bergsklingan

It's not the last time I'm here. I know too much here, I feel at home somehow. But I'm leaving on Sunday night. So, this is the last week for this time. And I do miss Sweden. I have learnt so much here that I know that I can keep on working with when I get back to Stockholm.

Well I've been here for a while now, tomorrow it'll be two weeks. I still go to dance classes for Katiti King and Oliver Steele at Dance New Amsterdam, which is the dance school. DNA is just next to Brooklyn Bridge, and I haven't went out on it, but it is always lots of people that do so. Especially now, as it has started to get warmer. Today was like a typical day in June in Stockholm. I didn't wear more than thin pants and a t-thirt, and Taylor's sandals.

Yesterday I went through Central Park, from the top to the bottom. Flowers are just starting to burst, though the trees are still naked and without any green leafs. The weather were sunny with a few clouds, and when the sun was out I sometimes sat down on a bench and just sucked the sun in. Those of you who know me know that given the way I've been living the last months (year?), to just do that for half a day is big to me. I do have stuff to make done with the dance projects back in Stockholm and my education, but yesterday, I decided to make that part of the day a weekend. Yes, it was Monday, but I have decided not to take any dance classes on either Sundays or Mondays and make that my weekend.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyOSLgMZmp4

I'm here. I have landed. I slept at the airport in Stockholm and took a morning flight to Zurich where I changed flight and flew further to New York. That last flight took eight hours, I watched four movies, slept and ate. The staff was nice. Two of the movies were good, "The Artist" and "50/50", and the other two were just okey... or, I was just too tired to enjoy them. Anyway, I got on the wrong train at the airport when I'd landed after standing in the line for USA citicens and not visitors for a long time. But I did find the right train and had to go back some stations and then on it. Finally at the stop where I was to get off I had a hard time finding the right house, but I did, after getting help from a bunch of friendly people.Now I'm staying with Taylor and Matt and have bought food and am sleepy. I'll check up where the dance school and such is tomorrow. Time to sleep!

Hey friends!

So, I went to Costa Brava with a friend for a week in rgey November to get some time off from busy Stockholm life. We stayed at a four star hotel with all food included - which ment that we could eat as much as we wanted from the buffé three times a day.

We had a real good time together. I really like her, my friend Fadma, who I got to know in Barcelona when I was there in July. We hooked up in Stockholm a couple of times and then took this cheap trip together. We slept a lot, ate, studied and I finished a book which I hope to get printed soon. We also went for a long walk every day around the empty hotels, up around the green mountains and along the beach, as you can see below;


This was the view from our balcony:

Hey... I'm not away. I haven't been away traveling for a long time now - to be me. But I'll soon head off for Idaho (north usa) for hanging out with Travis and visit the big jazz festival there. I'm bringing two members of my band aswell. That will probably be a lot of fun, lots of jamming and such. We will be away for ten days, so it's not that much. Then I'll go to Paris in Match with my friend Minou for a big street dance festival, Juste Debout. That has been a dream for many years, so this will hopefully not be the last time joining it. I don't know what to do this coming summer, but I hope to travel some. My friend Chris who I met in McLeod Ganj, who lives in Canada has invited me to come over and visit him for a while, and I'd love to do so. Then my other friend Rachel who's a dance teacher here in Stockholm tols me that I should join her as she's organising a dance trip to Uganda in December where we would visit Rachel's family and dance all days long and just experience the roots of all the wonderful dancing that Rachel has taught us. I'd love to do that. Then I read an article about the hard situation for Tibetans in Nepal and felt like going there to volunteer and help with whatever I can do. Chris is planning to go to Nepal in December 2012, so perhaps I just join that trip and focus on helping the Tibetans then.

That was about traveling. But I do think of other things too, things about my future. My band is doing pretty good, and I really want to keep that up. I love being a part of a band and I never want to leave that. Music is somehow a must for me. As well as the dance. Those two are things that I'll try always to keep as regular parts of my life.

Then I thought a bit of my career as an entrepreneur as I was sitting in the bus today. I thought that I do want to build an own centre for well-being someday. I want to build a centre with workshops, different kinds of yoga, meditation, tai chi, acupuncture, cranio sacral and such. I'd like to have a small office, a big yoga room, a smaller yoga room, a garden, a small treatment room and a café. That's my dream cantre. But I don't want to be the only one managing it. I want at least one companion, people that share that office with me, people that lead classes, that work in the café, that come to lead workshops... And what I thought of on the bus today was how to get there. I don't want to give the band, the dance or the traveling up, those are too important to me, but to get there, to start that centre, I need money. And the smartest thing to do then is to work work work really hard for at least a year, to earn enough money. But I don't think I would have enough motivation to do so if I wouldn't have somebody to share the goal with, somebody to start that centre with. And I need to feel sure it's the right person to do so with. Then I thought about where to start that centre. I'm not sure it would be in Stockholm, not even Sweden.

Anyway... That is what's on my mind today :)

My american friend Travis came to visit me in Sweden, so I took him to Fårö, to show him what I see as the most beautiful place in this land is at winter time. I've been visiting that island for 15 years, but always in the summers. It was time to see what it would be like when all tourists were gone and the whole island was covered in snow. Just to make sure - IT WAS WONDERFUL. We could stay in my friend Vanya's little guesthouse, but the water we had was snow and the warmth we got came from the fire we made. Back to basics!

So many houses stood empty, which reminded me of how full of life the place is at summer, when people are living in each house, at the hostels, hotel and camp almost everywhere.

The island was so still, quiet and peaceful... and beautiful, as always...

One morning, Travis went down to the beach Sudersand to watch the sunrise, and yeah, the pictures can speak for themselves...

It was beautiful outside, but oh so cold, so we stayed inside too. Travis found that I had the game Tetris in my laptop, and that was what he did most of the time...

It was beautiful to be inside too, as we had all the beauty just outside the windows.

Fårö church. I'm sad we didn't have time to get inside it, because it's the most beautiful church I know.

Did you know that Fårö means sheep island by the way?

We had a water-war, spontaniously, as we were waiting for all the new students that were about to come for the summer camp. I don't know if you can see it, but this picture proves that I lost that war...

Then the summer camp started, full of interesting workshops. Here is one on them, with two young women from Delhi, leading a discussion class about gender.


In between the classes, me and my friends chilled out in the kitchen :)

This is Skarma Lotus, taking a picture of himself and Becky. He really liked taking pictures of himself... I have plenty of them now...

Then there was this workshop about how to work as a journalist in India/Ladakh. It really śeemed to open up some students' minds...

This man came to lead a workshop about traditional Ladakhi dance and music. First some talking, them some dancing, and then some singing. Wonderful.



I was observing, enjoying and amazed by it all...

Then we had to freak out a bit..!

Becky was leading some discussion classes so that the students in groups could discuss the future of Ladakh.

Then we had the daily converstion classes. Only volunteers and students. Only English.

Niki had classes in how to figure out what you want to work with. Difficult, and so many possibilities!

Chozsang held game classes, to teach how to practice teamwork. U think many students had a lot of fun there.

Sonam Wangshok, the headmaster of Secmol, with some of the students.

We had a little dance-session as we were waiting for the final presentation of the year to begin.

And some dancing did also finish the presentations. It's so lovely to see the guys dance...

Rohan was the main guitar teacher, and both students and volunteers were eager to learn.

Guess who is the foreinger..!

I gave Toni a haircut. That was fun, and it actually became a very good haircut!

And then there was this sad day of saying goodbye to those who didn't stay for tha summercamp...

I could see the clouds above us, as we were moving upwards, and the higher we came, the closer we got to the clouds. As they were in the same level of us, I thought that we must be really high up now, seeing the clouds about 150 m away, same level as myself. Short after that, we entered the clouds. We were driving in the middle of the sky, in the middle of the clouds. And folks were living up there, nomads had their sociaties of tents, shops and horses. So many horses. At a couple of points, still inside the clouds, the were passing a green hillside, where white horses were eating the grass on the hill. The indian men who were smoking grass out of the window didn't seem to get that we really were experiancing that dreamstate allready, no need for drugs at this point (when is there a need for drugs anyway?).

We were on top of the mountains in between Ladakh and Manali. I've been sitting in a bus for about 32 hours. Afterwards, my feet were so swollen that I considerad myself a hobbit :)

I am now in Delhi, staying in a flat that belongs to a friend of a French girl that was going on the same bus as me from Ladakh. A taxi will pick me up from here tomorrow morning at 4.30, to drive me to the airport from which I will fly to Moscow, and from there further to Paris. I would like to make some calls and send some sms, but my phone is out of order. Both my pfone and the simcard. So if you'd like to call me or wonder why you don't get any respond by sms, it's because I can not use my phone.

Delhi is hot and wet. As we first got here, both me and the French girl took showers and had breakfast before we fell asleep. Time must have been about 9.30 am or something, and as I woke up I didn't believe as they told me that the time now was 5.00 pm. I'd slept all day! I was soaked in my own sweat, and had another shower. We ate some and went out for a walk, coming back about an hour later, with the sweat pouring all over my body. Crazy. It doesn't matter how much I drink, I feel thursty all the time.

The trip from Manali was a bit scary, but amazing. I went with Norbu and Dorje, with whom I'd had dinner the last night in Leh, to the busstand where we'd been told that the minibus would pic me up. But there was no bus. We were searching around for it, but the place was totally dead. Then an other minibus came, and the driver told us that the my bus had left to an other busstand to pick up other people, and so he drove us there. There must have been a misunderstanding, because where he drove us, there were plenty of minibuses waiting for the passangers. The bus that I was in, we were 12 people. We sat off just after midnight, and my mind was full of thoughts and memories from Ladakh, so I didn't fall asleep that fast. It was pretty hardto sleep anyway, as the driver was playing heavy Indian disco music all night. Probably to stay awake. It's impressing that he could stay awake while driving about 20 hours from Leh to Manali. And I'm glad he did. That road is not a simple one. The landscape was amazing with all the snow, mountains, forests, valleys, lakes, rivers etc, but dangerous, for sure. I actually saw a bus that had fallen from the road, down in a valley. Totally broken. It seemed to be about a year ago, it looked pretty old and there were no marks in the snow, but anyway... We met another car which had just had an accident, driving into another, as they didn't see each other around a corner.

As we got to Manali, there was just a night bus about to set off to Delhi. Cheap one. No opportunity to tilt the back backwards, and we were sitting just in the front, colsest seat to the horn, which must have been the sharpest horn I've ever heard. I'm a bit surprised that I actually slept as much as I did.

But nothing of this anoying things during the trip did really matter, I was so full of my beautiful memories of Ladakh and thoughts about next time I'll come. I've got a sugestion about teaching English in Jammu, where lots of Ladakhis go to study in the Univercity, this coming winter, and I'm actually really interested in doing that. Many other people in Ladakh wanted me to come back in the winter and work in different places in Ladakh. I can choose between Secmol, Domkhar Gongma, Domkhar Dho, Jammu and Leh, I will get a volunteer job in all of these places. I'll have to come back many times :)

It's late, I have to go to bed now.

Peace and love

People are different. Definitely. The world contains all kinds. That's why I'm so fascinated about it and find it very giving to travel and see new places, new cultures and new people. Here, in Ladakh, I have somehow felt it very easy to connect to both the culture and the people. This town, Leh, is crowded with tourists right now, and even though I'm one of them myself, I stay away from them, hanging out with my Ladakhi friends as much as possible. It's not that I don't like western people (haha, I'm a western girl!), it's just that I don't come to Ladakh to get to know backpackers and go for trekks or eat at Italian food restaurants. I feel much better here when I can have tagi (indian bread) and dhal (lentils), eating on the floor, for breakfast than toast and musli on a fancy chair in a fancy hotel garden. This night I'd spent a lazy day in my room all day long and went down to the guest house kitchen to ask for something to eat. I ended up sitting there in the kitchen having my dinner while talking to the cook, and after that I was helping them to wash the dishes and the kitchen. It somehow felt better than taking the food and eat in the dining hall with the tourists. I don't remember the name of the cook now, it was something starting with R, but he told me he was from Nepal, and had been staying over the summer season in Ladakh for five years. He spoke nearly fluent Ladakhi (there is a chance for me!) and invited me to come and visit Nepal and stay in his home. Well, why not? If you're planning to stay in India more than six months (which is usually as much as you visa allows you to), you have to go out of India for two months before you can get back in. I have actually thought that I might do that some day, and then spend those two months in Nepal, and now I even have somewhere to stay there! We (the cook and me) said that we'd go up to the big stupa about 20 minutes of walk from here, tomorrow when he's done with the breakfast work. I think that will be something nice to do during my last day in Ladakh for this time. In the middle of the night, at 1.00 am Saturday, I will get on a jeep which is going to Manali, and from there I take a night bus to Delhi. Tomorrow I'll find out whether I can spend those about 20 hours of waiting for my flight at the airport or if I'll have to get in on a hotel.

Even this time in Ladakh has been great, but did not make me feel like I've had enough. More is to be experienced here. I'm so thankful that we've found each other, Ladakh.

My next destination is France and volunteering at the big Yoga Festival there for one week, before I fly back to Sweden.

Good night my friends!

July 19;

I'm back from Domkhar Gongma where I was teaching English for two weeks, living with a family from there. Right now I don't believe I'm not coming back there some day. It was amazing. I remebered how I fell in love with the world of the hobbits in the movie Lord of the Rings when I was thirteen and dreamed about being a hobbit, living in that world with them. To live in Domkhar Gongma for two weeks was a realization that that kind of world that I saw in the movie exists in real life. We don't have to have fancy cloths, houses and cars. We just need to realize that we're one with the nature, one together with each other. The family that I was living in was about one mother, Ladhul, and her sixteen years old son, Urgen – who was the younger brother of Norbu, who was one of the students in Secmol. I was staying half time with Ladhul and Urgen in their house, and half time, still with them, in the house of Ladhul's parents.

The village life was more of an experience, not so easy to explain. I had a lot of fun. Even though most of them didn't speak any English, and the words I learned in Ladakhi were just a few, we were laughing a lot together. Just the fact that there were quite many misunderstandings because of the language caused lots of laughter. I use to be known in Sweden as the one who is laughing much and pretty loudly. As I was living with Ladhul, and met lots of other people of the neighbours, I easily melted in with my laughter as they also did laugh much and loudly. Haha, I had a lot of fun...

I think a saw a car about every second day, at most. In Domkhar Gongma you don't need any car. I was walking about 4 km uphill to school every morning I was staying with Ladhul and Urgen, and as I stayed with Urgen's grandparents, the road was about the half length and downhill. The families are having their own cow, milking it daily to get fresh milk and youghurt. They're having their own fields and green gardens where they grow all the vegetables that they need. The money they spend is just for rice, tea, sugar and sometimes flour. But most of the things I ate there came directly from their own farm. And that is about daily life for them. They eat what they grow and get from their cow. And the foos that they give to the cow is the sticks they pick from their trees. No need of artificial products. No need of factories. I was helping Ladhul to plant flowers in her garden, but most of the time they treated me like a princess – served me tea and food and gave me a bed to sleep in every night. Danced and sang with me. The last two days there was a picnic in the part of the village called Stambila where I stayed with Ladhul and Urgen. That is something that happens every now and then, why not collect some people and drick tea, chat, sing, laugh, cook, eat and dance together for two nights? Age doesn't matter, bring all your family.

I fell in love with that life. Drink tea, laugh, live as one with the people and culture, sing and dance, doesn't it sound like a life for me?

The teachings in English that I was leading was also very fun. I had four classes a day, with children of age 6 up to youngsters of age 16. I taught the youngest simple English songs (like “Head shoulders, knees and toes”) and conversation, grammar and new words for the older children. The English teaching in the schools in Ladakh is usually not so good as the English teachers' English is not so good. The last days I had the older students to write letters to me, telling about the two weeks of my teachings. I will save those letters forever... Most of them wrote that I was the best English teacher as my English was strong, my examples made them understand, that I was fun and “action woman” and a beautiful teacher in their school. Many of them wrote that they wanted med to come back. I'd love to. In the lunch breaks, when the teachers normally eat different (better) food up in the office and the students have lunch outside, I took the food they gave me in the office and went out to eat and play with the students. I think that was the best time of the day... They were all eager to talk to me and teach me Ladakhi. They did some really nice hair styles with my hair, which after some time gave me the nickname “Mentok”, which means Flower. But most of the time they called me Maria Mandella Cecilia Damororr (=dimple). I miss them all and hope to see them again so that I can get to know them even better and spend more time with them.

Now I'm back in Leh, staying in a room in a house owned by the boss of a guest house which didn't have any rooms left. Don't ask me how I make them do it, but somehow they want me to stay for free and give me food for free in the guest house. It feels weird to be served by a servant with whom I'd probably sit down and have tea and laugh with if he wouldn't work. I'm not used to live in a guest house anymore... I don't join the cooking here, they don't even make their own bread in the mornig, they don't cook dhal (lentils) and spaks (vegetables) and taki (bread) or das (rice) every morning. They serve readymade toast bread and butter which they've brought in a store (in Domkhar Gongma people make their own butter). And I'm sitting on a chair. Weird as I've been sitting on the floor both in Secmol and Domkhar Gongma. And here live tourists from other parts of India and the western world. I miss the Ladakhi life...

But I get time to be with myself now, to write and do some work. Get ready to leave (though I prefer not to think about that). I'd prefer to stay in a Ladakhi village.