jag fick aldrig den där första kontakten med henne. Jag väntade länge på det, men det hände inte. Hon fattar nog att jag är mamma ändå, och jag tror inte hon kommer bli totalt traumatiserad på grund av det.

På något sätt får jag en vag känsla att dessa mammatidningar bara spär på jämförelsetävlingen och könsuppdelningen mer. På en sida betonar man att alla barn är annorlunda och man inte ska jämföra sina barn. Sen på nästa så har de en någorlunda korrekt utvecklingskurva. Så på en sida har en ledare som handlar om pappans likavärde i föräldraskapet. Samtidigt handlar alla andra artiklar i tidningen om mammor. Vilken sorts mamma är du? Kläder för trendiga mammor, aktiviteter för mammor och barn. Barnets förälder benämns i resten av tidningen som mamman och pappan nämns i princip endast när någon manlig svensk halvkändis gör ett utlägg om faderskap och hur viktigt det är, och det är klart att de ska belysas hur jävla duktiga alla ansvarstagande farsor är.

Naiv är man när man bara önskade att man kunde få vara en människa, en vanlig människa och inte alltid utöver det också alla stämplar som typ samhället (eller vi själva?) vill placera på oss, för tydligen är jag också tydligen en kvinna (vad nu det betyder och har för betydelse), ett offer ibland, en mamma, en ung förälder, en hippie, en arbetslös ungdom, en sån där som sysslar med amatörkonst, en backpacker, en blatte och ja, det är ju faktiskt bara jag som hittar på det mesta.

Jävla föräldratidningar.

Jag gick i alla fall ner all min mamma vikt på en och en halvmånad.

Och min unge är fan sötare än din oavsett hur många gånger din feta bäbis än vänder på sig av sig själv.

Skulden över att inte vilja

2011-04-17T09:07:00.000-07:00

Det är trist att bara vilja lämna sitt barn. Inte lämna som i att överge, även fast den tanken även slagit mig under mörka timmar, men som i att jag vakar som en hök på nästa ögonblick då jag inte behöver sitta med henne i famnen, bara kuta ut och ta en cigg och helst av helt, en undanflykt för att lämna sjukhuset helt och hållet. Kanske åka till stan, titta på fina kläder, ta en kaffe som inte smakar garvsyra och känna sig som om man faktiskt vore som andra ungdomar i ens ålder.

Det känns så jävla trist att det för det mesta känns så jävla trist att ha blivit mamma till ett sjukt barn visserligen. De få dagar jag och Ronja fick ha hemma tillsammans var dock helt okej, ganska mysiga, men liksom lite suddiga i kanten av oron att hon troligtvis inte mådde så bra trots att vi blivit utskrivna från sjukhuset.

Att vara på sjukhus är som att vara i fängelset, tror jag. Fast i fängelset får man mat. Och så får man sova.

Jag blickar bort mot Radiumhemmet, där skinnskalliga barn och vuxna överlever de värsta av sjukdomar och tänker att, ”det kunde ju faktiskt vara värre”. Och det kunde det nog. Jag stänger ögonen och tvingar mig själv att tänka framåt, tänka att jag sitter med en femårig Ronja på knäna och berättar att hon ju var lite sjuklig av sig när hon var nyfödd, och det är därför hon har det där lilla knappt synbara ärret på magen. Hon skuttar upp på fötterna och springer iväg, glatt, med långt fladdrande hår.

Men visst känns mycket jobbigt. Ibland är jag fjantig och lägger en dramatisk hand på pannan, utbrister ”o ve!” och förfärar mig över min ungdom som förspilles innanför dessa karga sjukhusväggar, om alla mina vänner som har det roligt tillsammans där på utsidan, om allt jag missar.

Skulden hugger till i magen. Inte den där föräldraskulden som alla verkar vilja uttala sig om, utan skulden över att inte vilja, skulden över att helst av allt vilja vara totalt befriad, ung och vacker igen.

Ibland har jag tänkt att hon skulle dö. Sett mig själv stå och packa ner otaliga barnkläder i förmärkta påsar att gömmas i källaren. Dölja alla bilder som heter Ronja i en mapp någonstans på datorn. Och försöka glömma. Och den skulden över det lättnadsandetag som jag skulle ta efter att ha sörjt fyller mig.

Jag vänder mig. Tittar på min vackra man, som jag älskar mer än allt, och därefter på vår dotter. Och hon är ju faktiskt det mest fantastiska någonsin. Och då får även jag perspektiv på saker och ting. För Ronja kommer ju faktiskt bli fem år hon också, om fem år, och skutta upp på fötterna och springa iväg till nya äventyr. Hon är ju faktiskt inte jättesjuk, bara lite jättesjuk. Och det kunde ju vara mycket värre. Och jag är ju bara 21 år, och mitt korta liv kommer ju troligtvis faktiskt inte förstöras av en till två års sjukhusbesök och vistelser. Kanske det till och med kommer berikas.

Älskade dotter.

Vi ville ju bara ligga, brukar jag och Johannes säga och titta förälskade på vår vackra dotter. Fast egentligen ville vi ju mer också, det visste vi bara inte just i det ögonblicket.

Det värsta som finns måste vara att se sitt barn dö

2011-04-16T12:59:00.000-07:00

Det har varit många långa veckor nu, i sjukhusets långa korridorer, upplysta av ljusrör, med sorgsna tavlor på väggarna och färger som försöker vara glada men endast blir ett pråligt glansigt omslag till en sorgsen film man egentligen inte vill se.

Vi är föräldrar nu, sen tre månader tillbaka. Det var väl inte exakt planerat, men inte heller exakt oönskat. Allting hade som gått väldigt fort, läskigt fort, men ingenting som skedde var oönskat. Att bära på ett sjukt barn var väl dock kanske inte helt önskat. Vi visste ju hur hela förloppet skulle se ut, framåt slutet av graviditeten skulle det bli fler ultraljud och träffar med läkare, och senast i vecka 36 skulle ungen ut med kejsarsnitt. Därefter väntade minst 4 veckor på Karolinska.

Efter tre månader känns det som om man kan börja tumma lite mer på, ja, på tidsuppfattningar helt enkelt, eller gissningar eller vad man nu kan säga får tillvaron att flyta på.

Det var den bästa dagen någonsin den dagen som den okända knodden som låg som en oansenlig klump i magen kom ut och var världens sötaste Ronja. (Konstig mening, men hon är faktiskt världens sötaste. Faktiskt.) Det var den bästa dagen, men därefter följde många jobbiga dagar. Tunga dagar. Långa dagar på sjukhus. Det värsta som finns i världen måste ju vara att se sitt barn dö, nu har nog Ronja aldrig varit riktigt i den situationen, men jag menar, fantasin får ju sitt eget liv mer nu än någonsin förr när man sitter instängd på ett sjukhus utan mat eller vettig underhållning/distraktion och kan inte annat än notera att dagarna förflyter medans ens barn ligger inkopplad och är mer maskin än människa.

Nä, lite dramatiskt.

Men ibland kändes det så. Eller känns så. Slangar hit och slangar dit, mediciner, blodprov och millilitermått. Och ibland så kan livet få kännas lite normalt, och man får gulla med världens sötaste bäbis i famnen, bli pussad av världens finaste man på pannan och känna sig som världens mest lyckligt lottade brud.

Men det är lätt att glömma det som är fint, man får liksom krampartat hålla fast vid det, när man vandrar ner en välbekant korridor i sjukhuset och tittar på den obligatoriska bilden på Astrid Lindgren som finns på varje våning. Var inte Astrid Lindgren ändå lite smygrasistisk? Kan man komma undan med att säga Negerkung över... och komma undan med det som någon Hergé…. Men hon gillade ju barn, och Ronja är ju världens sötaste. Rummen känns som om de dekorerats med inspiration av ett dagis på 70-talet, och kök är det ju inte att tala om. Jag som alltid var extremt petig med mat (jättenyttig och alltid ekologiskt) känner mig nöjd med en microvärmd findus pizza efter att ha slitit med min jävla ekomat i ett undermåligt sjukhuspentry i en och en halvmånad.

Hela livet kokas liksom ner till det enda som faktiskt är viktigt. Och det är att hon mår bra, och att jag och Johannes mår någorlunda bra och inte glömmer hur mycket vi älskar och respekterar varandra. Alla tre.

Och däremellan spelar inget så mycket roll. Ekomat whatever. Köra bil fram och tillbaka bara för att hämta mysiga barnkläder och dockan Birk, javisst. Röka ett paket om dagen, absolut, så länge vi orkar vidare så kör vi på det som håller oss flytande. Amning var det ändå aldrig att tala om med Ronja.

Otaliga dagar av sjukhusmat, sjukhusbelysning, sjukhuspersonal och den där ickelukten som bara finns på sjukhus och ålderdomshem väntar. (Den där lukten av parfymfritt decinfieringsmedel som överöses på samtliga ytor och levande varelser).

Prelude

2011-04-16T12:51:00.000-07:00

Jag träffade Johannes (Olsson) på en fest i Gula Villan, Järna. Jag kände igen honom från när han arbetat i Kulturhuset, och efter den festen i februari så höll vi kontakten. 17 mars blev vi tillsammans och någon gång i början av juni insåg jag att jag var gravid.

Från och med första ultraljudet fick vi veta att Ronja (som då endast benämndes som ”knodden”) hade gastroschisis, och att förlossningen och första månaderna i livet skulle se lite annorlunda ut. Ronja hade alltså ett hål i buken där hennes tarmar hade kommit ut, och flöt runt i fostervattnet. För mig och Johannes var det aldrig någon tvekan om att vi inte skulle ha det här barnet.

I vecka 33 fick Ronja Suyai Huircan komma ut med kejsarsnitt. 44 cm lång och 2095 gram tung(?).

Assimilationen i Sverige

2011-04-15T05:50:00.001-07:00

Jag satt som vanligt och lyssnade på något radioprogram på P1, det var troligtvis Özz I P1, men jag ska inte lova något.

Inte helt ovanligt nog diskuterades det under denna radiosändning med Özz Nujen, terrordådet i Stockholm och någonting om integration. Han släppte dock vid något tillfälle, mellan sina underbältetskämt och vulgära kommentarer som alltid slinker in någonstans, en av sina få men verbala guldklimpar som påminner en om karlns intelligens.

”Jag kom inte till Sverige för att bli svensk. Jag kom till Sverige för att få vara kurd.” Ett onekligen fantastiskt citat. Jag förstår inte hur folk kan ha missat denna briljanta samhällskommentar.

Varför tror ni att vi har invandring, integration, migration?

Dessa ord ger mer ofta än sällan upphov till stora diskussioner och problematik. Jag menar, vi har ett parti i riksdagen vars existens baserar sig på att ovanstående ord är något ont – oavsett hur fint de än försöker paketera sitt budskap.

Invandring är ett problem, brukar vi säga. Vi kan inte ta hand om alla invandrare som kommer, alla flyktingar, säger man. Invandringen är ett problem. Invandringen måste minska. Invandrarna, utlänningarna, blattarna är jobbiga i korta ordalag. De sänker standarden på alla områden dit de flyttar, de försämrar vårt språk, de hotar våra svenska värderingar och traditioner (ööhhhh, typ Julafton och Midsommar…. Öhhhhhhhhhh….) osv.

Jag brukar högt och fritt skandera vad jag tycker om alla dessa främlingsfientliga och trångsynta kommentarer (idioti!) men de berör dock inte bara påhittade problem. Problemet för mig är inställningen bland svenska folket.

Jag kom inte hit för att bli svensk. Jag kom hit för att kunna leva som den jag är, utan att riskera förföljelse, tortyr och död.

Och faktum är att Sverige har ett ansvar. Så ser jag på det. Sverige har ett ansvar som ett de rikaste mest stabila och välmående länderna i världen (efter typ, Kanada och Norge) att ta hand om de som har det lite svårt. Lite fucking good-will är väl inte för mycket att be om. Vi har dels råd med att ta hand om alla som söker asyl, men vi kan dels inte frångå ANSVARET. Vem tillverkar de vapen som används i krigen, som mördar och förstör, som bägge stridande sidor använder sig av. Vem tillverkar dessa vapen? Vem tjänar på alla död?

Vi kommer i Sverige aldrig kunna ha en sund invandringsdiskussion om vi inte talar om verkligheten. Och verkligheten är att detta är vår skyldighet och ett sista sätt att visa att vi faktiskt är ett solidariskt land och inte bara en kopia av alla andra amerikaniserade stater som sålt sin själ och blivit profitens hora.

Släpp kontrollen det är ingen fel på färgen. -Jason Diakité

Magnus Betnérs show Livets Ord har gått för jämnan på youtube för mig under våren. För att avsluta mitt dåligt formulerade klagande så ber jag er följa denna fantastiska länk.

För mer kul (eller okul som man säger på norrländska, titta här och här också, om ni inte redan sett det förr.)

Vår Hycklande Halo

2011-04-14T10:16:00.000-07:00

Det är med en grop i magen som jag tittar på Looptroop Rockers nya video, ”On Repeat” på YouTube.

Ilskan bubblar upp inom mig, för att sedan sjunka ned till en mer vuxen besvikelse. Jag är besviken på dig. (Sverige.)

De gånger man fått höra de orden från sina föräldrar har man lämnats med en klump i halsen, en oändlig grop i magen, kalla händer och en svettig, skamsen panna. Men även fast än det är jag som denna gång yttrar dessa ord, tycks det bara vara jag som skäms, som förloras i mitt maghåls mörka djup.

Som vi alla vet valdes Sverigedemokraterna in i riksdagen efter det senaste valet, 19:e september, 2010.

Jag har begrundat och funderat över hur detta var möjligt. Jag har varit arg, svurit över frukostbordet, spottat på bleka bilder på hans bleka ansikte med det välkammade misstänksamt mörka håret och kramat om min gravida uppsvullna mage med ett huvud fyllt av onda aningar kring den värld som jag vill föda mitt blattebarn i.

Nog med dramatik.

Enligt Sveriges radio har 13% av SDs kommunfullmäktige lämnat sina platser sedan valet, till skillnad från den dryga 2-3% bland övriga partier. Hoppet för dagens ungdom sken tydligt igenom, när demonstrationer mot SD organiserades dagen efter valet. Man kan tycka att det kanske är dumt att demonstrera mot ett parti som på ett demokratiskt sätt valts av folket. Jag säger att pedofiler och rasister har inga rättigheter och förtjänar ingen vänlighet oavsett hur fint de maskerat sig.

Jag lyssnade på ett program på P1 för några månader sedan, ett program som bjöd på ett långt reportage kring extremhögerpartiernas växande popularitet i Europa. (Olyckligtvis har jag inte kunnat komma ihåg vilket program det var, trots ett febrilt sökande. God morgon Världen? Kaliber? Konflikt? Studio Ett?).

Reportaget var långt och beskrev ett antal olika länders motsvarigheter till SD. Frågor kring integrationspolitik, om hur viktigt den offentliga sektorn jämte den privata sektorn är samt om kultur ställdes och besvarades på ett förvånansvärt varierat sätt av de olika, men tillsynes liknande extremhögerpartierna.

En röd tråd uppenbarade sig för mig i detta gytter av ogenomtänkt, olik politik. Alla partier tycks ha blivit populära pga. en viss trötthet över den gängse politiken i landet. I samtliga länder som reportaget berörde tycktes en stor andel av väljarna i respektive extremhögerparti vara outbildade män. Outbildade män som bildat egna uppfattningar över hur samhället och världen ser ut, och nu till allas fördärv försöker tillämpa påhittade lösningar på förvrängda icke-existerande samhällsproblem. Jag darrar i mitt inre av denna tanke.

Idioternas frammarsch.

Här måtte demokratins starkaste förespråkare tvingas mumla lite förläget ner i skägget. Demokrati = folkstyre, en ytterst vacker och romantiskt tanke. Dock omåttligt läskig om Folket, alltså den stora majoriteten av en grupp människor, visar sig vara omåttligt korkade och vägrar ta det ansvar som en fungerande demokrati kräver (och häri ligger ytterligare ett problem med demokratin, utöver möjligheten att folk faktiskt är idioter) nämligen att hålla sig objektivt informerad om samhället och världen, att på eget ansvar kontinuerligt ha koll på saker och ting och att utbilda sig, antingen på egen hand eller genom redan existerande konstitutioner.

“It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.” Winston Churchill.

För om människor inte gör dessa saker, inte förstår de bakomliggande anledningarna till förändringar och problem i samhället, utan hittar på egna anledningar till saker och ting utan någon som helst förankring i verklig fakta, då faller demokratin.

Den ursprungliga betydelsen för ordet idiot i grekisk kultur hänvisar till en självisk person som inte deltog i politiken och demokratiska styret i Aten.

Vi har tydligen kommit väldigt långt i Sverige. Vi har valt en regeringsensemble där fler ministrar än någonsin förr tycks vilja att mest av allt avveckla sina respektive områden. (Andreas Carlgren hatar miljön och vargar och skiter i Naturvårdsverket. Gunilla Carlsson hatar biståndsorganisationer. Hillevi Engström hatar arbetslösa och tycks försöka skapa en underklass i samhället, med många namn varav ett av namnen tycks vara Fas 3are. Tobias Billström hatar blattar. Jan Björklund hatar barn och ungdomar och väntar bara tills dagen kommer då han får återinföra rätten att aga till skolan igen. Eskil Erlandsson hatar naturen och ÄLSKAR genmodifierade organismer. Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth hatar kulturen och vill inget hellre än ta alla pengar som Sverige slösar på kulturen och istället använda dem för att sänka skatterna. Låt oss heller inte frångå att nämna att Sten Tolgfors, vår försvarsminister, ÄLSKAR USA. Jag tänker inte kommentera detta dock.)

Så hur kom Sverigedemokraterna in i riksdagen?

Faktum är att det är ditt fel, och mitt fel och allas vårt kollektiva fel.

Sverigedemokraterna är liksom kackerlackor i ett försummat hus, de är resultatet av ett försummat samhälle. De vi har svikit har inte funnit något annat alternativ och det är allas vårt fel. Sverige håller på att förfalla från sitt forna folkhem till ett utsålt och urblåst ruckel. Det var inte kackerlackorna som orsakade förfallet, utan de är bara en följd av förfallet. Vi kan inte skylla på dem för våra misstag. Det är vårt ansvar att rusta upp vårt folkhem, och ta hand om de som faller mellan stolarna. Ingen skall utlämnas till bitterhetens blinda gränsland.

How modern is it to be racial?

Kanske motsäger jag mig lite. Fan vet. Men deppigt känns det. Lite.

This is India

2010-01-29T05:20:00.000-08:00

You really come into yourself and find the core of adamant strength inside yourself while facing a true problem that nobody other than yourself can do something about, although there are plenty of people in your backspace all the while. I had lots of money stolen, and though maybe it did lower my level of happiness these past days by an inch, following the one hour of crying when I realised it was gone, and waking up the next morning to realise that it wasn't all a horrible nightmare, I accepted it. At least it was only money. I moved on.

I read up on my insurance (if I got kidnapped or hit by a tsunami, I'd be bloody rich!) asked around and am trying to figure out what to do next. And it's fine. The whole situation has me kind of proud of myself. I'll do as much as I can to sort out what I can, and I am glad to have enough strength in myself to not freak out and just accept the irregularities of life.

It's only money after all.

I sat on my loft today looking out across the bunker loo and the surrounding forest and I was struck by a sense of homeliness. I love being in Auroville and India in particular, but I've thoroughly enjoyed the idea of going home, alhough now as I today cycled away from Solitude farm for the last time, smiling at the bear-hug that wonderful Khaled gave me as we parted, the goodbyes and farewells and the feeling that I will be missed; I realised that I too will miss this. I will miss India. A lot.

Sitting on the loft I could picture myself in a simple house in the forest, farming everyday, leading his life of muddy roads and hectic huge cities. I could stay here. Despite the mosquitos and huge spiders that seem to be cropping up everywhere more and more. Despite the lack of internet and newspapers and good coffee and toilet paper, and the choir of lizards that sing their nocturnal serenda for you just as the first minutes of sleep begin to draw you in. I could. Stay. But I do look forward to going home. And I hope to be able to hold on to a little bit of India. Showering with a bucket I have taken to immensely. I saves so much water I can't stand the idea that I would shower with constantly running water. The mere idea seems stupid and ridiculous.

The bindi feels normal too, I find that my face looks odd without it, but I fear it might give the wrong impression about my character and I despite the prejudice of generalisation.

I needed India in order to come back into myself, face the hysterical cities with cool, get on a train and ride the black torrent of loneliness through to Destination Unknown, lose fear and understand that though the heart of man may seem brittle at times, the soul is strong, and knowing that you possess that strength will get you through anything from bad directions, to wrong trains, to traffic accidents, to long dark lonely streets and the confusing labyrinth of beaurocracy.

And when you have in your backspace the wonderful mix of a wonderful mom, some random guys ready to shove all their money and possessions into your hands without a moment's hesitance, people in every continent of the world that you love and that love you, nothing can truly go wrong in life.

ACCIDENTS and INCIDENTS and just a tiny bit of blood

2010-01-26T06:07:00.000-08:00

Written on the 25th and today...

I got a calendar today whilst bustling about in the village with Eleonora on her bike. Seeing January and February laid out so neatly (on 100% organic paper) in front of me made me realise how quickly time has passed, and is passing. Only one week left. Exactly one week from now I'll be stressing to catch my bus in Chennai, and in two weeks from now I will have returned to the frozen lunar landscape that I call home. Crazy how time flies.

Oh. I had my first traffic accident today. More like an incident really. It was not dramatic at all, or really noteworthy, but because I've never really made use of any vehicles other than my bicycle for most of my life, I haven't really experienced any traffic related accidents, as far as I can recall. So anyhow, we're driving towards the village on Elenora's bike and I figure she must have suffered a short-circuit as they may come while driving, and while approaching an exceedingly slow moped driver and a speedbump, instead of slowing down she hit the gas and bumped right into the unsuspecting Aurovillian. It was fine. Eleonora shrieked, I think I said "shit", and the lady drove off with no more than a sigh, a shrug and the somewhat tired comment, "this is India".

We were fine. We didn't even topple over. The front of the moped got a bit dented though. The remainder of the afternoon was spent with an impromptu visit to a salong to get eyebrows threaded, followed by a mouth-watering visit to the Bakery; only to get bread though, and then whooshing out of the village, past the kashmiri vendors and to Eleonora's place on the other side of Auroville. Cigarettes, Lila Down, pictures and puppies.

Elenora in the Chocolate Factory of organicness (not real name...)

I had a very good conversation with her regarding farming and studying in general. Whatever qualms I've had about enrolling the biodynamic training were settled and if I needed, she pretty much convinced me that I am on the right line. In a few years, being able to sustain yourself is all that will matter, having the knowledge of survival and making a sustainable way of living will be worth gold.

Man, I need to start thinking about something else or I will start growing sprouts from my ears. On a random note, my favorite meal of the day is breakfast I have realised, I could eat breakfast for all my three mails of the day.

TODAY, 26th, WORST DAY IN INDIA THUS FAR.

25,000 rupees go missing mysteriously just as I prepare to pay for my brand new, actually really CHEAP mac that Rom Whitaker is bringing tomorrow. I now don't really have enough money left but hey, it's only money. Gah. 25,000 rupees is what I spend in a month in Sweden including rent. I just lost a month worth of living. Double Gah. While returning from in panic smoking 3 cigarettes in a row and crying for about half an hour I discover the biggest spider yet seen in India. It was huge. Huge. I panic, start screaming like a girl, hoping the neighbours will hear and come and rescue me, but they don't, which is too bad for many different reasons. I rush out of the house and try to bully the dogs to eat the spider, but they think I must be tricking them to go into the house where they know they're not allowed, so they just give me confused looks. At this point I discover the spray mosquito repellant, and in my thoughtless panic, grab it and resort to spraying the spider.

The spider freaks out and starts running all over the place, and I simply scream, spray it some more and hop around on the spot. It's obviously getting dazed, but as I for some reason through water on it, it is revived and starts scuttling into my dirty laundry, and this, this totally freaks me out, so I rush into the kitchen, grab the biggest bowl I can find (because I obviously don't want to get near it), manage to capture it, toss it out and watch it try to scuttle away from the house of pain. I think the mosquito repellant subdued it.

Panting, I walk back into the house and conveniently step on some broken glass from the bottle I accidently broke this morning. Just a tiny bit of blood but enough to cause me discomfort. I cry some more in my pathetic state of patheticness and then depart to the café, have loads of coffee and grumble.

Off to grumble at Eleonora's place. Food.

WORST DAY IN INDIA YET. Bloody money. Bloody spiders. Bloody feet.

Meanwhile, enjoy one of the many beautiful photos I took at Solitude Farm today. I never should have left the place, it's so tranquil. The real world hurts sometimes.

Solitude, Hendrix and the inevitable truth of home-coming

2010-01-23T02:32:00.000-08:00

So I am on my own in treeplanting man David A. Nagel's house. It's nice in a way except that in the evenings I keep thinking that a leopard will appear out of nowhere while I'm enjoying my last evening fag. Damn Rom Whitaker and his "leopard-in-the-area-mauling" stories. David had to leave for various reasons about a week ago. For one I think he was seriously needing to go on holidays, I often forget that he's actually an older guy because he's so cool, but secondly, this business with the grumpy Tamil men apparently became too much for him to handle so he was advised to take a few weeks of time out of Auroville. As I said though, Auroville Security are on the case and there's nothing to worry about.

Bye Nino!

Meanwhile David's brother Larry has been looking after me making sure that everything is a-okay. We share the same fervent interest in classical american and british rock music, so most evenings in Aurodam are spent listening to fantastic playlists featuring Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Van Morrison, the everlasting Beatles and so on. Once the sun sets it's begun to get quite cold, and I don't know if it's simply a seasonal change (because it is wanter after all despite the 35 degrees) or if I'm just getting used to the heat. Give me another month here and maybe I'll be able to wear jeans and a sweater just like the Indians.

I get up at around 7 a.m. every morning now, which is a nice change after the long mornings of the last week. The electricity doesn't come on until 8 o'clock, so I'll scramble around the bedroom in the feeble light from the first few rays of sunlight glinting through the canopy. Black trousers and a black top. Hair in a ponytail. Bindi on as always. The gas works, so I make myself some porridge with forest honey and organic dates. Maybe I'll have a slice of sourdough whole-wheat bread with organic crunchy peanutbutter and a slab of honey too. In the dusky light I lead the shit bike I'm using out from the gate, shut the gate, and cycle away in the cool morning, bouncing along muddy red roads. In the morning things are always rather quiet, I find. One or two mopeds swing by with somebody on their way to work, and of course, the temple music from the village can be heard all over Auroville from 4 a.m. in the morning. On the main road I'll meet all the Tamil workers making their way via foot or bike from the surrounding villages.

Mmm... breakfast...

Crash. Bump. Shriek.

The road to Solitude Farm where I work in the mornings is really not more than the simplest of paths, but interesting because it includes all elements from pointy rocks that make you topple over, to sand that causes mopeds to swerve dangerously , too roots and grass, but when it rains all this becomes one fantastic dangerous mess of mud and quicksand.

Solitude Farm is a so-called nature farm working on the principles of this Japanese guy whose name I obviously can't recall right now.

The farmers at Solitude have enormous faith in the restorative and caring forces of the earth, meaning that when they farm they try to do as little as possible in a sense. An example of this idea is that they do not plow e.g. They believe that plowing is better to avoid because it forces all the nutrients up in a very unnatural way. So instead of plowing they focus more on making soil beds for the crops in stead of tearing up the earth. They make use of compost fertilisers, but in the future hope that the soil will have recuperated enough from the days of desert and deforestation that there will be no need of any kind of fertiliser. The Solitude farmers leave a lot of the farm up to nature itself. The vegetable garden is becoming a jungle, which is what they want, and everything from peanuts to papaya, banana and mango trees grow in the forest behind the farm.

The produce is quite remarkable though. At Solitude Restaurant they serve all organic, mostly locally produced vegetarian lunches, and twice a week they also do their extremely popular vegetarian sushi evenings and I must say, it's some of the best food I've ever had, and this is not only because the cook is terrific, and she is, but the vegetables farmed at Solitude are truly first class. Working there is exceedingly pleasant, albeit very exhausting. It reminds me once again how important this connection with the earth is to me, and also how much I've missed farm work without realising it. My Solitude hours are between 8 a.m. till lunchtime at around midday. All volunteers get to enjoy a lovely lunch prepared for us.

On a different note I feel like I am playing the "how-tanned-can-Amanda-get" game again. Surely I can't become more tanned than I already am, because this is starting to get a bit crazy. The long hours in the sun probably add to my exhaustion in the afternoon, but I know how far too push myself and I do enjoy the soreness of my muscles when I wake up in the morning. Makes me feel like I'm alive.

I didn't get a train ticket by the way. It's all full as always. Instead I shall enjoy Stupid Crazy Bustrip no.2. (Remember Brazil-Chile?) It's pretty much the same distance between Chennai-Mumbai, not mentioning that I first need to get to Chennai which is 3 hours away from Auroville. So I'll be leaving Auroville on the 1st of February, evening, arriving in Mumbai very early on the 3rd. I think the pure discomfort and stress that the journey keeps trying to pry into my mind is part of a general feeling of slight anxiety that's begun to creep into my mind.

This probably has something to do with Nino leaving me on my tiny own, but to a larger extent, the fact that Sweden is starting to work on Sweden time with a Swedish pace, whilst I am still in India on a calm meditative Indian pace. I guess I am simply starting to grasp just how many things are waiting to go on my todo list, or hopefully, my iCal, by the time I get home. And the stressful concept of time has me slightly overwhelmed as I play with the thought of coming home after all this time. (Which isn't very long compared to Nino and Anatoli).

Does it feel like longer because the life I lead in Sweden is so damn hectic and full? Maybe the difference to my life in Sweden compared to India life feels all the greater because of that exact reason. I was working 70 hours a week up until I took off to Switzerland in order to stop working. Of course Switzerland didn't give me much of a vacation either, but a new bundle of stuff to deal with, both good and bad. Now I've been running, or rather, gentle rolling back and forth on India time, with an Indian pace, that the thought of getting back onto the Swedish fast train must be the main source for this anxiety brewing at the bottom of my belly.

I'll just have another fruit juice and a cigarette.

Departure

2010-01-22T22:42:00.000-08:00

Written over a matter of some days, starting 18th of January

Two weeks left. Roughly. Actually, more like one week left.

I think back now, or begin to look at things, memories, in India, because Nino is leaving and everything last week, circled around this, preparing for her departure with tickets and taxis and preparing for coming back and setting up "a life" again, applying to universities and figuring out where to live, and now as she's scrambled around all afternoon into the dark of the evening in order to pack her rucksack, I too feel as if something is coming to an end for me as well. I start thinking about my own departure, the rough 30 hour train ride awaiting me, from Pondicherry to Mumbai, coming back to Hotel Moti, Colaba Causeway, where everything began in the shadow of Hotel Taj, on the dirty streets and the roads filled with cars driving as if fighting a battle for life and death with soundhorns and swearing in hindi and marathi.

Home sweet oddly tidy home. (YES this is tidy. Nino has packed all her things.)

I think about the other journeys I've made, bouncing inside cars on muddy roads, being brought all the way from rural Nilakkottai to central Madurai by a guy whose name I never grasped, traffic all around us, waiting for my bus till midnight and being dragged from the waiting room into a bus filled with men, not knowing where I was going until the busdriver shouted at me to get off and I somehow manage to find the right bus at the new station and spend a freezing night by an open window, the bus honking till your ears bleed, Bollywood music thumping throughout the night, suddenly time to get off, train station, impossible to find the train because I can't READ MALAYALAM script, finally found a guard, found my train, cup of chai, arrival. Next time, wrong train, waiting for hours and the station in the middle of the night, Indian men staring ominously at my lonely character that confuses them so with my black hair big eyes but to them oddly light skin. Indian families squat all over the platform as we wait, one hour, two hours, pitchblack, bad english being spoken on the speakers and something else that sounds like japanese.

Train arrival, shit I'm the only woman in my compartment, scrambling up to the upper birth and travelling through time and space, not knowing when or where to get off. Black train filled with snoring and the many different scents of food and spices.

Madurai has the best train station ever. Digital signs announce the train both in Tamil and English as well as the wagon numbers as well so that one can start queuing up for your wagon as opposed to just standing all over the place.

So with Nino gone, here I am. David has gone to Bangalore due to the amount of Indian men wanting to beat him up, but I'm not much concerned. AV Security is on the case.

Snakes, crocodiles and other nasty neighbours

2010-01-14T03:39:00.000-08:00

Written on January 13th

We woke to scuffling and raised voices. Indians tend to become loud when they are passionate about something so I didn't register the commotion at first, until the sound of somebody striking the front door reached me all the way back in the bunker loo.

Apparently the raised voices were not a matter of too much excitement. A young Indian guy had apparently come that morning asking for work and/or money, and being denied it had simply gone over the edge and kind of lost it. After much discussing with the neighbours and the police that eventually showed up after nearly half an hour, the matter was resolved in some fashion and our peaceful Aurodam home left silent save for the soft rustling of leafs in the surrounding forest.

The unemployment problems in Auroville smack you in the face sometimes. David's Tamil workers backed away from the whole scene with something like embarassment playing on their faces. I wonder if they were ashamed of having good work and good wages when there are so many that suffer and can only scrape off other people in order to survive.

It's not even just an Indian matter. The Aurovillians that have moved in from outside India are also struggling with lacking funds, struggling with rations and feeding their own families. Auroville is not a city of rich people, but a community of workers. If you can't work then go somewhere else.

We went to the CrocBank yesterday, which opposed to my Steve Irwin fantasies proved to be just a crocodile zoo at a first glance, but as we were briskly taken around by one of Rom's female co-workers from Mumbai, it became all the more interesting.

Crocodiles and snakes are becoming a bigger and bigger issue in India. As human the population continues to increase, cities are expanding more and more, pushing further into jungle areas and reptile habitat. Rom ran a very successful breeding program for India's 3 endangered crocodile species for a very long time, breeding and reintroducing them into the wild until the Indian government made reintroduction illegal due to an increase in human - reptile confrontations and deadly attacks. The CrocBank suffers over-population right now and most eggs have to be destroyed in order to keep the number of crocodiles somewhat manageable. We proceeded from there to a long journey, trying to find our way in the hopelessly labyrinth-like roads of the countryside. After some 3 hours we finally arrived at Rom's place and enjoyed an evening of treeplanting conversation, Steiner and reptiles, lounging next to Rom and J's huge, beautiful Banyon tree.

Now it's Pongal and most volunteer work has paused during the celebrations. Nino and I worked hard to sort out her VISA and journey back to Sweden -issues. Hopefully I'll work at the Solitude farm next week.

Status Contemplation

2010-01-14T01:11:00.000-08:00

Written on January 10th

I am staying in Auroville, because I like it here.

Written on January 12th

Anatoli has gone back to Sevapur, so now only Nino and I remain on the loft and I must say it is rather nice. We've visited Pondicherry and as I write this we're making our grumbling, bouncing way to Chennai to visit internationaly reknowned reptile specialist Romulus Whitaker. A very cool dude.

On Wednesday I'm planning to work at the Buddha Garden. 6 - 9 a.m. with other youth volunteers and then breakfast all together. If not I've had my eye on an organic, permaculture, natural farm called Solitude. I might go there later. But so far we've only been getting acquainted with the area, getting oriented, travelling around to sort out practical things like phone top-up's, money withdrawals, keeping the India Wardrobe stocked up (somehow I lost a lot of my clothes somewhere along the way) tiffin containers, using internet to sort out other travels and so forth, and meeting Aurovillians and interesting guests, mostly randomly at La Terrace.

Marc's organic café has become one of Nino and mine's favorite hang-out spots.

We mostly walk the far and wide distances of Auroville now, the roads alternating between the dusty cracks that make people tie handkerchiefs around their faces, to the muddy red tracks that seem less and less like actual man-made roads once it's been raining. All my clothes have red mud streaks on them after the last two days of heavy rainfall. At night we'll make our stumbling way through the forest after having had supper somewhere.

Cobwebs stick to our faces and hair, and our torches are really rubbish and don't really illuminate anything. The forest is filled with the sounds of creatures, of slithering, of hissing and cawing and mooing. (Yes, there are cows in Auroville as well. They are very well fed and have bright shining faces and intelligently observant eyes.)

Now we're on the road leading to Chennai. Simple shops line the side of the road, houses and buildings made out of scrap-metal and other roadside junk. We pull over for a chai break in the middle of nowhere and when finished, throw our papercups in a hole in the ground that is either going to be covered up with soil and forgotten about, or burnt and become part of the morning smoke, which rather than mist, covers and enguls entire trash burning cities and countryside with the putrid odour of stuff that shouldn't be burned.

I had a conversation with Nino yesterday regarding whether or not it is possible to continue being as socially, morally and environmentally conscious in Sweden as we have been in India. For me it's nothing particular though, because this is to a great extent how I live my life. Organic food is a good example to lift up in this case. In my world organic food isn't expensive because there is simply no other alternative for me. Conventionally grown food isn't an alternative, so I don't even compare the prices. What I pay for organic food is the price of something real, and in this instance particularly I truly believe in getting what you pay for. This isn't a difficult for me but something that has become a priority in my life. So I prioritise it over other things. It's not expensive to me, just a matter of priority. I hardly ever buy alcohol and I don't buy clothing regularly (and when I do it's second-hand and all that jazz).

Not to mention the fact that the kind of food I do buy is actually, cheap. Beans, sprouts and veg. I eat a lot of Living foods and Raw foods and I consciously buy certain items of food that are cheaper and thus make the reality of living off completely 100% organic food all the much easier.

Often I find that life becomes a battle of priorities and EVERYTHING depends on just how you choose to prioritise things. Down to your economy, your lovelife and your environmental footprint on the world. I hope youth today and the generations to come especially choose to prioritise Earth. It's our only home after all.

Make one small sacrifice, eh?

Auroville

2010-01-13T00:42:00.000-08:00

Written on January 7th

The train journey there was fine, but long. I met an Aurovillian on it though, Marc from Barcelona. He runs an organic coffee chain in Auroville and has lived there for almost ten years with his family, I think. We shared a cab from Villuparam all the way there, roughly an hours ride between herds of cows with blue painted horns and otherwise adorned creatures that lined the road, causing our vehicle to swerve dangerously between oxen, scooters, dogs, pedestrians and cyclists, and the now and again lorry driving past like a hurricane threatening to blow us right off the road. I noted with glee that this cab was the first vehicle in India thus far with seatbelts.

I was met at the Aurodam Community Kitchen by Anatoli and Nino, along with the promise of vegan pizza and a Bollywood movie.

We are staying with a man called David Allen Nagel, originally from the US, but an Aurovillian since 30 years back. He takes care of the forest plantation and the water management in the area. We sleep on his roof beneath mosquito nets on comfy mats and blankets and pillows. We fall asleep to the sounds of insects and birds around us, wake up to the golden sunlight glinting through the canopy encircling our small tower in the sky.

I've heard Auroville referred to as Utopia sometimes. Utopia project.

It started 40 years ago, a group of people moved to this area of Pondicherry, a desert, barren piece of land. They had little money and just a common vision of a community of living together, and through starvation, drought and poverty they created an oasis for people from all over the world. Auroville is now a working microcosm of sorts.

There is little money exchange between Aurovillians, shops and cafés. Instead each Aurovillian citizen has a personal account into which they put money, and then in shops and cafés and in any other instances where an exchange of money might be required they simply place whatever expenditure they have on their personal named accounts. To become an Aurovillian it is advised (or required?) that you have spent at least 3 months working in Auroville as a volunteer for example. After that time you may go on a year of probation in Auroville, during which you must find work, accomodation and cover for your own expenses. If you pass probation there is then a two week "waiting time" when it is announced in the weekly Auroville newspaper that you have passed probation, and if any Aurovillian has certain complaints or other information that should be accounted for when making the final decision regarding your citizenship, this is the time. And unless if somebody files a strong enough complain about you, you then become an Aurovillian.

Education, healthcare, etc is free for Aurovillians. Most Aurovillians receive a monthly wage of about 5000 rupees, which is about 70 euros. Many build their own houses and manage their own businesses or community profitable project, but what is important to know is that nothing is ever owned by one single individual. Every house that is built, every enterprise started belongs to the Auroville community as a whole, so if you choose to leave Auroville you can't sell your house to get the money back and you can't take your business with you.

The community shares and owns everything. Sustainable houses cram in between organic cafés and community kitchens. The area is about 5x4 km and houses about 2500 inhabitants of which 40% are Indian. Auroville seems wide and spacious though. THe three of us cycle around the lush, green area, bouncing along on dusty, red dirt roads, stopping here and there in the small community clusters of the residential zone. I like it here because it reminds me of home. THe same feeling of a small community strikes me here, a feeling that has me growing increasingly aware of just how much I love my community.

A lot of people claim that Auroville is a very difficult community to get into, but above all to understand. For me this is not so. I feel like I can understand the complexities and problems that Auroville and the Aurovillians face, but in this our modern world many people or most, are not accustomed to community living nor have the knowledge of what a struggle it can be, or how precious it becomes to the people that are part of it.

An Ode to Steve & Jennie

2010-01-10T05:38:00.000-08:00

Written on January 5th

Now, I would like to tell you the story of 2 remarkable people. Steve and Jennie.

Steve is just over 50 years old (I think) and has led the difficult life of an addict for, I’m not quite sure exactly how long, but between 10 and 20 years of his life. On January the 5th, 2010 he will have been clean of any drugs and alcohol for 11 years. Steve got cleaned up thanks to his beautiful, then 9 year old daughter whom he was solely capable of looking after, and though he still carries the scars of his past life on the coarse surface of his skin, he remains clean and smiles every morning when he looks himself in the mirror and sees his whites of his eyes gleaming healthy, pearly white as opposed to the wretched bloodshot eyes of an addict. Steve grew up in London, driving motorcycles around and crashing cars. He looks like a mixture of Iggy Pop and Axel Rose. Throw in some sarcastic Bowie decadence, a strong Londoner accent and there you go.

Jennie is a beautiful fairy from Essex (but she’s not like other Essex girls!) and a musical genius. It takes her half a second to understand any piece of music and maybe another half of a second before she’s transformed it into something utterly uniquely of her own, so unique in fact that you think she must have written it herself, whether or not it is originally Joni Mitchell, Led Zeppelin or a jazz piece. Jennie is one of the most considerate people I have ever met, one of the most talented musicians I’ve known so far and just possesses that amazing ability to smile in any situation and make everything seem bright and sunny.

The three of us would gather every morning at the Coffee Temple (or Temple Coffee? The signs around the café kept changing around…). Jennie would order a coconut porridge or a banana porridge, or the sometimes infrequently asked for banana-coconut porridge with honey. (I’d join her in the porridge craze to try and convince the owner, a chap from Brighton named ‘Les’lie, that our ideas were brilliant and perfectly doable. Like the banana-frappe with ice cream.) Jennie would have tea with milk, though during my last few days she started having coffee rather often. And cigarettes as well. I think Steve and I must have had a bad influence on her.

Steve and I would start the morning with grumbling, coffee and cigarettes. Regular for Steve, add some sugar, please. Black for me. No sugar. Steve would then attempt to place an order for cheese omelette without toast. But Ram, the little Indian waiter, would most of the time, screw this order up and get him toast anyway only to be smacked in the head by Les. In those instances I would eat Steve’s toast, or order my own with jam or honey. Morning was an important routine. The Coffee Temple attracts a whole lot of visitors from the UK and we would tend to spend about 2 to 3 hours there, sometimes just because it was just plain out nice to hang out there and sometimes because Les, Harry (Harry-Krishna = full name) and Ram would just take forever to serve us, sometimes serving people that had come after us first, which would prove long, irritated discussions and moods that could last for an entire day. Well, at least for me and Steve.

Why am I writing about this?

Because every day with Steve & Jennie was wonderful. From the hours spent at the Coffee Temple trying to figure out what to order when you’ve already ordered everything on the menu a few times around already. Getting roasted (by the sun) on the beach, Jennie driving Steve mad with talks of sun-lotion, swimming in the rather crazy waters around Varkala, Jennie adjusting her bikini subtly after each wild wave, Steve getting thrashed by the waves all the time, laying himself on a towel in the beach instead to smoke cigarettes, (and I’d join him). To figuring out where to have supper, getting lost on the way to somebody’s house, Steve & Jennie bickering, none of them really making sense but both being totally convinced of their personal opinions being correct, me rolling my eyes. Playing the guitar beneath the golden moon, Jennie’s beautiful voice, jazzy, bluesy, deep or high-pitched, sexy, sad, angry and beautiful, her fingers strumming the guitar as if it’s all she’s ever done, (but her instrument of choice is still the piano. Damn talented people…) Steve singing with a voice like Johnny Cash or Bowie, marked by the signs of many cigarettes and maybe a tad too much whiskey in the past as well and a biography filled with much sadness and much joy.

Sometimes Steve would give me a ride on Tony’s motorcycle. We’d escape all the tourists, his long blond mane fluttering in my face, my stomach thrilled as we’d fly down the road, dodge rickshaws, animals, taxis, people, round corners and surpass every other motorcycle. Jennie taught me 7 chords on the guitar just before I left. I have them written down in my journal so I won’t forget whilst I don’t have a guitar within my reach. Imagine how much I would have learned if I’d an interest in learning how to play the guitar in the beginning of my stay in Varkala rather than in the end.

Sometimes I wish I’d struggle more with parting from people. That would be easier for people to understand, whilst understanding why I rarely say goodbye or care about it much is not as easy. It may come across as being simply cold and bad-mannered. I don’t like saying goodbye, not because it makes me particularly sentimental or the likes, but because I know I’ll meet you again at some point. The last two years of my life I’ve had to say goodbye to a lot of people that I love, and though it hurt me a lot in the beginning, with certain people, and I realize this know, I know I will see them again. I’ll be back, or you’ll be back and it’s no big deal. I’ll think about you every day and you’ll think about me, and I am rubbish at keeping contact with people, but maybe it’s okay, because I’m always thinking of you, smiling because I know I’ll see you, maybe not so soon, or maybe yes, who knows?

You’ll have brilliant stories and I will too. And we don’t need to say goodbye, because that feels like something is coming to an end and that’s just not true. Because I’ll see you again before you even have time to miss me.

Until next time, all the love in the world.

A Journey through Time and Memories

2010-01-08T05:21:00.000-08:00

Slept on the train. As I go over the eternity spent in Varkala and mull over all the expressions and experiences and meetings, I am moved and I realise this now, into a completely new chapter of my life. This is mostly because of 2 of the most remarkable, loving people I have ever met, but of them I will write at a later time.

In the upper-birth, surrounded by sleeping Indian men (on the other side, on the other births...) I laid myself down, removing only my glasses and keeping everything else on, clothes, bangles, earrings, etc. Then I did something that I haven't done very much in India because I normally enjoy and revel in the sounds, the noise, the music of Mother India, but just this once I curled together on my upper-birth and popped my ipod speakers into my ears, spinning the white wheel all the way to the Kinks, closing my eyes and letting the monotonous moaning of the train enfold my solitary self where I laid in the dark, my only half-conscious mind drifting between the intrigues and horrors of Shantaram, of which I only have 200 pages remaining. I can't believe Johnny Depp is going to play Linbaba. The music changing from "You Got Me", to "Sunny Afternoon", my thoughts circling around the past few months, of painful love's lost, of him whose heart I broke and carmically must repent for until forgiven, of them that broke my heart -a few times each, blue eyes, black eyes: the people I've used and treated badly, the people I've liked, my friends that I miss but that literally are on the other side of the world, a distance that feels greater every day.

Alone in the train the dark of night and the joyful freedom of the Kinks carried me through memories of fleeing from Jarna over a day, in a car with 3 girls screaming to the beat of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers', "Californication", escaping deeper into the Swedish countryside to smoke cigarettes and eat lunch left-overs in the backseat on paper plates. Seeing new countries, experiencing the moisture of Brazil where it's too hot to even sweat. Going through the mountains to Switzerland, passing through a blizzard and arriving into the surprising green warmth of Swiss winters. Having wine by the Rein and talking about life and Shakespeare and all that has been. Sleeping under the stairs, failing to make a fire but managing to make tea. The canals of Amsterdam, screaming an crying and having to grow 20 years older in one afternoon and suddenly whiskey and those blue eyes and 3 months that I must remind myself with startling patience and eternal wisdom of my additional 20 years, were not wasted. There is a lesson in everything. An experience that needed to be had.

I fell asleep a few times, my mind drifting off with the final, slightly distressed thought of, "how the fuck am I going to know when the fuck the train arrives in Maduari?" The conductor only answered "yes, yes" to my crystal-clear question, "what time we come to Madurai Junction?"

I woke up somehow at around 4 a.m. to use the bathroom, (the hole in the floor leading straight out to the train tracks...) and sat chilling by the window for a bit. I'd only sat for about 20 minutes when the Madurai Junction sign appeared. I grabbed my backpack, skipped off the train, bought some disgustingly sweet chai off a man on the platform, god a bit lost, waved frenetically for the rickshaw drivers wanting to take me places to bugger off, crossed the parking lot, zig-zagged between the masses of pavement dwellers sleeping on bits of cardboard under thin woollen blankets and trash, and got into the Madurai Junction Station. The station was if possible even more packed than the parking lot with people sleeping on the floor. I gazed quickly across the station, trying to attract as little attention to myself as possible.

Breakfast. I move over to a small stand, purchase a pack of 50/50 biscuits (the least sweet ones on the market and excellent to dip on coffee or chai). Mind you I sometimes find it difficult to tell the difference between the two in India. The coffee is bloody weak as, and the tea hits you like a good smack in your braincells. Add powdered milk and PLENTY of sugar to that and they actually then become quite similar to each other.

One cup of chai, please. (Expressed as a simple tap on the metal container and one finger meaning one, please.) Two samosas, please. (Point, indicate 2 with your fingers, waggle your head. All good.) I go searching for the ladies waiting room, which up until this point always has been a separate room, sometimes with a watchman outside. This time it is simply a seating area of some kind, held away from the rest of the platform seats whilst still pretty much being in the cneter of it all. First class and AC passengers have a waiting room though. I see a somewhat distressed looking European girl seated among the women and then I decide to join her to make sure that everything is okay.

Yeah, she's been here since July and has plenty of experience from India, even if she makes a comment about AC being the way to go. The world's most bloody boring compartments ever, you hardly get as much as a whiff of chai or somebody screaming at you with colourful keychains. Or Bollywood music in the middle of the night off somebody's cellphone. I decide to pretend that I am a firstclass passenger, put on my usual haughty look that makes women dislike me and men stay the bloody hell away, and enter the waiting room without a second glance. Sometimes, and Shantaram puts this better, as a foreigner you kind of become invisible in your extreme visibility. Everyone sees and stares at you, but nobody sees what you are doing, or thinks about it twice, at all. Ever.

I just walk into the waiting room, sit down on a steel chair, cover myself in mosquito repellant (Madurai is infected with them, I recall) and enjoy my breakfast. Biscuits dipped in sweet chai, 2 samosas that turn out to be really spicy, and finally a honey-nut bar to get rid of some of the spiciness as well as the nasty aftertaste that fried spicy food leaves in your mouth.

I pop my ipod in again and go from the Grateful Dead, to Jethro Tull. The mosquitos buzz at a comfortable distance away from me, some girls in the waiting room play loud Indian popular music from their cellphones. They're very stiley, rich Mumbai girls'.

6:45. Only 4 and a half hours to go. I let the Kinks take me away again.

Lost in Trains'nation

2010-01-08T05:01:00.000-08:00

Written on January 4th

Finally got onto the train. The entire spectrum of emotions ran through me as I realised I had first gotten onto the wrong train in Varkala. Fear. anxiety, anger, regret, what-the-hell-am-I-doing-in-India-on-my-own, and finally I succumbed to something, and as the seconds ticked by and the train thundered on I understood that it didn't matter actually, the fact that I was lost. It was fine.

Because there is nothing I can't do

It wouldn't have mattered if I would have ended up in the completely wrong city, because in this moment of panic, I awoke to the realisation of my own strength. I realised that through this journey I have gathered enough "meat on my bones", enough experience to trust my own ability to survive. I can only recall having cried once or twice in India, or actually, maybe only once. I nearly but not quite, came to tears in Mumbai airport when I'd just arrived and waited for Carolin to show up for 4 hours. The only time I really cried was in Varkala when all the girls I liked so much got drunk and stoned and I could only slump down in despair, questioning youth, India and the mainstream experiences that the Ashram-hopping young people have.

I might have cried when I was sick as well, mostly because I have so damn bored with myself.

Year 2010

2010-01-08T04:31:00.000-08:00

Written on January 1st

What a funny new year. This one will be remembered. I had a lovely supper with Karen, Jennie and Steve, the 3 britts. We had some fruit juice at the Bohemian Masala later on and enjoyed an okay Katakali performance. The music was brilliant and the dancing beautiful albeit slightly awkward at times. Then we went to the beach to watch the fireworks. I got sand everywhere. The fireworks were beautiful but some of them went a bit wrong and dropped down among the crowd of the people on the beach, causing everyone including our small party, to scatter and run in flailing panic.

We watched the fullmoon and sang Bluemoon and Hallelujah in its silver gleam, beholding the eclipse that blotted a corner of the moon on this new years day. New Year in India.

I take my time to shower in the morning. I enjoy the cool water and rarely wish for a hot, long shower anymore, although this morning the fan in the celiling kept me coolled off and I shiver as I let the cold water soak me. I leave the bathroom promptly, warm satisfaction following the brutally refreshing shower. A reasonably small cockroach has found its way into my toiletree bag, and I frown in half-concealed disgust. I don't really mind roaches and weevils. But it is a bit gross. On the way to the cliff I walk through the pretend-fog, smoke actually coming from the Indians burning their trash and "recycling" on piles on the ground and on the streets. The air is thick with different fumes from the piles and as walk through the village, making my slow way to the tourist bit with cafés and shops, I feel the smoke prickling in my nose, clogging my throat.

Soon I will leave Varkala, the lovely beach, the wonderful restaurants and the horrible tourists. The latter I shant miss.

"It's lucky the Indians have us tourists and all these shops and things to sell, at least they have something to do then and can earn money." Anonymous girl that spent a month in an Ashram doing yoga before coming to Varkala to drink beer and do shopping.

Fuck you and your fucking yoga. Pardon my french. But some people really are dim. Others are lovely, like the few couple of wonderful acquaintances I've made during my time here. Maybe I have learnt some of the most important lessons regarding India here, or rather, been given insight into what most people consider to be India. Varkala portrays very little of India though. In some corners and hidden nooks you can sense the Nag champa, you can smell the sambal, you see the flutter of a sari. But most of it is European, and you forget amongst the lattes and sun-screen, that you're actually on the other side of the world, in a country struck by poverty, where millions of people live on less than a dollar a day, in houses that don't even deserve being referred to as houses, where people die on the streets, cut off their limbs and body-parts to be able to beg for more money and sell their children to survive. This beautiful country called India.

I hold this truth in my heart as I watch the flurry of tourists on the cliff. This beautiful country called India is beautiful because of its diversity and it's infinite love of everyone and everything.

Tomorrow is time for railroad, bananas through the window, chai all day in papercups and greasy samosas on napkins. Tomorrow I will be sweaty and the toilet will be disgusting and the people will wag their head at me and I'll return the wag. And everything is real and wonderful.

It's... a beach!

2009-12-25T22:01:00.000-08:00

No. Way. Varkala is beautiful no doubt. It looks like a postcard meaning, it really looks like all other sandy beaches on the southern hemisphere. I'm not being cynical or saying that this is something negative, it is however, not very inspiring I find, to take photos. Or rather, it's not very challenging.

But I have finally taken a few photos of Varkala, enjoy!

Tony's kitchen. Is never used, except for making tea and coffee and for the ants

The main beach

The indians can rarely swim and if they do they keep all their clothes on. Most of the women however enjoy standing by the edge of the water, avoiding the incoming waves

Crabs of all sizes pop up when the tide is low

North cliff beach. Two hour walk from the main beach

Fishing boat, later on used for shade by a couple of Indians that were stalking us

Beach + your typical stalking Indians

Stuck inbetween

2009-12-22T22:00:00.000-08:00

I would like to add something brief about Varkala. I arrived smelly and tired to the Arabian Soul where Carolin + husband are staying and I joined them for a porridge breakfast with fruit, with awesome smoothies. Right now I am staying with a wealthy greek man, he likes sailing, and organising parties and business possibilities and making investments and talking about... sailing and money. We get along on a pleasantly surface kind of way. I accidently mentioned the environment to which I regrettably had to listen to a 15 minute tirade on living in the now and how there's no point in one person trying to make any difference.

I've been invited to his grand house in Greece where I can enjoy a week of sailing and decadent shops and restaurants. I will politely decline.

Varkala is beautiful and peaceful. The main area is high up on a cliff, and the beach is at a steep decent of a few minutes. The water is bright turqoise and very pleasant, and the general atmosphere of the place is an orderly chilled out one, not one reeking of alcohol and other similar things one might expect to run into in the more touristy part of India. I am quite at peace, drinking juices and eating fruit and gazing out across the clear ocean.

However, a few small things bother me. Some of the people I have met here have spent months in India, and yet as a large group of us went to have traditional Keralan food yesterday, none but myself and one or two others knew how to eat the food with our hands, or even less so that one is only allowed to use the right hand. None had used a traditional Indian toilet, and most were absolutely bedazzled by the food, which, though very good I'll admit, was pretty much just your average south Indian thali. Am I a bit bored to be talking about sailing, and hotels and food? A little, but I am not surprised. Sometimes I wonder though if the life I lead excludes me from other parts of life, and if it is actually making me a difficult, if not occasionally boring person to spend time with, because, as I have realised a few times already, I do not enjoy frivolous talk, or enjoy talking at all unless if I really have something that I want to say and having to participate in such pointless conversations between people usually has me silent and rather openly bored after the first 10 minutes of mindless bantering.

So I don't seem to fit in with most youth, talking about clothes, facials, tanning, shopping, etc. But then adults aren't really much better. I must keep my eyes open, lest I become a dry, shrivelled, pretentious person completely incapable of speaking about anything that's not been quoted in 600-page book.

Tourist resorts are maybe just not my thing, and I will probably never enjoying shopping, not even in India. And I don't care for boats, or waxing, or shoes. But the beach is where I'm heading to next and in the awesomeness of hot, blue water, I am certain to find some peace of mind.

Pictures will come.

PS. I've decided to start spreading the rumour around that I am engaged to a woman in Sweden, then maybe I will be left alone. Thanks for the golden ring, mom.

Almost at Varkala

2009-12-22T04:00:00.000-08:00

Written on December 20th

Slept decidedly poorly and feel as nasty as your typical backpacker. First one dodgy bus from Madurai and then another. The first one was packed with men, second one from other location N something to Trivandrum was a lot more unpleasant though. Despite it being 4 a.m. the Bollywood movies were cranking it and sleeping was virtually impossible. Besides it was a local bus meaning there was little to no space for both my legs and rucksack. To top things up, I somehow ended up on the only seat without a window meaning I froze half to death even with my woollen shawl on. Also, all the pollution that I must have been exposed to left a thick oily feeling on my skin and already unclean hair. I feel grimy but at the same time oddly happy, like when you've just come back from an awesome music festival and people can't understand why you're so happy after a week of horrible sleeping in mud, no food or just plain bad food and ridiculously somewhat dnagerous adventures while in a slightly confused state.

That same overjoyment that fills you as you try to depict the awesomeness of a seemingly horrible experience to your mother fills me now as I lean back into the tacky blue leather seat of my train compartment, calmly sipping my sweet indian coffee, half-consciously wanting to brush my teeth as I realise I've missed doing so for the past two days in a row.

I hope I'm on the right train. At least trains only go in two different directions.

Looking back at Trichy

2009-12-22T03:50:00.000-08:00

Written on December 18 - 19th

"Mind the cow dung!" Carolin shouted at me as we left the car for a moment to check the central bus stand. Oh yes, cow dung, I remind myself that the cows are actually everywhere in the city. Poor holy cows. I observe the pathetic emancipated creatures from a rickshaw. They stand in the middle of the street, not so much as flinching as the thousands of vehicles scream past, their eyes staring dully out into empty space. Nobody looks after them, nobody seems to even care. The cows stand seemingly abandoned in the middle of a crowd, in the middle of the heavily trafficated roads, on the central bus stand of Trichy.

I remind myself of this as we leave the car in central Trichy, avoid the cow dung and enter the station. Some men are squatting in a circle on the platform, eating chapatis and bananas. The cow is further away on the platform, a seemingly misplaced random object in the throng of people. Loud music blasts in the distance to the bright flaring signs announcing the somewhat hidden bars of the city.

No, we can't book a bus from Trichy for a journey between Dindigul and Trivandrum. In fact, there are probably not even buses from Dindigul to Trivandrum. Try Maduari. I could have figured as much but it was worth a try. We leave the station. I glance back at the random cow standing on the middle of the platform. Poor holy cow. I step over a puddle of what looks like blood and go back to the car. Next night, Nino, Jana and myself decide to go to the cinema to watch a Bollywood movie. On our way to the bus we, not very surprisingly by now, walk past a cow digging through the garbage which is covering most of the street. This cow might now follow the wretched destiny posed on many of India's holy cows. When in the good old days it was a good thing that the cows walked loosely on the streets eating all the garbage that used to be all organic material, it is now an ever growing threat to these creatures.

A lot of the garbage nowadays happens to be plastic material, especially plastic bags. And plastic bags don't decompose too well. So when the cow eats the plastic bag the plastic very easily gets stuck somewhere in the animal's digestive system which leads to a horrible, horrible death. Nino took photos of the cow munching away at the mountain of plastic bags.

At 10 p.m. we enter the cinema, quickly realising that we're the only women in the audience. This isn't your regular Bollywood movie. This is a Bollywood movie for men. Violence, cigarettes, gangs, alcohol and everything which is tacitly forbidden in Indian culture. And inbetween all the fighting the guys suddenly break into song and your typical Bollywood dancing. Awesome. We leave in the intermission though, to the smirking of all the men in the audience (they must have thought we were uncomfortable) but we left mostly because it was nearly midnight and we still had to get home before too late. Macho guys singing and dancing in shrill voices rock.

We leave Trichy the following day. Nino and I take the bus to Dindigul after settling our costs with the Kudumbam guesthouse. Many buses seem to be equipped with television sets that blast Bollywood movie after Bollywood movie throughout the journey. Nino gets off half an hour before Dindigul, somewhere closer to Sevapur. At Dindigul I am sent around in various different directions before somebody manages to direct me correctly to the Nilakkottai bus. Indians are somehow incapable to admit when they don't know something or when they aren't really certain. They'll just rather say anything off the top of their heads instead of saying "I don't know".

The road is bumpy and the Bollywood movies are nonsensical and loud. When I get off at Nilakkottai the little lady sitting beside me wants to help me find my way. I tell her that I just need a rickshaw and that I have the address to where I am going written on a note. Somehow she interprets this as, "please help me, I'm a little girl and I'll cry if I can't find my way". This quickly gathers a small crowd, everyone passing my note around, trying to figure out where I am going. And of course, when they don't know the suggestions start flying. Some young guys shout that I have to run and take the bus that's just about to round the corner. I refuse to take a bus that I don't know where it's going. Also nobody told me to take a bus. They specifically told me RICKSHAW.

All the fuss is eventually solved by a proper looking jewellry salesman with good english. Against my wishes he phones CIRHEP, speaks to Mohan (the coordinator. I pick up the words, "foreign girl"), hails a rickshaw, makes the driver speak to Mohan and then proudly watches me disappear in the rickshaw. Of course, I could have hailed my own vehicle 30 minutes ago... Safe and sound at CIRHEP! They have a wireless connection all over the area! Drool.

The trainees for Framtidsjorden, Eric and Ylva take me around the area the following day. The day is awesomely started by observing the making of a biodynamic compost. I acknowledge the importance that agriculture has taken in my life. I like that the past three - four months of my life have in some way offered several times every week, signs or reminders about agriculture or other elements regarding the cultivation of the soil and the sustainable management of our earth. But by conscious or unconscious decision, the pattern that has emerged seems to point in only one direction. Do a biodynamic training, is there any knowledge in the world that is more important than learning how to live in balance with your surroundings, how to respect, nurture and cultivate the earth as our home. How to be self-sufficient and how to use the wisdom of nature in a way that doesn't damage the earth but rather, enhances it.

When I worked at Nibble, the biodynamic shop on the seminar an elderly man taught me a good way of explaining the difference between organic and biodynamic farming after having observed my feeble attempt at explaining it to a customer that had never heard of either ways of farming before.

With organic farming the farmer strives to mimick nature.
With biodynamic farming, the farmer enhances nature.

CIRHEP is mainly a training center, meaning that when they aren't hosting training seminars the grounds are virtually empty, save for Eric and Ylva. After having spent nearly a month's time being constantly surrounded by people in different contexts and countries, the serenity and the loud silence in nature was thus warmly welcomed. The mosquitos however, were of less likeability. They completely feasted on me. Hordes of them seem to thrive in this area, and while in my room at CIRHEP, I had to take cover at all times underneath the safety of my mosquito net. A must-bring to India: A GOOD MOSQUITO NET. Bring one or die a horrible itchy death.

Now I'm in Madurai after having been spoiled rotten by CIRHEP. Mohan insisted somebody accompany me to Madurai despite my attempts at trying to convince him otherwise. (I guess he wasn't too impressed about my arrival causing a near mob uprisal at Nilakkottai). So poor (I call him Dave, me being a stinking colonialistic westerner, that's what his name sounded like in my ears and thus that became the only name I could hold in my mind) had to take me all the way to Madurai, search hopelessly for a bus to Trivandrum, worry about the fact that the only bus would leave at midnight and then being half-heartedly convinced by me that I can survive a semi-sleeper bus journey for 6 hours.

I got a "lady's" seat in the very front, no.1.

So now I am waiting for midnight to the sound of the swishing of the fans in the ceiling. The mosquitos were driving me off the bat so I had a momentary spaz and covered myself in mosquito repellant. My clothes are gross anyway. I hope the bus isn't too full, that I won't have to use the bathroom, that I won't get hungry and that tomorrow is sunny.

Going to the Loo

2009-12-19T02:12:00.000-08:00

So, if you're not familiar with Indian toilets, here's a picture of the nice and clean bathrooms of CIRHEP. You simply remove your trousers, squat over the hole (NOT SITTING) do your business, wash, then wash your hands, pour some water into the hole, and voila. Indian loo.

More interesting stuff on CIRHEP later, now I must run to take photos of the newly finished biodynamic compost heap that was finished today! Visit cirhep.org in the meantime!

Rainy India

2009-12-18T10:57:00.000-08:00

Written on December 16th, 2009

Fingers and toes are covered and orange with henna. It's raining outside in Kudumam organic farm and I can feel the humidity down to my bones and in the sheets of my bed. Little tamil boy with a bicycle walks past the tractor outside my window. We're listening to blues off Carolin's cellphone, she's on her bed reading her downloaded emails, I'm on my bed trying to write even though it's rather dark due to an electricity blackout. The electricity is bound to come back soon, in the meanwhile the one window I managed to pry open will have to be enough light for now.

I look forward to my travels. Nino has gotten it confirmed that she needs to go to Sri Lanka to extend her VISA and I will accompany her in January. That's quite exciting! Another country!

Soon I'll hopefully be off to Kerala. I've finally admitted to myself that I might need to take it a bit slower, just a tad, as I went over my working hours the last few months, realising I've been working nearly every weekend since 360, save for a week in Amsterdam and at least one week in Switzerland. I actually do need to have just one day as a breather, just one weekend maybe. Otherwise things are rather stable as a matter of fact. I know where I am going and what I need to do and today it makes me happy (as opposed to tired and overwhelmed). I'm going to have fruit everyday in Varkala, and coffee and sun and swimming and reading and writing that damned application and starting my India folder and internet and massages.

The rain drizzles down outside, the humidity creeping in everywhere. I have seen a lot of parts of this country that I think youth when going to India normally do not see. I value and cherish these experiences like a precious gem in my memory.

Using the toilets is becoming easier.

Vinobajipuram

2009-12-18T10:44:00.000-08:00

Written on December 14th, 2009

We went to Vinobajipuram and then a bit further to the Girls' Droup-out School. It was hysterical. These girl's were quite the handful, and extremely, extremely excited to see us, three "white" people. We somehow ended up having to entertain them all day and I realise that my patience wth children can be very short at times. 57 screaming Indian girls that all want to tell you what to do. I can't stand being told what to do.

Things are progressing in quite the rapid speed now, going to different places, accepting the no toilet, the bugs and the no english and accepting that one must place oneself in the utter vulnerable position of standing in front of a crowd and facing the utter, gritty, unclean unknown.

Indian problematic is on my mind. Rice subsidies leads to a one-sided agricultural cultivation (a monoculture?) and a one-sided diet which leads to a decrease in public health and weakened families and eventually death, which makes children drop out of school to work at home and not receiving the proper education needed in their lives which leads to a constant degeneration of the public level of education, which makes the possibility of instigating a renewal in the society significantly smaller because people are uneducated and only listen to old traditions and have an archaic perspective on the world, egality and equality not even reaching the top-ten important thing in people's lives. There are so many different components in Indian society that I don't even know where a change should be initiated, in which end of this ever-spinning spiral does one start?

I am sick of Indian food.

The Path towards India

2009-12-18T09:57:00.000-08:00

Written on December 11th, 2009

We all (Carolin, Anatoli, Nino and myself) went to visit Raman, the BD farmer's house yesterday. It was a lovely rural Indian village that greeted us. The children flocked around us, staring at us with their inquisitive eyes. Each wanted to know my age, my name, my country, all the names of each of my family members, etc. And each wanted us to repeat theirs respectively. We had a lovely supper on banana leafs under the curious stare of the dozens of children that eventually crowded into the house and began a series of performances of songs and poems in both english and tamil. We sang some swedish songs.

I find it is still a bit difficult to somehow stand with both feet in this country and live here fully. I guess it is a matter of accepting that this is also my life, as I feel I have said many times. I travel, I wear many different "hats". I see new things and really, every day is a challenge to be observed and to learn from. Live fully everyday.

When did I decide to come here?
Was it when I signed the trainee contract?
Was it when I started YIP?
Was it when Carolin came to Umeå Waldorfskola to talk about India?
How long has this journey been written into my history and how long have I been following this path, making decisions and having experiences that have helped me along the way?
Did I not always know that I would be in India one day?

This is where I am now. And this is exactly where I am supposed to be.

First day of illness

2009-12-18T09:00:00.000-08:00

Written on December 9th, 2009

Arrived safe and sound at ISS, just in time to experience my first time ill in India. It's incredibly gross to sick up indian food. The smell of it will haunt you for hours. The nice woman in the kitchen, Mary, took care of me very well thought. She brought me lemon juice, came to check on me and eventually convinced me to eat some rice. With that I got a glass of pure cow's milk, though I didn't understand what it was at first. Though basic enough to take care of the illness in my stomach it severely upset my lactose intolerant digestive system. (At this point I was ill enough to waive that vegan thing).

I'm on the rooftop now, breaking "taboo" as I decided to take the opportunity to sunbathe and maybe forget my nausea. I rolled my trousers up to my knees, got my sleeves showing off my shoulders. This sun is just much too lovely, and how I have missed it in the Swedish darkness.

I am still a bit homesick for Järna, and my life, but I realise that I haven't "left" my life, this is also a part of it. Bleh. Still sick, moving off the roof to lie in bed. Feeling a bit frustrated and bored. Now and again I feel I catch picturesque glimpses of India that make me wish I would carry my camera around at all times. Sometimes it's even just a sentence thought, A feeling. I must practise writing them down. The palmtrees sound like a thunderstorm in the wind. The fluorescent lights buzz monotunously, insects bumping in to them. I feel like I have a fever, but my forehead isn't even sweaty, rather the opposite, dry, almost as if doused with chalk.

The beds are too hard, after a day of sleeping my back aches along with kidneys and neck, and I can't sleep on my stomach or I'll sick up again. I took some medicine. Can't exactly remember what it's form but I think to digestive related problems. The flurorescent lights make the soundtrack of this day as I watch one lonely black ant make its way across the carpets, its legs occasionally sticking to the fibres. I should like to sit outside and also, take the opportunity to fetch the laundry drying on the roof, but the mere idea of having to walk seems daunting.

I wonder if it's a peacock or a sloth making those eerie high-pitched sounds in the distance. I cannot muster the strength to do anything, the buzzing of the light is beginning to bother me.

Musings on the Indian Express

2009-12-18T08:19:00.000-08:00

My back is sticking to the seat with sweat and my bum is incredibly sore. Now and again vendors scream in through the barred windows, selling crisps, red bananas, chai, sweets, samosa and other fried "delights". I look out between the bars of my compartment window and revel in the beauty of Mother India.

Similarly to when I was in Brazil I realise that it's the colours of and in a country that I miss in Europe. The women's bright saris are like candy in my eyes and I want pictures of all of them, loving that when they walk in groups they look like colourful marbles rolling down a path made of bubblegum wrappings.

Man, my bum aches.

Scrawny dogs dart among the tracks of the railyway. On the stations the vendors all rush to us at the sight of Carolin's long blonde hair and my comparatively fair skin. I catch sight of a skinny monkey in a leash, sitting like a misplaced puppy in the throng of brightly clad people. The air is full of scents, of hot food, of fried oil, of urine and other human remnants, of spices faintly recognisable to my nose, the jasmine perfume of the women and the general sweat of us all. And let's not forget the humidity of the red earth.

The sky is never clear, for the moisture and the pollution. The train is rocking to heavily now for me to write. Landscapes of virile green flash before us to the deafening sounds of the railway, children shrieking, people talking.

Snug as a Bug

2009-12-18T07:15:00.000-08:00

Written on December 6th, 2009

I am in a tiny compartment in first, first class on the train. We only (Carolin + me) got one sleeping rack for the two of us and what with the train being really full and all the only other rack that was available was this one for a thousand rupees. I am a bit homesick for Ytterjärna. I am loving India so far, even though it's not been very long (though of course, it feels MUCH longer already). This rack is tiny, I'm going to fall off and break my neck, not to mention the fact that half the space is taken up by Carolin's rucksack. Jack Johnson lulls me to sleep as I wonder where I will be waking up tomorrow, and in what state I'll be in... (no pun intended, hahaha, sleeeep...)

Hot, boiling India

2009-12-18T05:24:00.000-08:00

Written on December 4th, 2009

I had anticipated a much bigger shock at first. Of course I became quite stranded on the airport at first, not sure whether Carolin would be there or if should make my own way, which was probably the idea if only my cellphone hadn't decided to not function in India. After an accidental phonecall to Sweden via payphone, pondering whether I shouldn't just check into a hotell and find a sim-card the next day I managed to get a hold of Carolin. During my 4 hours of waiting a young indian girl held me company, telling me I had looked sad. (STRESSED more like). She can't have been older than 16 and proudly told me that she was about to get married. Her entire family came to sit with me, asking me questions as to where I was from and if I was married or not.

I finally got into a prepaid taxi to Coloba, hotel Moti. The cabride was amazing. Actually amazing is maybe not the right word. The driver stopped randomly a few times to ask for directions at which I was left alone in the car at which point several child beggars approached my open window, asking me for chocolate or other treats, and if I had had any I would have given it to them, but I didn't even have anything to fill my own rumbling stomach, or anything less than 1000 rupees in my pocket. Sigh.

The driver brought me all the way to the hotel in the red, gleaming, pollution sunset. And that's where I am now after a day of eating out, shopping for various must-haves-in-India and looking at random buildings. I look forward to Tamil Nadu on Sunday, although Mumbai has been enjoyable in it's own hectic, loud way so far. Hurray for FabIndia and my three sets of Indian clothing

Goodbye Europe, Starbucks my secret friend and hello Mother India

2009-12-18T04:52:00.000-08:00

Written on December 2nd, 2009

I haven't given christmas as much as the slightest thought this year, not really. Here I am, on my way to India, leaving Dornach and Sweden for a comfortable amount of time. Not too long. Not too short. I've been looking forward to this, a lot. Unconsciously I've been ticking off the days till my departure, every hour, almost to the minute.

It's been a funny last day in Europe. I woke up a little confused and still exhausted by Katha banging on the door, telling us to wake up. Twice. Then I got up, even more tired, and sadly acknowledging my urgent need of a shower. Got dressed and went out into Katha's kitchen to put on some music and do the dishes with Firas. We danced in the kitchen and cleaned it rather thoroughly, danced some more, made about 8 pots of coffee and had fried eggs on newly baked bread from around the corner. (Note, I had honey on my bread, not eggs!)

And now I am suddenly at the airport, having what must be my last soylatte for a while. Damn Starbucks and their delicious lattes... So I'm sitting here with my rupees in my pocket, my Indian (rather INDISKA) gear on, waiting for the nervousness to hit me. Part of me is already on the other side of the globe, part of me wants to leave this place, preferably yesterday.

Vegan Christmas food

2008-12-26T02:45:00.000-08:00

Just to prove that a green christmas can be achieved food wise without having to endure a dry and boring christmas dinner here is my vegan plate that mom and I put together for the occasion.

Vegan delicious christmas food:

One slice of home-made rye fruit bread (upper left corner)

Organic falafel (left)

Red cabbage salad (middle)

Steamed beetroot and carrot salad (middle)

Saffron cous-cous with green peas and red pepper (bottom)

Hummus (right)

Organic tofu in soy-cream, garlic and lemon marinade (upper right corner)

Close up. Yum...

Merry christmas and a green new year!

Interrail: Day 4

2008-12-21T11:44:00.000-08:00

Day 4: 24th of November

I woke up cold and stiff in my sleeping bag. Grey light from outside shone in bleakly through the window and I wondered whether it was still night or morning.

“Good morning!” Magda said suddenly, coming into the room with a towel around herself. I murmured something inaudible, receiving a slight chuckle from her as she dressed herself while I struggled to find my bearings and my scattered belongings. Somehow regardless where I go, if I spend more than five minutes somewhere I always manage to spread my things all over the area within a few seconds.

Slowly I roused myself, got dressed, assembled the sofa bed and rolled up the sleeping bag. I washed up a little in the bathroom, tried to do something about my unruly dreads so as to look as little as possible as a tramp. Magda chattered easily in spanish as we went to the other side of the apartment to have breakfast. I was far too tired still to offer her somewhat satisfactory replies but she seemed happy anyway. I helped myself to müsli in the kitchen before joining Magda and a few of her house mates in the dining room. Robert that had opened for me last night was there with his girlfriend, both of them trying to feed their baby. There was another couple there too with their own baby. They all looked very much like they had jumped out of some 70’s reminiscence and I observed them subtly as they chatted tiredly to each other in german over cups of steaming herby tea and bowls of müsli with raisins, cinnamon and soy milk.

But it was time to leave, Magda was already late for her eurythmy class. She followed me down the road and before long I found myself standing alone next to the busy road, waiting for the buss. I was infinitely grateful for Magda’s help and pondered over my evening in the Berlin commune with amusement playing on my lips. My back was tired from carrying the heavy backpack and my hands were turning gradually more and more pink as the morning cool began to seep in through my clothes.

With weary eyes I observed the daily lives of the people around me. Cars were speeding past on the road and behind me a family were setting up their fruit stand, shouting to each other in a language unknown to me. Foam shaped in front of my mouth as I sighed and bitterly studied the large coca-cola commercial signs on the other side of the road.

I decided then and there that I did not want to experience the same panic I had felt in Frankfurt when posed with the commotion of the big city. Today would be a day of silence.

The bus took me all the way to Berlin Hauptbahnhof, the Central station. From there I managed to lock in my heavy bag and walked off simply carrying my camera, my recycled shoulder bag containing my knitting, my small journal, a bottle of water and some other small things.

Once again the similarity between Berlin Central station and Heathrow airport struck me like a smack to the head. It took me roughly ten minutes to find out where I could lock in my bag, then another ten minutes to find out when the train to Basel was leaving and after which I had to cross the full distance of the Central station for the second time in order to find the tourist information and buy a map of Berlin.

The signs pointing to Service Point, Tourist Info and Luggage retrieval just didn’t make sense to me, somehow they always seemed to pointing in the exact wrong direction.

Nevertheless eventually I made my way out of the Central station and avoiding the obnoxious groups of tourists, japanese and german alike I set out towards Brandenburger Tor. The air was freezing in my lungs and I wished that I had in my possession a pair of sturdy gloves as opposed to my homemade wrist-warmers. The sky was grey and glum as I crossed a bridge and a park.

The perverted symmetry of the hedges, benches, paths, and well, everything made me very uncomfortable and filled me with the strong urge to mess things up, tip over a trash can or cut one of the hedges at least a little crookedly.

There was a solemnity, a bleak atmosphere in the morning as I continued to the Jewish Memorial. Silence struck me as I watched the light shining through the opaque gloomy clouds, the pale light glittering on the many surfaces of the monument. I took a deep breath and entered down one of the paths, the light of the world disappearing as I fell deeper and deeper into the darkness of the monument, the feelings that had inspired it pulling me under like a wave of icy water.

I gasped for breath, tried listening after the sounds of the city, the buses and cars and the people but the world was quiet.

I blinked a few times, brought the camera to my eyes and photographed my surroundings, bringing reality in through my lens and letting the picture sink into my brain as oxygen returned to my lungs and I was able to leave the monument behind me with a feeling of sorrow in my heart.

The grey city of Berlin unfolded itself before me as I made my way onwards towards the Jewish Museum. I had studied the architecture of the building in 12th grade and was thus very much looking forward to seeing it in real life.

At some point I must have taken a wrong turn because I did not recognize any of the roads that I was supposed to be crossing on my way to the museum, though of course I always have been quite hopeless at reading maps. The path I chose was a rather desolate one though, much to my satisfaction.

I walked for about one and a half hours before rounding a corner and suddenly finding myself in front of the Jewish Museum. The great building took all the breath out of me as if someone had punched me in my stomach. Tentatively I approached it, holding my camera in front of me like a sword for protection.

I wandered around the museum for some twenty minutes, photographing it from different angles, fervently seeking to catch the perfect picture of the beautiful monstrosity that was the museum.

Time and tire eventually tore me away from there, and with a little more certainty as to where I was actually heading I set off once more, taking note of a rising discomfort in my weary feet.

Berlin had greeted me with the early sunrise of the south but extreme cold in the somewhat early hours of the morning, but now as I began to retrace my steps back to the Hauptbahnhof warmth seemed to overwhelm me. The sensation of accomplishment echoed in the back of my mind, though I knew not quite where it came from.

The odd snowless streets led me back to the chaotic central station. I arrived with 45 minutes to spare and first checked out my heavy backpack again before making my way to the platform, which as anticipated was not as easy as I could have wished for.

By the time I found the platform I badly needed to use the bathroom, the slight ache in my foot had developed into a fully fledged pain and hunger tore in my belly. Twenty minutes remained before the arrival of my train. Each second felt like an eternity as I struggled to control my bladder and focus on something else. I wondered if I would be able to smoke if I sat far away enough from the security guard.

I decided my current state of misery was not worth a possible scolding from a german and instead decided to alleviate the one pain I could do something about.

Hoisting the backpack onto my back again I made my way as quickly as I could do the bathroom, limping as I rushed down the escalator.

Of course, all the signs were pointing in the wrong direction and it took another painful five minutes before I was able to locate the restroom, fish up 80 cents and the rest is history.

When I came back the train was already there and I managed to find an empty seat rather quickly. Well seated I set up camp, which is to say I managed to spread most of my belongings all over the two seats. I quickly found my loaf of organic rye bread from Saltå Kvarn, my tube of vegetable paté and within half an hour I had finished the loaf and leaned back in my seat with an unsatisfied feeling in my stomach probably caused by the bread diet I had been living on since the beginning of the journey.

The train ran straight to Basel SBB and took just over 7 hours.

I worked steadfastly on my computer, even read a few pages of “the Biography of Rudolf Steiner” and begun knitting a green wrist-warmer to match the purple one I had made on my way to Germany.

Outside the landscape changed slowly, from bright green to frozen blizzards to pitch black as we neared Basel.

The positive thing with traveling by train if you don’t think that time is a problem is the slow transformation of the landscape. Often when I have flown somewhere I find it takes me at least a day after arrival before I feel like I have actually landed and can function like a normal human being again.

The hours ran past us as we sped into new lands and the beautiful rolling countryside outside my window let my mind grow accustomed to the new country as we passed over border after border.

I nearly got off at the wrong station in Basel, remembering only that I had to leave at Basel station without considering the fact that there might be several stations named Basel something. I found myself anxiously waiting, backpack on, perched at the edge of my seat, for the train to roll into Basel SBB, as I was quite certain that it was the right stop.

I was swept out into the station along with the mass of people, following the stream of german speaking people. Basel SBB was considerably smaller in size compared to Berlin Hbf, something I found very comforting indeed.

So, I thought quietly to myself. I am in Basel now, how do I get to Dornach?

For some reason I had formed an image in my head where Basel and the Goetheanum seemed to be the same thing and in the same place but as I turned around again and again, reading the signs and schedules (not seeing the name Dornach anywhere) I slowly began to realise that getting there was maybe not quite as easy as I had first thought.

I wandered down one end of the central station, then down the other. I sent text messages to all the YIP’ies I had on my phone, wandered down the other direction once again before I managed to find someone working in the ticket booth. At the same time I got a hold of Emma who was still enjoying the quiet of the Dottenfelder-Hof farm. She told me to leave the train station and take a tram, though I decided, just to be sure, to ask at the ticket booth as well.

The woman selling tickets told me to take the train from a platform I had passed by on my way over to her. A train would be leaving to Dornach within the hour.

I decided to take my chances and follow the woman’s advice as Emma had seemed slightly unsure of her words.

As I dragged my tired, pained feet down the stairs down to the platform I received a phone call from Joana who in panic asked me where I was and if I knew where I was going before she went off in a rant to reprimand me for not picking up the phone. I failed to have noticed the three times she had phone me within the past two minutes. I apologized sincerely to her, appreciating her concern before making sure that she notify Katha at the Youth Section of my arrival.

Katha soon informed me of what I was to do when arriving at Dornach station, which bus to take and to where.

Fortunately an interrail ticket can be used on long distance trains, but also on the metro and the subway, thus I gave my traveling no further thought nor concern once I found myself a seat for both myself and my backpack. Dornach was not far from Basel and before long it was time to leave the metro and step into the dark, chilly evening. I had to ask around a few times before finding out where my bus left from. Eventually the best answer I received was from another bus driver. I hardly had to ask him the question until, after a long gaze from his side he simply asked me, “You go to the Goetheanum?” Whereupon I replied yes in surprise, seeing as I had had no time to mention the matter yet. He gave me another look and explained to me that there would probably be a bus in twenty minutes, bus 66. (If I can remember correctly). Slowly the stress of traveling solo began to lift as I finally felt that things were sorting out, becoming easier, that I was almost there. Of course, the bus proved to be rather tardy. I was thirsty and hungry but sitting where I was on a cold bench, I felt oddly pleased with myself, because despite all my physical discomforts, I was glad, because I knew that there was still strength in my weary body. The enjoyment I felt from traveling stemmed from the assurance of my own strength. The bus arrived eventually and I embraced its arrival like a well-deserved treat for my patience. I reminded myself with a good amount of irony and humour that the whole journey had been ridiculously environmental as I pushed my way through the cramped corners of the bus and took two seats rather uncomfortably for both myself and my backpack. The bus began to drive after five minutes of standing still, all doors wide open letting all the cold air in. But once the doors were shut and the rather shoddy looking vehicle began to climb the steep hills of Dornach I quickly forgot how cold I had been and rather began contemplating if I should remove my woolly sweater. The world outside was dark and what little light there was came from the seemingly randomly placed street lights. I quickly began to worry that I actually would not notice if we passed by the Goetheanum, something I had thought to be completely impossible at first. Of course, I had never actually seen the place, though I was quite certain it should be visible at least. Nevertheless I decided not to take any chances and approached the bus driver. His english was unfortunately poor at best.

“Are you passing by the Goetheanum?”

“The what?”

“The Goetheanum.”

“Was?” I didn’t know in what other possible way I could rephrase that question, but pointed on the screen next to him describing his travel route. I put my finger on “Goetheanum”.

“Ahaa,” he exclaimed loudly. “The Goh-ete-ah-noom.” I nodded, relieved. “Ja, is the next stop.” He continued speaking to me throughout the journey, of which I understood little, though I appreciated the effort. The bus came to a screeching stop and I stared out into the dark, seeing nothing but blocks of flats and small houses.

“Are you sure this is the Goetheanum? There’s supposed to be a really big building there.”

He looked a bit perplexed before exclaiming in an excited voice,” ah yes, next stop, I sorry.” He closed the doors and I sat down, touching my forehead tiredly. I had no idea where I was, nor did the bus driver seem to know, but it was okay. Next stop he said. And so the bus stopped. I looked out through the window again and seeing nothing turned back to the bus driver.

“There’s supposed to be a really big...”

“Ja, is up there.” I let my eyes follow his finger. A huge grey building atop a great hill loomed down over me.

“Right then,” I said simply, thanked the driver and skipped off the bus. And once again as so many times before I found myself wondering where to go next. The Goetheanum seemed to be the right way to go, thus I walked up the hill, realised it wasn’t where I should be, phoned Katha and had a german answer her phone. I soon realised it was Guy Collins a frequented visitor to YIP. He gave me directions to the Youth Section that I had obviously passed on my way up to the Goetheanum, as it actually was next to the bus stop.

I never avoid a good walk though, and without further ado, walked down the hill and was greeted by the YIP smokers, standing outside the orange Youth Section building.

I was given food, tea, bread and peanut-butter.

The hitchhikers told me of blizzards, of strange truck-drivers, of sleeping on the ferry to germany on a stormy sea.

I thought back to the long hours on the train, thinking how six hours felt like a short time compared to the distance between Denmark and practically everywhere. The taste of peanut-butter reminded me of the quiet conversations I had with the girls in the cramped compartment between Hamburg and Frankfurt. The bright colours and smiling faces of the YIP’ies made me think of the bleak and silent day I had had in Berlin, of the solemnity I had carried the whole day which was now replaced by the exhausted joy of gathering with YIP once again.

And a feeling of being home struck me so strongly, stronger than the distance to Sweden, stronger than my tire and ache. Home is where your heart is, and my heart is touched by people.

Interrail: Day 3

2008-12-21T11:40:00.000-08:00

Day 3: Sunday the 23rd of November

The alarm shrieked at 9:00 a.m. in the morning. I switched it off and enjoyed the comfort of my sleeping bag. My initial plan last night had been to wake up at nine, step outside the house and fill my lungs with the crystal clear air of the countryside. I would have taken my computer and found a comfortable nook somewhere in the garden where I could write in peace and perhaps even enjoy the freedom of a cigarette.

Instead I rolled over in my sleeping bag, twisting it around me as I tried to find a comfortable position on the hard mattress. The bloody rooster was still singing outside the window and had done so all night. I closed my eyes hard and tried to pretend I was sleeping, tried to trick my mind into believing it so that I might return to real of dreams again, but without luck.

The rooster seemed to be mocking my somnolent wakefulness.

At 9:20 a.m. I began untangling myself from the sleeping bag, waking Emmi in the process. I scrambled after my toiletries and some clean clothes, touching my bed-head hair anxiously, hoping that my dreadlocks weren’t too troll like. I didn’t want to scare Emmi and Inga after all.

Skipping on the cold floor I hurried into the bathroom, entered one of the two showers there, noticing disapprovingly that the showers lacked locks. Scowling I arranged my things inside the shower (bar of soap, towel, clean clothes on a peg...) and tentatively turned on the water.

At first it was awfully cold and gave me such a violent attack of goosebumps that it hurt. But slowly the water got warmer and warmer until it was almost pleasant. Unfortunately the sprinkle was rather weak and did not quite penetrate the thickness of my hair, but with some persistence and scrubbing I was able to leave the shower feeling quite clean. I dressed quickly, hopping from foot to foot to avoid standing for too long on the terribly uncomfortable cold floor.

Emmi and Inga scrambled to finish showering and dressing and at around 10 past 10 a.m. the three of us were all properly dressed once more and hurrying to the steps to have breakfast in Emma’s house. (We had agreed to meet for breakfast at 10:00 a.m.) Outside we met Emma who was going for a walk with a friend of hers, but her sister Malin would be more than happy to have breakfast with us.

Just as it had when we arrived the previous night the table stood ready for of us to simply dig in. Bread, marmalade, soy yoghurt, müsli of all sorts and dried biodynamic figs. We greeted Emma’s sweet grandmother and seated ourselves. I for one was awfully hungry and did my best to not seem too rude as I helped myself to some breakfast. Malin and her boyfriend joined us shortly before rushing of to some concert. We received some most fascinating green tea that had a rather poisonous looking fluorescent green shade to eat, that when I poured myself a second and a third cup (and possibly a fourth one as well?) turned gradually darker until it had a deep forest green hue. Despite its appearance I enjoyed the taste of it though I was not able to receive an answer I could comprehend about which kind of tea it was. Having finished breakfast we excused ourselves and were pretty much pushed out through the door before we had the time to offer to help washing up.

The farm looked very different in daylight. It looked even bigger, even older and ever more romantic. The sounds and smells and different colours played joyfully in my senses. We climbed up the stairs to our loft and with laptops and notepads under our arms we found a comfortable place in the common room of the farming students. We spent a good hour there writing and knitting while we waited for Emma. Emmi was getting a bit agitated as time passed by. She had promised a friend of hers to come visit her in Lyon and thus was in a hurry to see what time the trains left at from Frankfurt. Time ticked by and still there was no sign of Emma. Eventually Emmi and I went to have a look for her, and of course we met her as soon as we walked outside the door.

All together we went to the farm office only to realise that their server was down and that there was no internet.

“We’ll go visit someone who has internet.” Emma said simply and headed off in the opposite direction. I chuckled to myself, enjoying the ease in which we could simply barge into someone’s home here, their doors were open to anyone. I liked it. Though if my life were such I would always make sure I had internet.

Emma lead us into a big old house, rushed up three sets of stairs before knocking on a door. A blonde girl with thick dreadlocks opened the door, her eyelids drooping with tire.

“Can we come in to use your internet?” Emma asked with chirping cheerfulness. The girl blinked a few times and shrugged. “Sure.” She switched on the computer for us and took a seat at the kitchen table, kindly asking one of us to stay with her and help her with her homework. Inga smiled and sat down beside her whilst Emmi and I parked ourselves in front of the very old PC.

The train to Lyon from Frankfurt left at 2:30 a.m. I watched the screen apprehensively, thinking through what I wanted to check on the internet. I knew what I wanted, but it was so very spontaneous that it surprised me a little. It was a wish that he begun to grow in me as we started our journey to Frankfurt.

“I want to go somewhere too.” I announced loudly, mostly to myself. There was a large map of Germany on the right side of the computer. Emmi and I proceeded to finding an interesting city that wasn’t too far of from either Frankfurt or Basel. The plan was that most YIP’ies arrive in Basel at some point on monday. Inga and I had planned to take an early train together, and as Basel was only about four hours away from Emma’s home we would arrive before midday.

“Prague?” I asked out loud, finding the the Czech city on the edge of the map. I check the distance on the internet and quickly concluded that it was too far away. “Berlin?” I typed it into db.de as well. Berlin was only about four - five hours away from Frankfurt, and roughly seven hours away from Basel.

The decision made itself inside me then as reason coincided with my sudden spontaneity.

“Yeah, I think I’ll go to Berlin.” I said simply, scratching my dreads thoughtfully.

“Cool.” Emmi replied.

The following thirty minutes flashed by after my decision. Once I told Emma that I had decided to go to Berlin she immediately replied that she would her friend Magda who lived in Berlin to see if I could stay in her flat for the night. Magda spoke little english but had lived for a longer period in Chile and had a chilean boyfriend, thus her spanish was far better than mine. I spoke to her on the phone quickly, trying to decide if she was able to come pick me up from the Central station or not. Apparently Magda had a eurythmy performance and would probably not have time to come by but she would phone Emma later and give instructions about how I could find her house, then Emma would send me a text message with the instructions.

“Okay, you have ten minutes to pack your bags, then I’ll drive you to the metro.” Emmi and I glanced at each other once before rushing off, leaving Inga and Emma behind. They looked quite content to stay.

Emmi and I ran down the flight of stairs, out across the farm and up to our loft again. We proceeded to shoving everything into our big backpacks again, not having the time to organise our things at all. I crammed down my sleeping bag into its bag, collected my computer and mobile cable, and with that we were off.

We met Emma at the entrance of the farm and within seconds the three of us were packed into the Dottenfelder-Hof SUV. We bid farewell to farm as we drove of in a cloud of dust and a little snow. The day was grey as could be expected of November though it was not very cold.

Emma would not meet us in Dornach, thus Emmi and I gave her a big hug each wishing her the best until we saw her again in a weeks time. And then we found ourselves inexplicably waiting for the train as we had so many times already.

Once we arrived in Frankfurt we took out some euros at a cashpoint and proceeded to searching for something edible that we could bring on our journey. We had a loaf of bread each that we had brought from Sweden. Biodynamic and famous for its marvelous taste, Saltå Kvarns fruit-bread was screaming to be eaten in my backpack. Myself I had brought a vegan vegetable pate. Emmi bought a small cheese, we both bought a packet of cashew nuts each and a bottle of water each. I picked one I believed to be still and classic, but this would later prove to have been a fateful mistake.

We found our different platforms and thus with a final big hug we parted and I found myself completely alone in the middle of Frankfurt Central station. Hoisting my heavy backpack on my back I made way into the train. Inside I found a comfortable seat but was soon worried about the fact that a digital little sign above my seat said “Frankfurt - Hanover”. That’s not where I was going, and I knew that I wouldn’t have to make any changes on this train, it should go directly to Berlin.

The sign above the seat in front of me said “Frankfurt - Berlin” thus I decided i made more sense that I sit there. A few minutes later I learned what those signs were there for, they were reservations and marked where the person that had reserved them was going. A young german boy who spoke english with a sweet attempt at a british accent explained this to me thus forcing me to grab my heavy bag again and switch wagons twice before I managed to find an empty unreserved seat.

I made myself as comfortable as I could, brought up my laptop and disappeared into the realm of computers. I wrote and wrote and worked a little on Dreamweaver and Photoshop and when I got bored I brought out my camera, and lacking anything better to do, took photographs of myself.

I had yet not received the text message from Emma telling me how to get to Magda’s house. But it was okay, I had a plan B incase the lines of communication would happen to be broken somewhere along the line. I knew that there was a train leaving Berlin at 9:30 p.m. thus if I had nowhere to sleep I would just take the night train to Basel.

At that point I received a text message from Emma.

Magda's house,from maintrainstation take bus120-frohnau/hainbuchenstrasse, exit leopoldplatz,walk to maxstrasse 5. Have a wonderfull time!love, emma

I spent a few seconds deciphering the text message, reading it through several times and trying to remember the names and numbers. I would return several times through my train journey to read the text message, trying to memorize it or at least a part of the message. Outside the sun began to set as we swished past the countryside leaving the snow behind us, traveling through green pastures that at the blink of an eye were suddenly once more covered in snow.

I listened to Lila Downs, Golbang and some other instrumental music. Usually I find it difficult to listen to someone singing when I am trying to type, at least if it is in a language I can understand thus did my best to allocate the foreign and instrumental music on my Ipod. Unfortunately as I am a terribly non-technical person I never really learned how to put music manually onto the Ipod and had instead let it load things automatically. The result was as I learned, not quite satisfactory.

Thirst came to me a few hours into my journey and thus I reached to open the bottle of still water I had bought at Frankfurt central station. It wasn’t still though, and silly me, because I can’t read german I had thought that classic meant it had no bubbles. The bottle pretty much exploded, and there I was, my laptop in front of me, panicking as water squirted everywhere.

Oddly enough as I opened my eyes to behold the destruction I found my laptop untouched, though I could not quite say the same about myself. I was soaked through from top till bottom.

Things were pitch-black outside my window now. I glanced at the clock on my computer screen. 6:02 p.m. We should arrive in Berlin soon.

The man on the speakers said something about Berlin that made me start. Had he said that we were arriving to Berlin now? Interestingly enough they always spoke for about two minutes in german and then took about 30 seconds to explain what they had said in english, and of course finishing with the seemingly obligatory “GOODBYE!” uttered in an extremely matter-to-fact, curt voice. I frowned and decided to not guess about if whether or not we were arriving at the Berlin Central station and kindly asked a couple in front of me if they spoke english.

They looked quite kind and helpful, and yes, they could speak english.

“I didn’t quite hear what we said, are we arriving at the Berlin Central Station?”

“No, Berlin schlannan...” He responded, I didn’t really catch what the last word or name was. “Berlin Central Station, next stop.” He added and smiled hesitantly, I thanked them and sat down again, calmly organising the things in my backpack as well as tightening the straps on it so that it would be less uncomfortable to carry.

When the train rolled into the Central station I felt ready. The backpack was perfectly secured around my waist, chest and shoulders. Everything was packed into it in a very balanced way. My shoes were tied, my jacket strapped onto the backpack. I adjusted my shawl to make sure that it covered my throat and neck and with a deep breath the rush to leave the train began as the doors were opened to the platform.

Berlin Hauptbahnhof is a very large place indeed and reminded me a lot about Heathrow Airport in London. The same chaos, the same sense of endless corridors and escalators that seemed to reach into the skies. The same shops. It’s fascinating how, regardless where you are in the world, an airport or a train-station will always have the exact same shops. Be it in England, Slovakia, Sweden or Germany, so far they had always been the same.

I trudged up to a service point and asked where the buses left from and received the curt answer, “out then left.” My patience with germans was beginning to run out. I uttered an equally curt thank you and left. Out then left.

There were no buses on the left side, only taxis and the road. I sighed. Either him and I had a different conception of where left was, or otherwise I might have gone out through the wrong exit, but seeing as how it was the closest one to the service point I had thought it made sense at the time. Sighing into the cold Berlin air I walked all the way around the Central station and eventually found the bus stops, the number 120 shining like a halo to me up on a pole. 15 minutes until arrival.

I sat down on a bench, feeling quite pathetic with my big backpack on, probably looking as if I hadn’t slept for a week, which to be honest wasn’t far from the truth.

I contemplated why it made sense to do these things. What I needed was a calm week of long baths, plenty of tea, peace and some quiet. This was in a way my vacation. So far I had not slept enough to compensate for my lack of sleeping during YIP, I had turned my eating routine upside down, I had hardly drunk any tea at all and I was probably a bit smelly too, but at the same time, the sense of freedom that filled me as I sat by myself on a bench outside Berlin Central station felt difficult to beat with a bar of soap and some honey.

The bus arrived, I got in, payed 2 euros something and proceeded to blocking the middle passage in the bus with my backpack. After I few stops I was able to sit down though, which was very nice indeed. Berlin gleamed dark and looming outside the bus. I decided almost at once that I did not want to experience the big city disdain again but would do my best to avoid the centrum and experience a part of Berlin that was beyond the gigantic shopping malls and trendy cafés. I had a slight idea of what I wanted to see when I was here, but that would have to wait, now I had to focus on my immediate task, finding Magda’s house.

Leopoldplatz, I got off unwillingly and found myself standing in the middle of a dark street in some suburban place of Berlin. The backpack did not feel quite as comfortable as it had when I got off the train half an hour ago.

What’s the worst thing that could happen? I thought and simply started to walk in some direction, thinking it couldn’t be that difficult to find, though after some ten meters I decided it was stupid to walk too far in case it was the wrong direction.

I only had to ask about five people where Maxstrasse was before I found my way there. The first three people had all said different things, so I was still not quite convinced that I was walking in the right direction until I saw the sign of the road. Now the question was of course, right or left?

Magda lived on number five and on my left side I felt the numbers were a bit too high, so right felt like the way to go. I continued walking along the dark empty road, noting that the streets were very poorly lit.

I passed by number 8, 7, 6, then there was a shop, and following the shop was number 5. A little voice inside me shrieked with happiness.

But it was not quite over yet.

The house was maybe five stories high and none of the doors were marked with any names. How was I to know which one was Magda’s? I’ll just find it, I figured, seeing in my head the terrible scenario of having to walk from door to door knocking on everyone, asking people if Magda lived there. Anxiously I walked up the first flight of stairs, and the second, and the third... I stopped thinking about how many stairs I had climbed as nervous as I was. None of the doors had any names.

But then, it might have been on the fifth floor, I saw a chalkboard displaying the house cleaning tasks and on it was the outcrossed name “Magda”. This had to be right.

I pressed the bell once, listened to it ring loudly on the other side. I knew Magda wouldn’t be the one to open because she had her performance, but she had mentioned something about that there would be people in her house anyway.

A man with cropped hair and a stubble opened the door.

“Guten tag?” He said curiously, eyeing my backpack.

I quickly explained in english that I was Magda’s friend, that I was staying in her room during the night and that she had said it was okay that I come over. For some reason I always felt time was of the essence when somebody thought I could speak german, if I didn’t correct them straight away I somehow felt I had tricked them. The man smiled insecurely and introduced himself as Robert. He took his key and opened the flat opposite to the one I had ringed at. He led me into Magda’s room, showed me where the toilets were and then disappeared back into the first flat.

I took a good look around the room. It was quite spacious and furnished sparingly. A poster of Victor Jara, an incense stick sitting in the window sill and a few bottles of wine and organic juice made me feel just like home. The only thing needed was music and tea. I brought out my laptop, plugged it into the wall and turned on Lila Downs on full volume. Now I needed tea. I peeked outside Magda’s room, took a few hesitant steps down one hall and then down the other, finding no sign of a kitchen. Strange.

I moved back to the room, unpacked some things to make me feel more at home. Bread, vegetarian pate, tobacco, water and watercolours.

I sat down with my laptop in my lap and spotted an internet-cable lying on the floor. Joy rushing through my body like electricity.

I plugged the cable into my computer and finally I was connected to cyberspace after the first time in one and a half days. As expected I had about 20 emails in my inbox, but I skimmed through them gladly. I read the news, checked facebook and some other websites and added my travel diary to my blog. One hour passed and it was nearly 8 p.m.

“Hello, I’m Marcel.” A tall german guy with a dark pony tail and a beard leaned into the room, smiling widely. I introduced myself gladly, explaining who I was.

“Yes, Magda said you would come. I was supposed to let you in, but you seem to have done alright.” He smiled nervously and asked me if there was something I needed to which I ardently replied:

“Tea.”

The kitchen was apparently in the other flat, the one I had ringed on first. Marcel explained to me that they owned both flats on the fifth level and one of the flats on the third floor and that it was a commune consisting of 12 adults and two babies. The word commune immediately made me both excited and interested. The kitchen was lovely in my eyes. Hundreds of jars with herbs, coffee, tea, rice, couscous and God knows what brimmed the shelves and cupboards. Marcel turned on the kettle and asked what kind of tea I would like. I had a look around the shelves and spotted a jar with Fairtrade Rooibos.

Marcel smiled and prepared a teapot for me. I learned that he was studying to be a teacher and was currently revising for his exams and thus had very little time to do anything else. He found it very funny that I had never met Magda before and that I had begun traveling to Berlin within half an hour of my decision. I told him about YIP and Sweden to which he listened with great interest.

After twenty minutes of chit-chat he excused himself and said he had to continue studying. I smiled, thanked him for the tea, crossed over to the other flat and parked myself in front of my laptop again. After three cups of tea I dragged a chair to the window of her room, opened it up and skipped up on the windowsill.

Tall grey houses rose like dark obelisks outside and above was the sky, tinged by an odd brownish hue. Despite the slight melancholy of the Berlin scenery I found it beautiful. Thick snowflakes began to fall slowly to the ground, Lila Downs played in the background and once more the feeling that had hit me on the ferry between Denmark and Germany filled me. Utter freedom.

I lit a cigarette I had rolled at some point when I was bored on the train, breathed in the fresh air deeply and gazed out into the beautiful urban panorama, smiling at my own freedom and the fact that I could do whatever I wanted because I was young and alive and an individual with my own will and my own thoughts.

I can do whatever I want.

At eleven or so Magda arrived just as I had laid down in the sofa to listen to Kate Rusby. Magda was a small woman with short dark hair and a kind smile. She greeted me warmly and together we made us another teapot, had some apple-mousse and apple-juice. Magda showed me a map of Berlin and told me where I could find the sights in Berlin apologizing for not being able to take me around herself. She was studying eurythmy in Berlin and had to travel quite far every morning and evening to get to and fro from her school. I assured her that I would be find and explained that I was quite happy to be on my own as it offered a nice change of the life with 39 other youths. She knew what I meant.

“It is both a blessing and a curse to live together with a large group of other people. Sometimes it’s the nicest thing you’ll ever experience, other times you just have to shut your door to them.” Magda said. So had Marcel also said, and so had I said as well many times after starting YIP.

But I think one learns several very important things when living with other people, in particularly large groups. One learns a lot about others but also about oneself, where one’s boundaries go and who you actually are. It is something most people should experience at least once in their lifetime.

What that in mind Magda and I realised that it was nearly midnight, and that we had to wake up at 7:30 a.m. We rushed to brush our teeth and in a flurry she had prepared the sofa bed for me and within minutes I found myself uncomfortably nestled in my sleeping bag. The sofa bed was quite hard but such was the price to pay for freedom, and I suppose that sleeping uncomfortably is the type of thing you’re supposed to do when you’re young.

Interrail: Day 2

2008-11-23T12:31:00.000-08:00

Day 2: Saturday the 22 of November

Malmö 6:20 a.m.

The air in the train station was crisp and cold as we left our Swedish train and our Swedish friend (who desperately skipped out of the train in order to have a cigarette) making our way inside the station. Next train would leave at 6:42 a.m. to Copenhagen. Emma and Inga proclaimed pasty faced that they needed fresh air leaving Emmi and myself behind to guard the backpacks. I shortly proceeded to terrorize a particularly grumpy looking Emmi with my camera, gladly holding on to the fact that I am a very energetic morning person.

As soon as the girls met up with us again we made our way to the Ö-train, the metro that would take us to Copenhagen. The train was very nice and silent indeed and though the girls tried to find some sleep on the one hour train ride, I entertained myself by looking out the window at the awakening landscape that flashed by us. Snow still clad the ground though I had first been quite certain that we had left at least the winter landscape behind us in Stockholm.

A slowly rising sun tinged the sky a watery dark blue, growing gradually lighter as the minutes carried on.

At around seven o’clock we left the train at the station named Kobenhavn H, slightly insecure if whether or not this was the right stop seeing as how we had been told to leave at the Central Station.

Luckily as we noticed as soon as we had disembarked the train, H seemed to stand for Central Station.

Crossing between the simmering bustle of the central station we made our way to the Hamburg-Basel train. To get to Frankfurt we had to make a switch in Hamburg after some eight hours traveling. This train would actually take us onto the ferry that would take us over the sea parting Denmark from Germany, something I was very much looking forward to because at the moment, a train driving into a ferry seemed to me as the utter epitome of awesomeness.

The german trains are rather comfortable and we quickly made ourselves at home, every one of us picking out our knitting to entertain ourselves. The hours flew by as we watched the landscape slowly turning from grey into the vivacious green of a Europe not quite having come into the right season yet. We munched gladly on slices of bread coated by a thick layer of peanut butter, and I think we finished two bunches of bananas in the first few hours of our traveling. For some reason I kept making foolish mistakes with my knitting so I made little progress on my wrist warmer during those first few hours, but modern youngsters as we are, despite all the knitting, our laptops came up about an hour before arriving at the ferry.

Emmi lay stretched in front of me on two seats, fiddling curiously with my new red Ipod, Emma sat with her headphones on, writing something on her laptop and Inga was sitting a bit further away, contemplating by herself, her blue eyes glittering as she gazed into the distance.

A well needed break reached us as we arrived in Trelleborg. The train rolled casually into the ferry. There was some scuffling and before we could say “Germany here we come”, we had left the train and stood in the middle of the unsettling chaos of the ferry crossing between Denmark and Germany. The crossing takes only just about an hour thus the thing to do seemed to be to cram into the duty-free shop and buy as much alcohol as possible. The girls and I slowly made our way through the throng of people until we managed to squeeze our way out onto the sun-deck.

The sun was shining bright and windmills brimmed the edges of the land we were leaving, slowly waving goodbye to us with their long white arms.

The wind ruffled our hair rudely, but the fresh air is wonderful and filled my lungs with the peace of the dark sea and the gentleness of the rolling waves. The feeling of absolute freedom at that exact moment was nearly overwhelming, in a non morbid nor insane way I felt I could toss myself off the edge of the boat and sore high up amongst the blue and the vastness of the sky, all worries dissipating like tendrils from a dying flames.

“Coffee.” Emmi said gruffly and peered through heavy eyelids at the sea.

“Tea.” I replied, suddenly recalling the craving after my morning cup of tea.

With no more said than that the four of us shifted inside the ferry, queued for a few minutes at the dingy restaurant oozing with the smell of fried things and bad meat, then carrying a small bottle of Innocent (100% fruit, nothing else added!) and a cup of peppermint tea we met found us a cosy less noisy corner of the ferry and drank our coffee and our tea in tired silence.

Below us people were still running to finish their shopping in the duty-free store, and I expect the four of us were some of the only ones to be happy when the speakers announced in a heavy german dialect, that the ferry was docking in Leipzig and that all passengers traveling by car or train should return to their respective places. I hadn’t even had time to sip my tea so I carried it back to the train, smiled for a second at the bizarre sight of a large train, surrounded by cars in the middle of the ferry depot before getting in and back in my seat. I finished knitting my wrist-warmer and began a new one, green to match the purple one I had just made.

The landscape changed drastically before us. The north of Germany was flatter than Sweden, and dazzling green. It could very well have been summer to my northern senses, but the others thought it resembled spring more.

At 12:15 p.m. we arrived in Hamburg from where we ran to catch our connection to Frankfurt which was to depart at 12:24.

Once more we managed to find a secluded seating compartment that we immediately besieged, leaving our heavy backpacks and all our things all over the compartment in a messy, squatting fashion.

I set up my laptop and the following 2 and a half hours were spent watching the film depicting Frida Kahlo’s life. We watched the movie in silence, sighing now and then whenever the conductor on the speakers would disturb us with his loud german.

Frida is a movie I surely must have seen to many times, if that is possible. Frida Kahlo is one of my greatest heroes and influences in my life and in my paintings as well. When Emmi, Emma and I visited the Museum of Modern Art I stumbled upon a rare find in the museum shop, a 2009 calender featuring Frida Kahlo’s paintings. It was very beautiful, and I held this treasure of the new year in my mind as the last seconds of the movie flashed by.

“I hope the ending is quick, and I hope to never return.” Her final words. I sigh. Mexico lingered in our hearts and Emma brought out her laptop, proclaiming that she had no intention to leave Mexico before playing Lila Downs as loudly as possible on her computer. I fiddled with some photographs on my computer, attempted to write and once more I found myself

confounded by the speed of time. Emma was hysterically making phone calls to all kinds of family members and after having spoken to someone, I forget who, she announced that we would meet her sister and her brother in Frankfurt. They were in the city centre working in the stall owned by the farm that Emma lives on and if we wanted to we could leave our heavy backpacks with them and have them bring them out to us on the farm.

Emma grew up on D somethingorother, the biggest Biodynamic farm in Germany. From what she had told us the farm was like a small community, half a dozen families at least living there permanently and some 100 people working there from the outside.

We arrived in Frankfurt at around 5:00 p.m., by now the tire had begun to hit me and my morning alertness slowly abandoned me. Leaving the train and stepping out into Frankfurt was more than confusing. I think we might have taken the metro somewhere but I was so thoroughly confused by the masses of people that surrounded us.

It struck me then as we struggled to walk to the city centre that I might never be able to leave in a city again.

The peace and calmness of Ytterjärna had infected my whole body and seeped into my blood. What could there possibly be to long for in the city? Stress, discomfort, restricted and tiny spaces, commotion and noise, causing my head to spin relentlessly as we trudged along. The first thing that struck me as we left the subway and came out into the open was a strong unpleasant odor of meat. The marketplace had stalls selling all kinds of vegetables, meat, pastries, etcetera. We found the Dottenfelder-Hof stall in the middle of the market and I was glad to see the many biodynamic cheeses, breads, pastries and yoghurts they had to offer. Emma surprised her siblings by storming into the stall, though I dare say their reaction was not the best due to the many customers that began to form a queue when Emma rightfully stole their attention. Emma’s sister and brother bore slight similarity to Emma but seemed to contain the same bubbling spirit as Emma. We left our bags in the Dottenfelder-Hof van and left the market hurriedly.

Emma seemed full of energy to be back in the city and she quickly led us to H&M in order to buy herself a proper winter-coat. I however was filled with resentment to be back in the city. It was no doubt fascinating and exciting to be in a new place, and the fact that I can only speak a handful of german words only spiced up the adventure, but the big city held me in a state of discomfort and I longed intently for a warm fireplace, a cup of tea, and the simplicity of the countryside.

Inga and I waited outside H&M both of us feeling slightly overwhelmed by the extreme shift in environment. (Also, I found it suddenly quite impossible to enter the store as an unexpected loathing towards H&M boiled up inside myself.) We found ourselves pressed against the display of H&M so as to not bump into anyone.

Emma got herself a brand new burgundy winter-coat and we immediately set off. She proceeded to leading us around some of the sights of Frankfurt, apologizing for the fact that Frankfurt unfortunately was quite an ugly city. Dodging between people and traffic we crossed a few streets, (or Strasse I suppose) saw some houses and entered one of the biggest churches in Frankfurt. It was pretty.

Then we set off towards the metro, missed our connection to Bad Vil...something and thus found ourselves back at the marketplace next to the Dottenfelder-Hof stall. We received a sesame pretzel, helped them carry some boxes to their van before waiting another few 15 minutes before the train arrived that would take us to Bad Vil... something. While waiting we studied the difference in how people dressed in Frankfurt, comparing them to the youth in Stockholm.

“Everyone in Stockholm dresses so, woah,” Emma said, gesticulating violently. And I suppose her observation was quite correct. Swedish people are one of the biggest slaves to fashion in the world. I did not think about that particular aspect of Swedish fashion, mostly I do my best to avoid following the trends as much as possibly can.

Finally the train arrived and we hurried inside along with a mass of germans all trying to score a seat. Emmi found a seat but the rest of us had to stand up. A man standing in front of me had a big black dog with a lock for his mouth. I swallowed and looked in a different direction. Now time seemed to run slowly as opposed to how it had been acting all day up until now. I eventually got to sit down and fell asleep dreaming about a biodynamic farm, a calm life on the countryside and a ma-....

Emma woke me from my dreams with a start. Time to get off.

I found myself simply following the stream of people that rapidly poured out of the train station. The air outside was very cold but there was little to no snow on the ground. Emma’s father greeted us the second we stepped out of the station. Without having met Emma’s mother yet I was quite sure that Emma looked more like her father than her mother.

The five of us squeezed into a two door blue car of some kind and drove off into the darkness of the countryside. A colourful sign announced the farm, we turned left off the main road and drove down a wide tree-brimmed road.

Through the dark, Emma’s farm unfolded itself before us. It was definitely big. Large houses with lights glittering in the windows loomed over us and from what I could see most of them were a couple of stories high and very old.

We passed by the café and the dairy shop as we were ushered up a few stairs and into Emma’s family’s house. Well inside we were greeted by Emma’s mother, grandmother and her sister’s boyfriend. They all proceeded to greeting us in english, taking turns to shake each of our hands.

Candles were lit in the house and from a distance I could see that the dinner table was already prepared for our arrival and completely covered by various dishes and food.

The house was very beautiful and reminded me deeply of a house I had stayed in when I was England a few years ago. It had that same pleasant waldorfy touch to it, though I might add that Emma’s house was much tidier and cleaner. Candles flickered in the living room, adding a cozy warm light to the space along with the colourful textiles that hung on the white walls of the house and the pillows that lay scattered in the living room and on the kitchen sofa. We proceeded to washing our hands before sitting down at the table. Salad, olives, bread and dried tomatoes were offered to us, and we ate with much glee and satisfaction.

Though I do consider myself a fan of peanut butter, eating a nice salad seemed like the best possible replacement of what we had been eating previously. My stomach always gets quite upset when I fall out of my eating routine. Usually I eat a big breakfast, lunch, a fruit, supper and something before bed. Now because I had been traveling that routine was utterly shattered, thus I was very happy to get a proper meal at last.

We spent the remainder of that evening listening to loud discussions in german, myself struggling quite desperately to recall some bits of what the german I learn in school. Emma’s family was absolutely lovely, bringing cakes and biscuits, making sure all the time that we were happy and full.

At around ten o’clock us four travelers were finding it exceedingly difficult to keep our eyes open, thus Emma led us across the farm to the guest lodging. She had reserved a few rooms for the YIP’ies and Emmi, Inga and I squatted in a cosy loft, not finding the strength to make our beds but simply dragging out our sleeping bags and collapsing in them.

I fell asleep to the sound of a rooster singing outside our window along to the pleasant sounds of the countryside.

Interrail Diary: Day One

2008-11-23T12:11:00.000-08:00

In YIP we have finally reached our Initiative Week. This is a week open for interpretation basically. We don't have anything decided on the schedule that we must attend to and can if we wish, devote this time completely for our project. Half of YIP decided to use this time to in one way or another, go to the Goetheanum. Most the YIP'ies are hitchiking to get there, but a group of girls, including myself, Inga from Norway, Emmi from Finland and Emma from Germany decided to interrail there, which is to buy a global interrail pass which allows you to go almost anywhere in the world with a train, and you don't have to pay anything extra, just jump onto any train you wish. I've been trying to keep a traveling diary, but I'm really behind on my writing so bear with me!

Here is the first entry, more will follow.

Day 1: Friday the 21st of November

The YIP commune was pretty much in complete chaos during the afternoon. Most YIP’ies were leaving for the Initiative Week, and most had not packed their things yet nor sorted out how to get to their respective airports, train stations, etcetera etcetera.

Through the turmoil I could sense a great deal of emotional distress, that including myself too, but I figured that the general calamity of things was only worsened by the emotionally heavy week that we had all endured.

Through the stress of things to do, realising I was supposed to clean the kitchen upstairs and the stairs on the left side of Tallevana I barely managed to bid my farewells to my fellow YIP’ies and any sort of conversation in the afternoon was wholly impossible due to the chaos.

During supper my despondency began to lift however as I managed to arrange a ride for myself and Inga to the train station at Södertälje Syd. Henning, the utter stereotype of the Swedish man (though he is actually german) agreed to driving us there.

The train from would arrive at Södertälje Syd at 11:30 p.m. and bring us to Copenhagen at around 8:00 in the morning.

Following supper we still had a few hours to go before leaving to Södertälje, thus I decided to alleviate my troubled mind that I indulge myself to some creative work.

Several pots of tea later and two pieces of toast with peanut butter and raspberry jam Henning arrived and Inga and I scurried to get our bags. The lingering YIP’ies carried our bags to the car and we parted with many a hugs and with huge snowflakes singling softly to the ground we disappeared from the Seminar in a flurry of white snow. Henning, announcing that he was feeling as he said, “a bit retarded” proceeded to sliding and swerving consciously with the car on the icy motorway.

I closed my eyes and contemplated my choices in life and what the devil I had willingly gotten myself into.

At 11:30 p.m., still alive Inga and I hurried towards the train, spotting a fervently waving Emmi from inside one of the wagons.

Emma greeted us and helped us with our backpacks and within a few seconds the train was moving and our journey began.

Emmi and Emma had gone to Stockholm after a hasty decision made during the hectic afternoon. They had caught the train from the city centre at 11:00 p.m. and had already made themselves at home in a secluded part of the seating section in the train.

An elderly arabian looking man sat opposite to me and in a corner there was a pasty looking Swede.

The arabian man avoided our presence throughout most of the journey, and I had a sneaking suspicion that found us remarkably obnoxious, if not downright odious. The Swede however seemed to find our company rather enjoyable up until the point around 1:00 a.m. when we shallowly started discussing the looks of some of the boy’s, or men, in YIP.

Hugo (he presented himself after a few hours, I don’t recall myself doing the same) was doing his military service and drank coca-cola. I made a mental note to disapprove. The night passed on without any particularly interesting discussions, mostly brainless comments of the week and our expectations for the oncoming days. Initiative Week was a well needed break in the habit and stress of things.

We fell asleep at some point after 1:30 a.m. lulled to sleep by the violent rocking and moving of the train. Emma and Inga unpacked their sleeping bags and slept on the floor whilst Emmi and I squatted on the empty seats. At four in the morning I found myself staggering out of the compartment before collapsing on a whole row of empty seats. The entire wagon was pretty much abandoned.

Two hours later I awoke with a hefty cramp in my neck and, waking the girls with my commotion as I entered the compartment again, we readied ourselves to change trains.

One week with Japp van de Haar

2008-11-15T14:26:00.000-08:00

Everything we know comes from somewhere. Every picture is given to us by something already existing. The more information we receive, the more we can see. The more concepts we are taught, then the things we can see in life get richer and richer. Information is development. The more we know, the more we can decide what our own concepts are, our own concept shaped from the many different concepts we learn.

The future is not understanding the world, but to do the things you do because you love to do it, whether you educate or take care of people, farming or whatever: to do your work because you love to do it. That is the future. Through all our development in science and in our intellectuality we have lost the contact to the inner self, to doing things because we love them.

Through the love of humanity, in that source, science, spirituality and politics can all come together. In the source of love we can combine those three aspects of society that have become so separated in our time.

Sleep is only a small death and death a long sleep.

Highlights

2008-11-11T08:38:00.000-08:00

Quotes of the day:

"Time is a matter of where we are living now." Japp van de Haar

"Every part of an organism is a microcosmic picture of the whole organism." Reinoud Meijer

Todays conclusion:

You can only develop inner freedom if there is a danger of not being free. Our generation stands alone, there are no deities to guide or steer us. We must find it in ourselves. The spirituality of the future comes from the inner self.

You know you're a YIP'ie when...

... You wish the day had at least 30 hours... (extra)

... Buying a MacBook is the second most important thing next to world peace

... Going out for a bit of fresh air means it's time to smoke

... Not sharing your teabag with at least one other person means you're being unenvironmental

... Hitchhiking becomes the climax of your weekend

... The delivery of honey becomes the climax of the week

Micro-UN

2008-11-10T12:48:00.000-08:00

Being in an environment where there are around 25 languages going around is extremely good if you want to become a more patient person. I’m sitting in the kitchen in Terrakotten, trying to pretend I am a clever person by sitting in a very relaxed manner in the sofa, writing with my laptop on my lap. In fact I am very annoyed, though I know it is childish to be so. Two germans seem to be engaging in a very interesting conversation with each other, apparently oblivious to the fact that I am sitting right beside them. The fire in the fireplace crackles in the distance, followed by the all so familiar hissing from the kettle. I drum impatiently on the keyboard, suddenly very uplifted by the presence of a fourth person, breaking the heavy german of the place.

“Does anyone have a mac? I need the charger.” A pause. Then a low giggle. Most of the YIP’ies have nothing but Apple merchandise, thus it takes no more than a slight scuffling and exchanging of cords before our guest leaves the kitchen. I am offered tea, complaints of the lack of cups and teapots are uttered and the discussion reverts into german once more. I do like chai tea though. I do.

A third german joins us, exchanges a few german words, ruffles her red hair, giggles, laughs and runs off.

I await eagerly to see in which language the discussion shall continue. And I am not surprised to hear that it continues in german. But it’s okay. Even though I am an exceedingly nosy person I accept the fact that people must be allowed to speak their native languages. After all, I speak swedish nearly whenever I get the chance. And one must get used to it really. I only speak three languages, thus in a place where there are at least 22 languages that I don’t understand one must simply learn to accept that nosiness is never appreciated and that people always prefer their own country over others... I suppose.

Luckily a finnish joined, a dane and then a new zealander, and once more the discussion has become international!

Honesty

2008-11-09T03:34:00.000-08:00

Among these group of amazing people, I am immediately fascinated by the take on honesty that arises during our midday discussions. Our facilitators posed a question regarding honesty and being honest in relation to corporations. Immediately the discussion flares up regarding ideals and morals, strong individuals arguing about things that bring light to my heart because I love, love this definition, this relationship that we immediately see between honesty and ideals. Of course, maybe in itself it was not quite what our facilitators were looking for, but in any case it brought interesting thoughts to my mind, and a spirit of solidarity and understanding of exactly how high our ideals are among this little group we have here in Ytterjärna.

We have vegetarians, social workers, voluntary workers, people who carry the Weldschmerz upon their shoulders. We complain about too little organic vegetables at the shop, stay up all night just to make sure that the right president is elected in the US, make day trips to the local (though not quite so local) second-hand store to buy clothes as opposed to other shops that might actually closer to our small isolated, little society. We work for sometimes eleven hours a day, and then go to a lecture, then have a meeting, constantly keeping in mind these projects, these ideas, our ideals that must always, always grow and improve and be polished in the back of our heads.

I wonder, how many people like us exist in the world?

Why have things been going in such a downward spiral for so long if people like this actually exist in the world?

I know, know in my heart and in my soul that there are others out there who look at honesty and see high ideals and trust. Why is it so hard to get mobilized?

I know I am being negative, I am exaggerating to enhance the importance of my point. There are indeed initiatives that make a little more difference every day, but there must always be more. Do more. Perhaps the ideologies have died along with Trotskij and Allende. Perhaps they have been replaced by something else, something broader. This is the era of idealism.

We might lose everything in the world, our clothes our homes, our families, our money and all things material. But I sincerely hope that we may never lose our ideals. That there as inch within us that can never be taken from us. An inch. Of idealism.

A few months later

2008-11-07T03:24:00.000-08:00

So it's been some time now since the 22nd of August. I got me a laptop in the beginning of this week, thus I have just begun to taste the freedom of unlimited access to cyberspace.

Something rather spectacular happened this tuesday. I was writing on my laptop, but unfortunately I had no access to the internet at that time. Here follows a YIP account of the american elections.

It's 12:54. Of the twenty people that started the night only seven remain. All the americans (four) one german and two swedes. The american elections drag by and poor Henning and I are trying desperately to translate the important things out of the swedish programs. Chips, coffee and cigarettes try to keep us awake as we cross our fingers, furrow our brows and hold our breaths, cuddled up in blankets, checking the news continuously on the internet, hoping that the elections might be over soon, that the one we're rooting from might come out victorious.

The discussion switches between explanations of Obama and McCain's different policies, how much body mass Pamela Anderson has that is still real, and if whether or not Obama might have voted for himself at the polls.

The television flickers on.

Documentaries show the history of american elections. Black people, middle-class, senior citizens and couples arguing over their political differences. We strain to listen, tired from a day of listening, our brains already jam-packed with information. Nevertheless I think the feeling in my stomach is shared by everyone as we tiredly, though eagerly await the results from the next state.

What will tomorrow bring us? We ponder.

I play with the thought of how I will bike into town, buy the newspaper and bring it back to my friends, cut out the biggest article I can find about the result of the elections and frame it, regardless of what the actual outcome might be.

Because in either case, it is a remarkably historical election.

I scratch my dreads.

I ran back to my house a moment ago to get supplies, tea and milk, and a small snack. People were still awake in the kitchen discussing something and upon my arrival I am immediately met with the question of why I am willing to stay up until five in the morning swedish time, to see who might become America's next super president, 2008.

"I'm so worried about another election scandal," Yarrow murmurs and puts a few pringles into his mouth.

"Oh, who brought milk?" Santje asks excitedly and smiles in my direction, suddenly having noticed the jug of biodynamic milk that I brought back fro the house. "May I have some?"

"I didn't bring it for myself," I answer her, not lifting my eyes from the screen.

"You just asked the vegan if you could have some of the milk." Silas adds and finishes the pringles.

A news report flickers onto the television and I strain to listen though I fear the attention span of my persistent friends is diminishing.

2:55

Our american organiser had a great idea. We took a laptop and started streaming a live feed of BBC's election night. Clever. Henning and I can have a rest.

Thoughts are becoming more inconsistent, discussions quieter.

Obama 103 - McCain 49

Too much tea is making feel a bit ill, but I struggle to keep my eyes open and my weary brain focused. Why am I doing this?

I became a news addict some time ago. I'd get Sweden's thickest newspaper every day, read it from page to page at breakfast, watch the news three times a day and have a news site as my starting page so that I could check the headlines every time I opened the internet.

News and world events are my thing. Social science was a favorite subject of mine in school and I do love keeping updated. Surely this moment is one of the most important in the Western world, and I for one, to feed my addiction, am keeping myself awake, listening to the familiar, british accent of the Brits on BBC.

Now Obama only neesd 51 more elector votes, and it's only 3:04 AM.

Good times.

I play with the thought of what would happen if McCain is elected as president. Goose-bumps travel down my spine. Surely, I think in vague confidence, surely the americans know better than that, than to choose another republican, one who's what, 79 years old? Not that I discriminate the elders, but I would say that a big problem with american politicians is that they have so far been heavily affected by a "Cold War Mentality". Us against Them. America as the facilitators and savors of the world. This mentality is followed by the Bush-doctrine. Attack is the best defense.

Change is a big word in the campaign, and for an obvious reason. Change is vital. The politicians of this big, influential country need to get with the time. The Cold War was a long time ago. We can't base the belief-system of a leading country upon war-mongering and non-solidarity ideals. We are all citizens of the world after all. There is now us and them. Only we.

Maybe I'm being my typical latin drama queen, but I do think that one candidate has a greater chance of achieving this than the other. I am fully aware of the fact that by this time next year I am bound to be complaining about the americans and whomever their president might be, but I suppose those are my US-conservative-negative belief-systems that I so far, see absolutely no reason to be rid of.

I hate being proved wrong. But this time I actually wish that I am wrong. Please, show me that you can change. Don't continue doing this, everybody makes mistakes, but the world is going trembling on the brink, and all the rulers of our nations must be in the loop together, working TOGETHER to make things nice and comfy for all of us. Humans, animals, plants and amoeba, unite!

August 22nd: ARRIVAL

2008-11-05T04:19:00.000-08:00

The Youth Initiative Program (YIP) is an international folkhighschool program based at the Rudolf Steiner Seminar in Ytterjärna. 40 young people from 18 different countries have all come together to participate in this brand new social entrepreneur education. During the course of one year us YIP’ies (myself included) will study and live together, sharing all the different parts of everyday life with each other. During the mornings different speakers have been invited to give lectures over one weeks time and in the afternoon the participants go out on so called ”community engagements” in the community of Järna. For more information go to, www.yip.se

My name is Amanda Huircan-Martinez and I graduated from Umeå Waldorfschool in the spring of 2008. I started at the Waldorfschool in class 7 and immediately fell in love with Steiner and his pedagogy. Following this train of thought I applied to become a waldorf class teacher after my graduation, but due to several unexpected events the course for 2008 was cancelled and put on hold for an unknown amount of time. Thanks to Janecke Wyller who works at the Seminar and most of the staff members of the YIP office, I somehow found myself in Ytterjärna on the 22^nd of August, unsure and afraid.

Janecke picked me up from Järna station early in the afternoon, the train was late and I was feeling flustered because I had made her wait, and also tired as I had been forced to wake up before 6 in the morning in order to catch the early ferry from Visby, Gotland. It was a beautiful sunny day and much warmer than I had expected coming off the windy island of Gotland. Woolen stockings, legwarmers and three layers of clothing added to my discomfort as Janecke helped me push in my heavy bag that was supposedly containing all my possessions (clothes and shampoo) into her white car. Our first stop as we set out from the train station was Saltå By where I was due to a meeting with Gerard and Monica. Little more than a week before my departure from Gotland I had been reached by the news that CSN (the Swedish department for student grants) had deemed me unqualified for the higher education grant. Apparently if one is under 20 years of age and studying at a folkhighschool you don’t deserve as much money as everyone else. This meant that I could not afford to pay for my YIP studies (6500 SEK a month) but thanks to the hardworking YIP staff things sorted out any way. The Saltå Foundation were going to support the Youth Initiative Program with a rather large sum of money, but after some negotiating, they decided they would sponsor a student instead, me. That sum of money along with the couple of grants a young student like me was eligible for covered just about the fee for YIP.
With all this in my head I attempted to enjoy the quiet journey out into the countryside, trying desperately to awaken my sleepy brain cells as I gazed out into the green countryside of Järna.

“The first thing people tend to notice when they come here is the sky,” Janecke told me as we approached Saltå By. “There is so much sky in Järna.” Those words have stuck with me ever since, for it so true that the horizon seems so very wide and the sky so much vaster than most other places I have ever visited. I grew up in the north of Sweden, close to the coasts where there are no mountains or even hills to obscure the view. Yet as I stepped out of the car and looked around myself I could not help but marvel at the immense blue dome that stretched as far as I ever could dream to see. There is so much sky in Järna.

Monica and Gerard met us at the parking lot. Together they guided m

e through the area whilst Janecke took a walk around the mill (Saltå Kvarn). Saltå By can be compared to a Camp Hill, though the Camp Hills of Sweden tend to differ slightly from the common concept. Usually Saltå is called a curative home and a farm. There are student housings for youngsters who in one way or another need particular help in their studies at their Waldorfschool, as well as in life. Apart from that there are also groups of adults who work on the farm, tending the greenhouses, the animals amongst other things and it was with them that I had been designated to work with.

Once the tour was finished and I had had a short talk with Monica I met up with Janecke once more and left, this time for Ytterjärna and the Seminar. The blue magnificent building of the Seminar can be seen at a far distance, and as we got steadily closer to it the same feeling of nervous expectation that I had felt the first time I had laid eyes on the place four years ago filled my stomach. Soon enough I found myself in Tallevana where I had time just to dump my bag before speeding of at Janecke’s heel to the White House and the YIP office. It was strange to finally meet with Rose and Sussie and all the people I had simply been in contact with over the phone for several months. Finally I could add faces to their voices.

Rose, Sussie, Pernilla, Reinhoud and Annie met me outside the White House, all genuinely glad to see me after all the hubbub that had been involved in my coming. I hugged Rose especially hard, thanked her a ridiculous (though absolutely necessary) amount of times for everything she had done to secure my coming and thus I finally found myself in the place which was to be my home for one year.

Slightly confused and dazed by all the new faces and new impressions I stood in my room, alone with my large bag of personal belongings. The room was refreshing, light and airy with white curtains, pale peachy walls and white covers for the beds. For a moment I pondered who my roommate was, knowing only that her name was Elsa and that she was apparently spending some time in Trosa with her family. Oh, and I knew that she was German but a lot of the YIP’ies seemed to be, unsurprisingly enough. The day continued from there on. Many new faces and names were introduced to me, of which I remembered few at first. Inga from Norway had been one of the first to arrive, and Ana from Ireland arrived around the same time as I, thus shared my confusion upon arrival. The weekend dragged by as we all waited for YIP to begin on the 25^th, Monday. It felt like being in summercamp. We ate most meals together, went out for long walks in the countryside and in the forests and sat by the campfire at night, singing songs and watching the stars.