Mexico City

Mexico City. Wow. Living in the largest city in the world - 15 million people, my Mexican friends laugh hard when I tell them the capital of my country has 500 000. The colonial part of it is absolutely beautiful, the museums, the mighty architecture, the Basilicas and cathedrals. It is placed 2000 meters above sea level, which makes me yawn a lot (Galdhøpiggen gå og legg deg, liksom) and it creates a special atmosphere that I like a lot. A little bit disturbing, though, to admire a beautiful cathedral in the Zuccalo knowing that the Spanish conquistadors coldly demolished ancient, mighty Aztec Pyramids to build their "House of God".

I have a strange love-hate relationship to this city" says David Lecona, a melancholic writer and poet living in the City. We meet through CS and make friends. He is writing poetry and also working on a book about The Shining Path, a latin American socialist terrorist group. We talk politics a lot, both with leftist sympathies. David has the saddest eyes, big, innocent and still expressing the knowledge of a lifetime. We go out for Sol, Corona and tequila with sangrita, lime and salt. Why did we leave out the Sangrita back home? Anyway, tequila is dangerous stuff for a gringa who hasn't been drinking much for two months, and I almost dance on the table.

On of the other nights I go out with David and his good looking cousins Rodrigo and Suri, also CS people. We go to a small, local outdoors coffee bar where Mexicans of all ages eat donuts and have coffee. We laugh and laugh trying to teach each other uglyeties in Spanish and Norwegian - I love couch surfing! The night is lovely, but then I have a Bad Burrito Experience reinforced by severe caffeine poisoning from those killer Mexican double espressos. This results in high fever, vomiting, a racing heart and lots of other unpleasant symptoms, but before it gets that bad David takes me home, covers my shivering body in five Indian wool blankets and helps me out big time. An awful experience, but I have luck in my bad luck; David and his cousin Rodrigo stays awake to take care of me the whole night, being the sweetest friends a traveler can ever have. Thank you so much guys, that meant the world to me. Please come to Oslo and vomit in my trashbin any time.

Mamma and I mainly stay with a beautiful Italian/Mexican couple, Alma and Gian Mauro. They are the sweetest hosts. Alma is doing a doctor's degree in Mexican literature and is in her holidays at the moment, so she spends a day with us, guiding us through the mucho complicado transport system of metros and buses. Sitting and being stared at by curious Mexicans not used to blonde girls on the Metro, I ask Alma how she and Gian Mauro met. They are one of those couples to get future inspiration from. She smiles like she has a secret and says "No, that story is for dessert". We see the city and do two extensive museums, the first one is the Anthropology Museum with proud Astec and Maya culture, the second is the Bellas Artes Museum. To my joy there is a Frida Kahlo exhibition at the moment. Very inspiring! What a woman, what a life story.

In the night Alma and Mauro take us to the wonderful area called Coyoacan with stunning colonial architecture, bright colours, art galleries and cafés. We are conveniently guided out of the worst tourist jam and go to an all Mexican place with lots of big families and great atmosphere. Here we are introduced to a broad variety of tacos, salsas and drinks like horchata, jamaica and atole, my favourite, a thick warm milk drink with maize meal and vanilla or chocolate. Alma does a great job explaining us about the Mexican culture - from the very small things like how to hold the tortilla to the bigger picture, like the mass fleeing to the United States. In some villages, 80% of people's incomes is dollars from their hard working, low wage family members in the Estados Unidos. Several times I hear people say "We hate the United States". Can you imagine what a different story we would have if the U.S hadn't stolen the oil rich land of Texas?

After some days we decide to go to the small village of Huasca. We take the bus fo two hours and it is lovely. Every long distance bus we've experienced in this country has live music - bands and single musicians jumping on and blessing us with a couple of songs before they collect money from the passengers and hop on another bus. A band with three male virtouoso guitar players, a lonely woman with her guitar and her intense, heartfelt voice. Sad, but very very beautiful.

Huasca meens the city of joy and happiness, and indeed it is. In the small hotel we meet Elizbeth, an out-of-this world beautiful girl and her mother, we spend the day with them to see vulcanic grounds, castles and spectacular montain views. We buy some of the district's liqour of many flavours, rompope.

Next morning, the woman who owns the hotel wakes me up at five thirty in the morning. We have a sunrise date. We walk up to the hills talking in a broken way; she speaks only Spanish and I only English. We improvise. We have blankets. We get along. I even make a joke that makes her laugh. The sunrise is priceless.

Returning to the City Monster and Alma & Mauro's place, we drink Manzanilla tea and listen to great music the whole night. We get our long awaited dessert in the form of their captivating love story, but I'm sorry - you'll have to go to Mexico City to hear it.

Pictures from India & Fiji - more to come (Mari)

Our veranda on the luxury resort in Fiji - chiller'n, as we would say in Norwegian...

Having a round of Kava in the Oceania Arts Center in the University of Suva. Kava is a drink made from water and dried kava root, it is mildly sedative and makes you wonderfully numb all over the body. Fijians drink it all the time.

On the bus - groovin with the reggae music

Seventh Day Adventist bread, lemon leaf tea and children's songs for breakfast

Mamma after getting severely caught in the security check. Holding her handbag, the officer makes the unforgettable comment: Mem, you have a knife inside.

15: Suva, Leleuvia and a women's meeting - (Ruth)

I am in Tim's house. Tim is our Australian couch surfer host, living in the capitol Suva, working here for some years. Even if this is a rather large town life is kind of lazy, there seem to be no stress, happy, easy-going pop music is heard on the buses and a lot of other public spaces. Fijians walk around slowly, enjoying their walking. They are friendly and one is often greeted with "Bula", the word for hello. Many men wear skirts, or sulus, even here in town. I am now sitting in Tim's home office writing, he kindly let us use his PC. From the Methodist church across the road the quire is heard, singing nicely in three voices again. every day in the afternoon they beat the wooden LALI instrument to call people in for a service. Tim just bought himself a new bicycle and is outside for his first ride. The office room is rather dark. There are purple curtains and behind them the iron grids in front of every window. People here protect themselves from crime this way. I guess it is necessary, but do not feel quite comfortable with the atmosphere created by it. Tim has generously offered us to stay in his house for a week, and we are happy about this. It gives Mari and myself the possibility to use the house as a base and do small trips on our own. Even if the tone between us most of the time is remarkably good we need some time apart when travelling together for such a long time.

All the couch surfers in Suva stay in contact with each other and use to met each other in a cafe. Through this we have met many nice people. Mari makes plans with some young people and seems to have a good time. I am happy to talk to Losana, is one of the couchsurfer hosts, a warmhearted woman married to a Scottish man with two boys from a previous marriage. Losana is just the right "mother" figure for these boys, and they get on well. Losana works in the University here and is engaged in women's liberation movement.

After some days in Tim's rather closed up house I need to find some other atmosphere and take off for a two days island trip to get some sun, bathing and boat riding. To get there one has to take a local bus, and then go by private boat transport. I was thinking I would find some sort of regular ferryboat, but this is not the case, I found out. Luckily a private family is waiting to go to one of the nearby islands, and I am invited to join their private boat, the last boat for the direction of the islands this day. What luck!!

First the boat goes in huge swings on a jungle flood with tight rain forest trees with the branches and leaves coming all the way down to the water surface, hanging out over it. The colours are immensely green. Suddenly the flood merges with the sea and the landscape opens up. I enjoy riding boats very much and this is the first time during our entire travel. The weather is good and everybody seems to be happy. The family I am with is very nice and friendly like most Fijians. They are heading for a birthday party and bring beautiful cakes. It is a speed boat. We are 12 people and quite a lot of luggage. No life belts are available in the boat I notice. (Later Tim tells me that drowning is the second biggest cause of death in Fiji. Most Fijians never learn to swim). Twenty minutes later I arrive safely on Leleuvia. The family waves goodbye and proceeds to the other island.

I am warmly received by Lena, the woman who runs the small and relatively cheap guest houses here. For 50 Fiji dollars I have a cottage and three nice meals a day. The island is immensely beautiful and very quiet. I meet some other travellers from different parts of the world, not ordinary tourists. During the evening the men working on the island sing beautiful Fijian songs in three voices, accompanying themselves on guitars and ukulele. They really love the songs and put their whole souls into them. It sounds very nice and the fact that some of the instruments are poorly tuned do not matter at all. I join them on two spoons for rhythms and some improvised voices. I am very welcome in the music All the guests gradually turn into one group. The New Zealand woman Lois sings passionately with a lot of vibrato a honeymoon song for a newly married couple. I sing some Norwegian songs. It is a spontaneous, happy event.

I stay here for two days, and on the second evening they arrange an international crab race. CRAB RACE????? All the guests are given torches and are instructed to look for their crabs to represent their nationality. With a touch of fear I imagine we are going to use the sort of big crabs used for eating in Norway. However it turns out to be small hermit crabs (eremittkreps) that we shall be looking for. I have some trouble to find them, but after I while I find a white one, several metres from the beach, under some leaves. This is supposed to be the Norwegian crab. All the guests gather with their crabs, and then the race start. They have arranged a wooden thing with three separate paths. Three crabs compete without knowing it, but follows the paths as they are supposed to. Amazing! Everyone shouts to encourage their crabs!!! The atmosphere is dense and, oh no!! The Norwegian crab comes to the goal as number 2 in the first round. I am beaten. There are several rounds and in the final round only Fiji and England is left, and England wins clearly. All the losers (Check Republic, New Zealand, Scotland Norway and Fiji however seem to be good losers).

The prize (not unexpected) another bowl of KAWA, the local drink we have tasted here. It is made from water and some herbs and tastes dreadfully bitter. No alcohol. Your mouth is getting numb and it is a mildly sedative herb. The ritual is to send around a coconut shell with kawa. To refuse the kawa bowl going round I am told is rather impolite and everyone has to clap their hands after each drink and say a ritual word I have forgotten already. After a few bowls I still decide to stop drinking the awful drink and I refuse the kawa bowl as politely as possible. No one seems to bother after all. The guests at Leleuvia meet for the meals. They joke with each other "What are you gonna do today? "Lie down" , "take a swim", "go snorkeling", "read a book", "walk around the island on low tide". The answers are obvious. There is not much to do on this island, but everybody among the guests seem to like the very quiet life in this place. I definitely enjoy my time here on Leleuvia. It is enough just to be and sense and think. If I need contact it is available.

The next night I am exited to meet Losanas women's group. She has told me that she was involved in the political work on influencing the process of making a new women and family law a few years ago. The present group first has started as part of the local crisis center, but they chose to break out after a conflict with the leaders of the center, where they felt they were not empowered.

Losana generously picks me up in a taxi and we arrive at the house of one of the women, where she lives with her mother and younger brother. We arrive and I expect to talk with these women and hear about their lives and the groups work, about the political situation for women here. They all great me nicely when I arrive. The women are aged from 25 to around 35 I would estimate. The mother is 63 and keeps us company. The women are all survivors from some kind of bad experience that brought them to the crisis center. What actually happens in the meeting is something entirely different from my expectations, something that surprises me a lot. They all turn out to be eager supporters of RUGBY. The TV is put on. This is the first time I ever see rugby. I watch these male Australian and New Zealand rugby players showing a lot of brute force, coming together in the one SCRAM after the other (crawling and lying in a big bunch). Most of the time it seems that the ball is under the men. It looks very strange and funny to me. All the women are really digging this game. Each time the New Zealand team is scoring some of them would go in the middle of the floor, shaking their hips as part of the celebration. It is really stunning. No one is commenting on the paradox of the situation, that in fact they use their meeting to adore the behaviour of these men on TV. Very weird!! After the rugby game the stereo is turned on. ABBA music streams out, they dance happily and let their bodies loose together. This part is very nice and the women are empowering each other in movement, challenging each other in the dancing. A few of them tell me they are very surprised that I am 52 years old. How is this possible, they ask me? Women here in Fiji do not look like this when they are 50. I am flattered.

Now, I expect we will really start talking and sharing stories. I am really curious to talk learn more about them this evening, but no! One of the women tells a few stories making fun of her husband and they are all laughing. Suddenly Losana tells me that this is a "vorspiel" and that they all will be leaving the house in a few minutes to go for a night club. A taxi is ordered. I choose to go to our lodging. This was the story of the meeting in women's group. The next day I am told that during the night they had been acting out a lot of energy, trying out borders, dancing on the tables, shouting and singing to the hip-hop-music.

14: Fiji life - (Mari)

On couch surfer meetings in the capital of Fiji, Suva, I get to know Richard, a hilarious Chinese guy, Thijs, a relaxed Dutch surfer dude, and Simon and Losanna, an English-Fijian couple. Losanna is a member of the Fijian women's right movement and loves dancing on the table, Simon smiles warmly and drinks his beer without saying too much. (Be silent, and if you speak, let it be better than silence, isn't it.) They get us into a round of heavy Fijian Thaki drinking - everybody drinking beer from the same little shot glass and finishing in one swallow - a sure way to get happily drunk very fast. Good people, good times, buying illegal beer from a fishy little shop and being followed by the police on our way home. Having a nightly swim in Richards lovely pool with starry skies above. Listening to Fijian rap songs and the bats flying in the night.

After some days in Suva I want to get out, do some hiking, see some of the beautiful nature that Fiji has to offer. Thijs, the surfer from Holland, is up for some walking too, and we load our backpacks with some clothes, some money and a tent, and hop on a random bus out of town.

Taking the bus in Fiji is a pleasant experience, small, uncomfortable seats and pumping reggae music coming out of the speakers - everybody loves reggae in this country. Sorrounding you - together with the extremely goodlooking Fiji men - all those big Fijian mamas in coulourful dresses, with afros and cute, little beards. The Fijians look like Africans, they smile like Africans and move like Africans. Where did they get those afros from? Beats me. In the Fiji Museum there is a very complicated map of immigration from different islands, near and far, but there's apparently no African influence and the afro hair seems to be a Pacific phenomenon.

We end up in Sigatoka, a beautiful little town by the sea, and looking for a sulu we randomly start chatting with Aca on the street. He is a former pastor of the Seventh Day Adventist Church, loved by his community, a man of warmth and integrity, spontaneous, busy and disorganised (Fijian man + almanac = disaster). We hit it off well with Aca and he wants to do all kinds of things for us, but he sighs about his packed shedule and complains we should have announced our coming six months earlier. He still invites us to go hiking with him one of the following days.

The Fijians must be one of the warmest, friendliest and most open people I've met traveling. Everywhere we go there are smiles, small chats and invitations to stay in villages. All you have to do is bring some kava to the village chief, have a kava session with him and of course - respect the traditions. Among other things, the Fijians consider the head to be sacred - never wear a hat or sunglasses or so, and never ever touch someone's head. Don't carry things on your shoulders. Respecting tradition, you are free to live, eat and enjoy easy going Fiji life in the village - for free. Connecting with people is easy, and they are eager to learn about other countries and customs. It is hard to believe that a hundred years ago this population were blood thirsty cannibals.

"We are so grateful to the English missionaries that they put an end to tribalism and cannibalism" says Naomi, a former party girl and consumer of kava, Fiji Bitter and cigarettes. She is saved by the Seventh Day Adventists, a very interesting church community that has followers all over the island and are very dedicated to their sparing lifestyle. We bump in to her on our way to go hiking with Aca (we are totally in on Fiji time - my kind of time, more than two hours late for our meeting). Fiji used to be an aggressive tribe community with great rivalry and extensive warfare. After a tribal war the dead bodies of the enemy was taken back to the village, and a complicated ritual performed - eating the dead body was a way of totally demolishing and degrading the enemy. As we can't see a trace of Aca, Naomi invites us to join their religious youth camp, pitch up the tent and spend the night with them. We say yes and figure our friend will come by. He does - eight hous later. No worries!

The Fijians love singing and walking close to living areas you can't avoid the beautiful, three or four voice songs, often accompanied by guitar, coming out of churches and houses everywhere. The Seventh Day Adventists are no exeption; they can sing, all right. They light a fire and serve us hot ginger chocolate and tuna sandwithes, place us on a soft straw mat and entertain us with their lovely harmonies the whole night. "Jesus loves soprano. Jesus loves alto. Jesus loves the tenor and the bass, too!" The next morning we're served breakfast; lemon leaf tea, fresh papaya and bread that some of the young people have spent the whole night baking.





We set off to walk the Sigatoka peninsula and enjoy mountains, grassy green hills, deep rain forest. Wild parrots, sugar cane fields, cows, horses, goats. Gigantic bulls with some scary horns pulling wagons along the road. Getting invited into the homes of complete strangers for lunch, but gently declining because our backpacks are fully loaded with juicy, Seventh Day Adventist bread.

Walking in flip flops along the main road, going up, up, up taking in the stunning scenery. Intense colours, bright orange and pink flowers, dark grey stone, the far blue sea. Intense green. Locals shouting BULA (the Fijian word for hello) all over the place, children posing for my camera. Feeling the muscles of the body work, getting warm and sweaty only to be blissfully cooled down by soft, tropical rain. Getting lost into tiny trails, through private farmer territory, wrecking my flip flops, taking them off. Bare feet on dirt road, making my toenails nice and black, just the way I like them.

We spend one night in Club Mana, a surfer resort run by the smiling Paul and his cool girlfriend Rosa. In this quiet little place the couple can enjoy privacy from nosy villagers, relax and make good money. Thijs' surfer heart starts beating and he goes surfing where a sweet water river emerges with the salt, creating some sort of good waves. Paul tells us that there are no sharks around here, but later we learn that he in fact has forty stitches on his body from shark encounters surfing that very river mouth. Spooky. For dinner, Rosa makes fresh fish in coconut, one of the better meals I've had, and we spend a beautiful evening around the camp fire, talking, drinking tea and sharing stories. Paul tells us that his great great grand father, a village chief, was the first Fijian to eat a white man - a missionary making the sad mistake of touching the chief's head.

13: Pictures from Pondicherry & Auroville

Partying with youngsters in Pondicherry - you go mamma!

On the way to her wedding

Garbage and sunkissed fishing boats on lazy Pondicherry beach

The mighty Matrimandir

Everything is experimental in Auroville - this is the cute little house we stayed in.

12: Auroville and Matrimandir, India (Ruth)

The next day (09.07.07) we move to Auroville, the global village created by "the Mother" after Sri Aurobindas vision. The village was founded 40 years ago. They bought a dried up wasteland some kilomtres outside Pondicherry and started to cultivate the soil and plant trees. Now there's a tropical rainforest here and a city with around 1600 people from all over the world living there. Interested people must go through certain rituals to be accepted. Once you are inside you have no more private economy, and live in a system without money.

MATRIMANDIR is the holy symbol of Mother Earth, a huge golden globe temple placed in the Matrimandir Gardens, a place that made a strong impression on me. Matrimandir is the centre of the village, what binds the village people together, a place where they go to meditate, focus and concentrate. To be able to visit MATRIMANDIR, we had to do some initial steps the first day (Visitor exhibition and information video) and then we were admitted to walk over and watch the globe from a distance. We were supposed to think carefully if we REALLY wanted to see the place. As you will know I am not a very religious person, but the idea of a place for meditation and concentration was very nice indeed, so we diceded to go there. On the second day we went to the entrance for visitors who had passed the first initiations. Our guide had a little lecture for us. And then we walked inside in silence and awe.

The globe has an entrance where you have to go down before you come up ( like the development in yoga etc.). All shoes (and bags) were left outside. The inside is all white marble. Everyone had to put on stockings not to tread on the floor. Some stairs led to level two where you could see the four basic pillars (east, west, south and north). From there two grand paths led to the upper level, the circular room with 12 white, thin pillars around. In the middle is placed a large crystal globe. Light falls from a hole in the roof exactly through the middle of the crystal and down to the bottom of the building where it reaches water in a basin, symbolizing the connection between heaven and earth. As members of the visitors group we were allowed to meditate in this very special room, everyone was seated on a white cushion facing the crystal globe in dimmed, white light. We had been told to be absolutely quiet in the room, and not to approch the middle of the room with the crystal, but one older, Indian woman did not get this information and started to make sounds and move to touch it. This was both a bit funny and somewhat disturbing.

During the last few years I have become dedicated to meditation, yoga and Qi Gong. On the background of daily experiences with these practices this visit was indeed a very powerful and beautiful experience. Matrimandir does not remind me of any kind of church or specific religion, you are welcome to be there whatever kind of belief or nonbelief you may have. There is no dogma except for the idea of unity in manifold and a wish to find concentration and some kind of truth or quality in life. In my life I have so many activities and directions in my work. The idea of concentration and focus is very strongly present in the Matrimandir and this appealed to me and gave me something to take back home. For 2 days we lived in the Central guesthouse of Auroville. Here we met many nice people, among them Thomas, a nice person trying to create a new way of running economy without money and without interests. He is now implying this system in parts of South India, and has a lot of customers. Last year he went to a conference on alternative economy in Auroville and met a lot of people whith whom he now interacts. Thomas was an important person to talk to also on the personal level. We had a long talk on "inner travel" that may go parallell to a real travel around the world.

Auroville is huge is extension. Everyone is using a bicycle or motorbike. There is no ATM (minibank) in the village. The houses for official revices are scattered around, and there is no center. This was we really experienced how much time it took us to arrange practical travelling matters. I hope Aurovillians have a way to organise themselves that is easier than the impression we had. Mari met some of the Aurovillians and tried as usual to make contact. She experienced more than once not being as friendly welcomed as we had both expected in this place. We do not know the reason for this, but one possible explantion could be a strong in-group and out-group separation. We were told that if you live there it is very different.

Auroville has a solar energy driven kithcen. The village is in the forefront on ecological growing and schools are created to help each child to unfold in a natural way after its own recources. It sounds very nice and in the visitors exhibition we saw a lot of happy faces in photos. There are lots of different biological production and all kinds of work is found there.

On our way back from Pondicherry we travelled by another overcrowded bus for 4 hours. The rain was pouring down most of the time. The bus driver used the horn all the time to say "Here I come". There is a lot of noise from Indian traffic because of this. On the bus was two TV screens showing 2. range Bollywood films. I have never seen so much fighting in my whole life. All the beating was reinforced by additional beating sounds on a very high volume. Now and then there were mass dancing scenes accompanied by Indian pop music. There were fires, explotions and car crashes, now and then there was some romance, but always the actor are decently dressed, showing no naked parts of the body. It seems that violence is widely accepted, but not sexuality. This is for us rather weird, but not unexpected. Mari gave away her seat to a mother with a baby and chose to stand for three hours.
Goodbye India! Now we leave for Fiji!

11: Pictures from Mauritius and Goa - (Mari)

Doin´ it Indian style!

The beautiful Goan rain. My friend Clinton trapped

on the other side...

Eating our hearts out and then trying to pose... Not a good idea.

Laughing, crying, sharing, living - inspiring friendship between Parijat and

Trosswald from Maharashtra

Parijat and Trosswald overlooking the Goan region.

I kid you not - this is a shrimp. A giant, giant, Mauritian shrimp.

Waiting for the rain to stop in a packed shelter in Goa.

Beautiful faces, beautiful eyes, wet season moods.

This kid knows how to enjoy Monsoon rain properly!

Goan traffick - try to figure it out.

Funny warning on Mauritian gate

10: My crazy day in Pondicherry, India (Ruth)

We have just arrived at Pondicherry central bus station. This is a town south of Chennai on the southern east coast. The bus that took us here used four hours. It was very crowded and noisy, with no windows, the dry hot, dusty air just went right through the bus creating sore throat and of course the lungs were not too happy about this condition. Pondicherry has a famous ashram, a center for meditation and concentration. That's where we are heading. The sun just went down. We are told to get to a local bus. The bus has the most beautiful, interesting Indian pop music on a very high volume. There is no seat. In the front the driver has created an altar of Ganesh, the elephant God, wit shiny beads, flowers and glittering phramed images. Our luggage is scattered around. Everybody accepts the music and even seem to like it. We are immediately deeply into the music together with the local people. We wonder if we will be able to get off at the right stop, and do not know if anybody has understood where we are heading. However it shows that a lot of people are actually aware of our destination and are eager to help us getting off at the right place. Even a few small items having fallen out of my bag (one wallet with no valuables, two kenyan shillings) are politely handed out to us from the overcrowded bus. We have been told that there generally is little street crime in India, and this episode confirms it.

We check in to the Garden guesthouse, a very cheap lodging connected to the ashram (50 rupees pr. night - equivalent of kr. 7,-). We start the day by visiting the ashram center. The place has been started by the meditation guru Sri Aurobindo and the woman called "the mother", and their burial ground is inside. The place is very sincere. Many Indians kneel down and kiss their graves, praying and meditating. People come from all over the world to visit this place because they had a vision on uniting people from all religions, races and in spite of all differences. The place is rather open and puts no rules to the ways of praying or meditating. We see the library, the photo collection and the buildings where thy used to work and live. In the room where the bed of the mother is placed I find a nice spot to do a meditation. It is a place of concentration and serenity.

Back to our lodging I suddenly find myself locked in at our room by Mari. Unconsciously she has locked the door from the outside and left for an internet cafe. I discover I am trapped for a couple of hours!! Later, after an apologizing session, we eat lunch at a nearby restaurant "Salt and Pepper" , also connected to the ashram. There we happened to meet a large group of young male, Indian students (and one female student engaged to one of them) coming over to the seaside from Bangalore. We were invited to their lodging, straw huts at the beach. They treated us very well taking us to the large waves of the beach, protecting us from groping locals and later making a social gathering in one of the huts. Suddenly I found myself sitting on top of a large double bed with all this young Indian men, Mari and one young women in eager conversations, drinking alcohol. It was a most unusual situation.

The nicest thing about it was that they apreciated so much that I was talking with them, asking them about their lives and reflections in an open direct way. This they had not experienced from any adult woman before before. This created a lot of contact and positive atmosphere and they really felt the same as me. It was a most special group encounter in spite of age, gender and culturally background. The young men has a chauffeur and he is ordered to bring us back to the town center. He is actually sleeping in the car, but he has to wake up and drive us. We feel this is not quite OK seen in a Norwegian perspective, but so much for Indian workers rights. "He is paid by us, then we may ask him to do what we want" is their answer.

Coming back to the town center we run into a wedding procession. The girl that is supposed to get married is sitting on top of a throne on a van, with neon lights moving around her. She looks very as as is the custom. The bride to be has to show that she is sad to leave her family. There is a local orchestra in the procession and some masked people dancing wildly, the gorilla and a kind of devil with a red mask. We take some photos, enjoy the wild atmosphere and I think " What a day, from the serenity of the ashram to the student party group on the beach to this crazy procession in one single day!!"

9: An Indian explosion - Goa (Mari)

Man, what to say about India? This is a crazy country, I'm telling you. A place to come back to - again and again. In the Mauritian Airport, waiting in line with a huge hurdle of Indians, we already get a pretty good impression of the people. They all have six huge pieces of luggage each, and - I am not kidding - 50% of those checking in have baggage overweight, so we´re asked to take extra bags from six different families. Complete Texas, completely disorganised. On the plane we get Indian food and watch endless Bollywood movies about quiet and feminine girls getting married to strong, handsome and rich men. Enjoyable. After hitting Indian ground, these funny, messy people leave the airplane looking like a pigsty with paper, melted chocolate and crumbs of various origin all over floors, seats and lavatories. Frilled flight magazines everywhere.



We start the whole Indian ball in Goa, tourist place nr. 1, but totally out of season at the moment. Humid, tourist free and rainy. Monsoon. Ah, I love monsoon and I hope I can experience it again. You can truly drink the air. Everything is green, green, green, skin sweaty, clothes wet, feet nice and muddy; Theit all makes you feel like a true traveler.

I make some good friends in Goa. Mark; an Indian couch surfer and passionate Portuguese student, Clinton; a dedicated environmentalist and liquor connaiseur who wants to show the finger to responsibility and spend all his savings on a road trip from India to Sweden. A group of four fantastic guys from Maharashtra living, studying, laughing and crying together in a family guest house in Benaulim. They share the most intimate stories of family, life, passion and tragic love. Their friendship is so strong you can feel it in the air hanging out with them - they're caring, warm, reflected, articulate, I really enjoyed their company.

We spend a day and a night with two of these guys, Parijat and Trosswald, on their off-day. We hire a driver to take us to a beautiful Hindu Temple on a mountain top, the highest point in Goa overlooking the whole region. After exploring the mountain top and appreciating the scenery we enter the Temple, take in the peaceful atmosphere and admire the decorations. As the rain clouds thicken in the sky, the Hindu part of the company - Parijat - makes a quick prayer and we head down towards the car before it starts to pour.

Back in Margao City we walk around town, the guys introducing us to all sorts of delicious Indian food. Masala Dosa (haha my India girls), Palak Paneer, curries curries curries, soups, youghurt and weird, acid drinks. Eating with your fingers is required, but mamma and I really suck at it, so our hands are greasy green and orange at the end of the meal. The tea is a lower culinary experience. It looks like coffee, and the taste is strong and bitter (The coffee on the other hand looks like tea, and it tastes like water). That´s another sad thing about poor countries; India, growing the world finest tea leaves and coffee beans, export the best quality products to rich countries like my own, while the Indian population is served the crap that's left. Same in Kenya. Same in Colombia, El Salvador, Ethiopia.

We walk around town talking politics, social welfare and corruption. Parijat is very engaged in India's situation and talking to him is utterly interesting. He tells us some pretty weird stories - like the story about the Sky Bus. A couple of years ago some businessmen invested a whole lot of money into building an air tube that was finished successfully, and with revolutionary construction it was even more efficient than the ones they have in Japan. It was a great investment - India desperately needs public transport. Before they had completed testing and security of the system, there was an accident followed by the death of one person. This together with the fact that the profit from ticket sales would benefit the actual town and not fill up the private pockets of politicians, led to the close-down of the Sky Tube for good. Today it is one of the many sad sights of Margao - a ghost monument of corruption and lack of political direction in India.



India was invaded, exploited and left by it´s former abusive husband England. It is corrupt and fucked up, but it is absolutely breathtaking. You´ve got to take in the sadness, but there is endless beauty to enjoy as well. There is colour, smell and sound everywhere - in the market full of fresh fruit and vegetables, spices, herbs, umbrellas, eggs, shoes, flies and dogs and ayurvedic medicine. Beauties in colourful saris, their long, black, shiny hair, flowers in the braids. Dirty houses painted in bright coulours slightly faded in the burning sun. Honking from cars, rickshaws, motorbikes. Sudden rain forcing all of Margao to halt - everybody in the group seeks the nearst shelter. We all run, mamma, me, Trosswald, get under a roof, stay dry. But Parijat walks slowly, making sure to get hilself really really wet, facing the sky smiling. My kind of guy!


Parijat and Trosswald are studying hotel business. Trosswald, being a kitchen trainee, tells me some deeply disgusting stories (that will remain in my head, because to hear them I had to promise not no publish them in the blog). Some innocent leaks I have to post, though; like health authorities inspectors drinking tea in an air conditioned lounge, receiving a proper bribe and leaving again without ever seeing the kitchen. Like one knife used for several different purposes - not all of them involving food. Like the making of "fresh" fruit juice. I know I will never eat a five star hotel meal in this country again - ever.

I make some good friends in those guys, people I want to keep in my life, people I want to visit again in Maharashtra as soon as possible. Before we say goodbye that night we're standing in front of our hotel in central Margao talking. It has been dark for a while, the time is around 22.00. Our plane will be leaving for Chennai early the following morning. It is time to say goodbye, I give Parijat a hug. He doesn't seem to hug me back. I'm a little surprised, and figure well, he probably doesn't like hugging. Soon I learn there's a very different reason for why he didn't want the hug.

In most parts of India, it's not allowed for a boy and a girl to be together in public in the night time unless they're married or closely related. Even talking to each other is considered an offence, so hugging Parijat in the main road of Margao wasn't the smartest move I've ever made in my life. Three big guys in sivil clothes immediately walked up to us and started questioning us rather aggressively. Trosswald told me to get away from here - "we can handle it!", but I felt bad about leaving, so I stayed, trying to answer questions. After a while Parijat suggested in an insisting whisper "you should really get out of here now" and I did. Turning around I saw Parijat and Trosswald running like crazy and worse, the three biggies following me into the hotel. My heart was beating like crazy and asked one of the hotel guards to take me to my room. We shook them off. Decency police. What a shocking experience. I didn't even get to say goodbye to my new friends. Well good night, India.

8: Impressions of Goa an Class Travel(Ruth)

July 5.th 2007

I am utterly fascinated by India. And still Goa is "India light", a more western oriented part of the country, strongly influenced by Portugese culture, with a rather large Christian population and many churches. Taj Exotica is a 5 star hotel at the beaches of Benaulim, where we arrived the first day after a long international flight from Mauritius to Bombay and a nightly transit to a local flight for Goa. We quickly understand that we are in the rainy season, the Monsun period. Every now and then heavy rain starts and pours down for some minutes. Everyone runs to the nearest shelter and the hotel has battery vehicles to drive guests between their bungalows and and main building. Air humidity is 90 % and temperature around 29 degrees Celsius in the shadow. Big waves roll over the beaches and during this period no one is allowed to swim there because the waves may swallow you and bring you away from the beach. In the rainy season you hardly see the sun here. But nowadays glimpses of sum are seen now an then. Some people here thing this is due to global warming. Again we feel kind of embarrasment to see all the local people here working for low wages and we notice that the prices inside the hotel are 10 times higher than elsewhere.

Our way of traveling is a very special one. We are constantly going up and down between top class hotels and simple living as couch surfers or in cheap private lodgings. This repeated kind of "class journey" teach us a lot about global politics. We have "known" these things before on one level, but it is something else to experience it, repeatedly.

Everywhere in the top hotels the guests are western, australians and some times japanese. Often the tourists in the hotels seem to be closed up in their own being, we find it hard to come into contact. The local people are working for low wages and poor working conditions. They are easy to get contact with and the work is a possibility for learning about other cultures and for stimulation.

Taj Exotica in Goa has an outside swimming pool, an outside checkers with units as big as a child. A golf area is between the main building and the sea. Coconut palms are everywhere and we are treated with fresh coconut milk from the nut itself when we arrive. There are very few guests since this time of the year is totally out of season, so in the yoga class there is only two persons participating. A few guests gather around the Salsa show in the foyer and in the other restaurant a local Goan orchestra is playing. We hear a mixture of Indian and Southern European folk and pop music with some latin musical spices. What a mixed music tradition is this? We are curious and during the break we talk to the leader of the orchestra, Emilio, a local star in this region. He has a big smile and treats the mandolin as well as the fiddle with a lot of musicality and skill. The orchestra sounds good. Emiliano tells us that he has studied music in a conservatory in Goa and he has contributed to the local musical mix by creating different nice orchestras and composing popular songs. For centuries Portugese and Italian musical influences have mixed with local Indian way of singing and Indian rhythms. When we tell Emiliano that we are interested in learning about local musical traditions he invites us to his home the next day. We feel very happy to meet Emilio and receiving such a warm welcome - once again.

We find out that we like being here in Goa, during the monsun period. In this way we see the other side of tourism and how the local communities around the large western hotels are functioning when so much of the activity is closed down. It is rather sad sight on one hand and on the other life is rather slow and the population is not so much busy serving the tourists. They have more time for their own life and their family.

The second day in India we move to a cheap room in the house of a local family, still in the area of Benaulim Beach. We feel happy to talk to the family and communicate with their lovely two year old daughter. We are happy to know that our payment will be used in supporting their private economy for a few days. It doesn't matter that the fan in the first room is very noisy and we feel extremely hot. It is really hard to sleep, but who cares. We have this nearly endlessly long holiday. How wonderful.

The next day we go to visit the musician Emiliano in his beautiful home. Nearly everyone in Goa seem to know or know about Emiliano around here. We are warmly welcomed by the whole family and treated with homemade food an fruitjuice. Emiliano shows us around in his house with his big, loving smile and enjoyment of life. His old mother is nearly 88, sitting quietly in a chair. When passing her his hand touches her face in a warm gesture. We listen to music he had composed in the Goan mixed style, nice popular tunes, quite a few of them are hits around here. Proudly he gives us a cassette and a CD. We also have a little jazzy "jam session" on "Desafinado", Mari sings the voicing, A pupil of Emiliano living with him plays the keyboard, I make some voice improvisations and the keyboard performs the bossa nova rhythms, it is a most wonderful situation. Mari is invited to work with his orchestra in a tourist season is Goa. Emiliano is partly a musician and partly a farmer. He takes a lot of pride in his cows and pigs and we are shown around in the animal houses. Some gas for cooking is developed from the shit of the animals, the farm is ecologically oriented. I enjoy Emilianos two sides, the well rooted farmer and the skilled musician and composer. Thank you very much Emiliano for our time together with you and your family in Goa.
We leave the house in a taxi that takes us to BIG FOOT MUSEUM, showing Goan culture and traditions in a very nice and lively way with figures of people in differetn situations of life. We also see the Portugese mansion, the house of a family in their colonial wealthy times. We can't help seeing this haouse and its function from the side of the local workes, who often worked for the portugese family for a liftime only for food and clothes.

7: Chillern paa Mauritius (Mari)

Jeg har hvit sand paa taerne. Foran meg er bare blaatt hav. Strand, saltvannsdraaper paa solbrillene (fabulous-solbriller jenter, seff). Mauritius er paradis, trekk pusten og lungene fylles med himmel og skjoeluft. Parasollen er lagd av straa.

Fab paa stranda

Vi bor (etter det sedvanlige, en-natts luksusoppholdet paa veldig fint hotell) hos Mr. Sanjay Sood. Han er en flott, indisk fyr som vi kom i kontakt med via couchsurfer, og han gir oss dobbeltseng, eget rom og et haandkle paa deling. Han er velutdannet, jobber med IT (bombe), snakker perfekt engelsk og har mye spennende aa komme med. Vi prater i flere timer om kveldene. Sanjay har bodd paa Mauritius i tre aar, kona og de to barna er i India, han savner dem veldig. Gjennom couchsurfing finner han selskap og samtalepartnere fra vidt ulike bakgrunner. Han sier at det er vanskelig aa faa noe mer enn svaert overfladisk kontakt med befolkningen her - jeg er enig. De smiler, de er soete, hjelpsomme, men det er liksom ikke noe mer. Det er liksom litt grunt.

Mamma og Sanjay i livlig samtale rundt "norsk" middagsbord

En gammel mann kommer trillende paa en sykkel. Kurven hans er full av tang, han har slippers, shorts og hvit skyggelue. Temperaturen er perfekt, jeg er varm, men ikke klam. Langt ute paa odden staar en annen mann og kaster med fiskestang. Sola steker paa leggene, havet glitrer i oeynene, fulglene lager eksotiske kvitrelyder i palmene.


Men jeg er jo ikke her for aa bli brun, ikke for aa slappe av, ikke i to maaneder, da ville jeg blitt splitter pine gal. Jeg hopper paa en lokalbuss og alle stirrer paa meg, jeg setter meg paa den eneste ledige plassen, bakerst, klemmer meg mellom en skitten, oelluktende slask og en sovende (gangsteraktig) fyr med afro. Vi humper avgaarde. Jeg tenker litt paa at jeg har har daarlig humor paa engelsk og ingen skjoenner ironi utafor Norge. Det lukter roekelse inni bussen, litt saann som paa Exotica i Torggata, bare at i denne konteksten liker jeg lukta. Damene her har helt ravnsvart, blankt og tykt haar. Mitt er toert, krusete, svett.


Befolkningen paa Mauritius er en morsom mikstur. Forfedrene deres var:
1. Slaver fra Afrika
2. Indiske arbeidere "with muscles and no brain", som Sanjay sa det saa raffinert. De ble brakt til Mauritius for aa kultivere jorda, og ble stort sett fortalt at "hvis du bare baerer alle disse steinene haerfra og bort dit finner du kanskje noe gull!" De fikk mat i betaling for jobben de gjorde.
3. Indiske kjeltringer som roemte fra fedrelandet og skapte seg en ny og falsk identitet her paa oeya.
4. Kinesiske handelsmenn og diverse andre asiater som soekte lykken i et nyopprettet oeysamfunn.


Dette resulterer i mye rart - en fantastisk eklektisk folkemusikk, Sega (med tilhoerende sensuell dans), masse god mat, et utall religioner, men foerst og fremst identitetskrise. Svaert faa vet hvor de egentlig kommer fra. To - tre generasjoner tilbake har man kaal paa, men noe lenger bakover enn det er det som oftest umulig aa spore slektninger. Paa et eller annet tidspunkt kappes alle greinene paa slektstreet. Oldefar var kanskje en seriemorder. De fleste menneskene er av indisk opprinnelse, og mange reiser til India for aa lete etter roettene sine. De har ingen store forfattere, arkitekter, malere, ingen store monumenter, lite aa vaere stolt av. Det er som om dette preger hele befolkningen.

Jeg hopper av bussen i Quatres Bornes og vandrer rundt i gatene. Jeg gaar paa markedet og spiser Bol Renverse (oppned-groennsaker), holder hardt paa veska, klyper meg for nesa ved fiskeboden. Blir lurt og kjoeper en kjole for fire ganger saa mye som den er verdt (men vil antakelig prise meg lykkelig for det neste gang vi kommer til et fem-stjerners, Hyatt-aktig hotell).

Jeg kommer til en butikk som heter Feng Shui og gaar inn. De selger, ja, du gjettet riktig: Feng Shui-ting, men blandet med hindu-symboler og gudefigurer. Jeg snakker med Anar bak disken og han freaker meg ut med sitt intense blikk og lange, velstelte negler. Han snakker om krystaller og hvordan de skal brukes for aa heale folk. Jeg blir kjent med Rajiv, Anars bror, den eneste Feng Shui-mesteren i det Indiske Hav. Han kan selvfoelgelig fortelle alt mulig rart om meg. Scary.

Rajiv og jeg blir venner og jeg kommer innom butikken et par ganger. Rajiv er opptatt med kunder hele dagen, og disken hans er full av takkekort fra klienter som har opplevd suksess. Han gir meg et rosequartz-armbaand, en krystallkule til aa henge opp, en ametystkrystall til aa ha rundt halsen og en liten glassglobus, samt et kompass. Til aa regne ut retningen alle tingene skal staa i, selvfoelgelig. Han vil ikke ha betaling.


Naar Rajiv og Anar er ferdig for dagen stenger vi sjappa og jeg blir invitert paa familiemiddag. Familien er helt fantastisk, aapne og varme, alle elsker hverandre og de ler hele tiden. Rajiv sier at hvis det ikke var for familien ville han ha flyttet fra Mauritius for lenge siden. Han har studert i Kina, India, Malaysia og Australia. Vi spiser og drikker og alle blir litt fulle og Feng Shui-mesteren fyllekjoerer oss alle til et utested. Hele familien er med, broedre, soestre og ektefeller. Vi har det kjempegoey. Lettkledde damer danser Sega paa bardiskene.

Rajiv maa gifte seg med en dame han ikke liker fordi han har lovet mora si at hun skal faa se ham gift foer hun doer. Jeg haaper at han kommer seg ut av det, men han sier han har slaatt seg til ro med tanken.

Det begynner aa regne paa stranda utafor utestedet. Svalende regn, nesten som damp, det kjennes mer som et mykt teppe enn som draaper. Ikke plaskelyd, men bruselyd. Fiskerne har pakket sakene sine og syklet hjemover for lengst. Vi fester til seks om morgenen.

6: More about Mauritius (Ruth)

Quatre Borns, Mauritius. 29.06.07
Upon looking for a place to eat breakfast we meet Neela, a colourful woman of 50 years. Neela has a big smile and only a few teeth left in her mouth. She is very eager to show us to a nice cafe and we buy her a meal. She talks unstoppable about her life. Neela is a single woman, and we rapidly get a feeling that some of her flourishing stories are fantasies or ways to impress us. There are also some parts of her story that we believe, the one about her former husband finding some other woman, how she lost her family, how she was rejected from her sons and left totally alone. In this family oriented society that is a very hard situation to cope with and there is no social security for single women. She tells us that she had periods of mental problems. That her teeth are lost because of being beaten by the former husband is not the most trustworthy of the stories. The next day we agree to meet her again, and we are invited to her home. We are to greet her young husband in his job, but as we come to the hotel he is unfortunately not there, and some very strange excuses for this are told: "I heard on the radio that one of his relatives had died, he must have gone to see them" is one of them. So we end up believing that the husband perhaps is fiction. We come to her home, but all the time we have the feeling that it is not her home, how can she pay it without a job? Maybe she "borrowed" it to give us a nice impression?

Neela - one strange encounter

In spite of all the strange stories she is able to make good contact and she has found a meaningful way of life for herself, being trained as a hospital visitor for lonely patients. She is thankful for her life and has a meaning with it. She is a Hindu, but sometimes she goes to the Christian church as well. In the groups of visitors she has a social network and is treated respectfully. She brings us to the hospital, we hope to get in an perhaps to meet some children and perhaps sing a few songs for them. Neela presents us to Monique, the coordinator of visitors. Meeting her is also a special experience, since she also has had a life sort of on the edge of society as a single woman. We never get to visit any patients, but the encounter with this women was certainly very touching. Our songs were sung to the two Mauritian women instead of the children, and Neela responded by singing some songs to us in Indian language. They were beautiful songs, carrying a lot of emotion and pain. Before saying goodbye to Neela she wants us to say hallo to her mother who works in the market near by. Her mother is also very happy to meet us, the is 63 years old. Sixtythree??? That means she was 13 when her daughter was born. The mother seems to have perfect teeth, but she takes them out and show us that they are false. We enjoy the situation with the two women very much.

In Mauritius we also meet "Donald", an academic working in the University. He has a local name, but prefers to give us an english name. He offers us to borrow a villa in the northern part of the Island. Some of "Donalds" ancestors used to live in England and have built this villa, a once fashionable house. We feel very lucky to get this opportunity and our host most kindly drives us to the villa seated north in the island. The house is located some hundred meters near to beautiful beaches. The relatives of the family in England send some money every year to keep up this large house, but it is however increasingly becoming a burden to the Mauritian part of the family. So we are asked if we want to buy the house for 5 million MUR (Mauritian Rupies), which is about 1 million Norwegian kroner. We find the situation a bit funny and politely thank the family for their offer. We tell them that we unfortunately are not the right people to buy their house and rid them of this burden.
While driving us to and fro the place we are told a lot of stories how hard their life is in Mauritius, how much they are stressing and a lot of other miserable things. We listen politely to all the complaints, but in our minds we think that this journey teaches us a lot about different attitudes to hard life conditions. In Kenya unemployment was 60 %, and still we met such a lot of joy, happiness and people were proud of themselves in a good way, very seldom complaining. This is really something to think of coming from a rich country like Norway, where living conditions materially are so good and still many people are not content with their lives, feeling unhappy, depressed or isolated.

Well, "Donald" is also member of a trade union and politically interested. He tells us that tourist industry is rapidly growing while living conditions for ordinary people are getting harder. Prices are rising and one has to work harder and harder to earn enough money.

We also learn that employees in private business have no rights to have holidays and thus have to to work the whole year through except for a few religious celebration days.

5: Mauritius, Quatre Bornes (Ruth)

23. rd of June in the afternoon we arrive in Mauritius, a seeming paradise island with beaches all around. Even though it is winter here at the moment temperature is like Norwegian summer (17-23 degrees Celsius). There is no other transport available from the airport than taxi. After a 45 minutes drive along the beatutiful coast we arrive at Hotel Ambre, a most wonderful tropical beach hotel. Here we stay for 24 hours. We eat luxurious meals for dinner and breakfast at the cost of our price.

In the evening there is a Sega show, with local folk music and dancing. The music is very exiting and rhytmically complex, most interesting for both of us. The music here is one of the reaons we had for coming. We first are presented to the old forms of the music. All the original instruments are shown to the audience and we are allowed to try them. The music is a most special mixture of African and Indian impulses. They use djembe drums, a bass drum, some flat drums called Ravane are played by tvo hands (formed like an ocean drum), triangle, a flat shaking box made from aluminium and thick bamboo stems to be beaten, making different sounds. The dancers are most beautifully dressed and very skilled. The show holds a high musical quality. In the last part of the show the audience is invited to try dancing on the stage together with the ensemble. They are good at including and encouraging the newcomers. Of course Mari and I join in - it is great fun to dance together with these musicians and dancers. The next day we stay in the hotel area during the daytime, swimming and relaxing on the beach.

In the afternoon we find a bus to take us to our next lodging: this time as couch surfers in the house of Sanjay, a very open an most interesting person to talk to. Sanjay lives in Mauritius for some years working on medical technology. Interesting enough he tells us that he cooperates with specialists in telemedicine in Tromsoe, and we are proud to hear that Norway is quite in the frontline of telemedicine development. Sanjay has his family (wife and two children) at home in the northern part of India. As a foreigner he has most interesting reflections on the Mauritian mixed population, which I will come back to. Since he does not live with his dear family Sanjay hosts couch surfers and thus creates a network of contacts throughout the world. The need to do so is big, sice Mauritus according to his experience is a rather limited island society. He has not made friends with local people here, he tells us. We are happy to meet such a wonderful person with whom we can talk about all kinds of themes. He is a really "deep" thinker, and we feel very much welcome in his house. We like his style of hosting. He is not overdoing and goes on with his normal activities while we are there.

One of the days we go for a small trip to Port Louis, the capital. We see an international exhibition "World Press Photo" which is most interesting, shocking and beautiful. The photos cover all the most important conflict areas in the world. We are very glad to have seen this. One Norwegian photographer, Espen Rasmussen from Verdens Gang, was among the top photos.

4: Pretoria Soer-Afrika (Ruth)

22.06.2007

Now we switch our blog language to english since we get many friends where we come and they are interested to follow our journey, too.

It is our last day in Pretoria, South-Africa. We intend to meet Maski, the ethiopian young woman and her mother Tezara for lunch in a shopping centre called Brooklyn Mall. We planned to walk the 45 minutes over there. In a local cafe we asked in which direction we should walk, but the female owner tell us not to do so. She explains that some serious crimes were done along this road during the last months. Instead she asks her son to drive us, which he does, and he refuses to take any money. On our way he tells us about crime statictics in South Africa. During the last three years 18.000 persons were killed in the country. We are chocked and happy to be driven to the shopping center.
Inside Brooklyn Mall we are relatively safe, but we guard our values very carefully. During the lunch Tezara and I have a lot to talk about. She works for Unicef, running some parent and children projects and schools in Ethiopia. She is interested to hear about the music groups I run for parents and children i Norway. I start asking her about her use of music in everyday life. She is in Pretoria for chemotherapy because she has cancer. Normally she likes light african rhythmic music a lot. After she got the illness her need for calming music is very strong and she has started also to listen to western classical music and some meditation music. She expresses a strong wish to learn how to use music in a self-healing process with guided instructions. She has reponded well to chemotherapy, but wants to work every day with her own process strengthening her immune system and listening to music at the same time. We quickly understand that here is an important connection and I offer to give her a free therapy session combined with teaching her to work on the method on her own. Within two hour later we are in her lodging. Our daughters provide som dinner while I work with the mother. It becomes a good process for Tezara and an important experience for me as well. When we say heartly goodbye after the dinner I tell her that I will bring her into my daily meditations.

Later the same evening we attend a huge drum circle outside Pretoria together with Riana and some friends, among them Maski. Thanks to information provided from Neill Jourdan, a South african music therapist that I talked to on the phone we were informed about the event. I turns out to be some vitalizing hours, drumming together with a mass of people, perhaps more than 200 men and women. There is a huge roof over us, and under it a big fire. There are no walls. The leading drummers are in the inner circle and all the other people surround them. The drumming rhytms are everywhere and we happily join in. Outside of the "tent" roof some fire acrobat dancers unfold themselves waving their burning "material" in all kinds of formations. It looks beautiful in the dark and I am certainly not tempted to try it.

For a while it is nice to be part of the mass drumming. At times the tempo rises to a big crecendo where the puls is dissolved for a moment until a new puls emerges. At times the tempo slows down. For a period of time a different rhythm with subdivisions in triplets is put on. This is cool. Suddenly one single drummer is heard in a call-and-response pattern. This rises the energy. I cannot see who is calling, sice it is dark underthe roof except from the fire light in the middle. To be part of such a big drumming mass without a visible leading person after a while gets somewhat boaring to me. It isn't really a group feeling, and you cannot influence such a big mass in any way either, so I think one can easily feel rather unimportant with ones contribution. But I join and observe and learn a lot from being there. One thing is most surprising to us. We see almost no people of colour drumming with us. They are all white south africans here. Why is that? Upon asking we are told that this is ment to be a low treshold event where everybody is welcome even if they never touched a drum before. It seem that the idea of african music is becoming a mass phenomenon among the white people here. And where do the really skilled drummers of black colour go? Certainly not here.

However Riana, our couch surfer host and her friends that have never done anything like this before are most exited about the event. Riana tell us that by hosting couch surfers she learns a lot about her home town. Each surfer has some spesical interest and looking how to find ways to meet these interests widens her horizon and gives her new possibilities. When we leave the drum circle we watch the satrs and moon on the dark, clear sky. How funny!! In this part of the world the moon is lying down and looks like a boat!!!!

The next morning 23. of June we get up very early. Riana drives us to the airport and we are on our way once again. We both feel relieved to get out of this country, where being in a kind of fear atmosphere and in a prison-like surrounding is so salient to us. We feel happy to come from Norway. We have however been told that Cape Town is nicer than Joburg (Johannesburg) or Pretoria. Still we are not shure if we want to go back here again. The best thing about South Africa we agree is the kind of solidarity that has deveoped among people to help each other conteract the criminal situation. We were touched by many peoples generousity to take us safely around. And of course Rianas huge generousity was the most wonderful gift to us. Together with Maski we gave her an air mattres for future couch surfers to sleep on. While we were in her house she insisted giving us her bed and she slept on the floor herself!! That was a bit too much, we think. We would have felt better if she took as good care of herself as a host as she took care uf us during our stay.

3: Soer-Afrika (Ruth)

Det har gaatt noen dager. Soendag 17. juni floy vi fra Nairobi til Johannesburg. Flyet passert naer ved toppen av Kilimanjaro som laa badet i sol, med snoe og et krater paa toppen. Fantastisk vakkert. Mot slutten av flyreisen gikk solen ned over Afrika. Det var et syn for guder. Vi ankom Johannesburg paa kvelden og fant det meget vanskelig aa finne offentlig transport. Man maa ta taxi her. Hvite mennesker kan ikke reise med det busssystemet som fins her, saa alle de hvite har bil. Svaert mange har visstnok to biler. Etter en taxitur kommer vi fram til hotellet. Park Hyatt, det er helt ubeskrivelig flott, 5 stjerners. Bush pleier aa bo her naar han er i Soer-Afrika... Vi har aldri vaert inne i noe slikt. Her skal vi vaere i 2 dager. Dette landet er mye vanskeligere aa trenge inn i enn Kenya. Vi blir fortalt at vi nesten ikke kan gaa noen steder og maa holde oss paa hotellet og omraadet rett i naerheten, Rosebank. Nesten alle de ansatte vi ser paa hotellet er fargede. Gjestene er mest hvite.

Vi foeler oss litt merkelige i vaare backpackerklaer. Vi har bare det aller mest noedvendige av toey og ikke noe som er reint. Vi staar ikke i stil med omgivelsene. Heldigvis finner vi en billig klesbutikk og kjoeper noen nye plagg. Jeg klipper haaret og striper det for en billig penge. Det hjelper.

Bassenget og badstuen paa Hyatt hotell. Hehe.

Frokosten paa hotellet er i topp klasse. Middagen blir enkel. Noen kyllinglaar, litt salat og broed ute paa en benk. Her i Soer-Afrika kan man drikke vannet fra springen. Det er en meget god ting. Ellers maa man hele tiden tenke sikkerhet. Gjoer man det og folger raadene er man visstnok trygg. Etter 2 dager paa Park Hyatt sjekker vi ut, men holder oss i omraadet mens vi proever aa finne neste sted aa sove. Vi finner et billig hotell, men det er fortsatt for dyrt. Saa kommer jeg til aa huske at Mari har fortalt om Couch-surfing, en maate aa reise paa som gjoer det mulig aa bo hos private hvis man selv vil ta imot besoekende. Mari sjekker internett og JIPPY. Etter en time har vi kontakt med Riana Hanekom, en generoes og omfangsrik kvinne og pasjonert vert for sofa sufere og saerlig for jomfru-surfere som oss (den foerste natten som surfer). Hun sier vi kan bo hos henne allerede samme dag. Saa forteller hun at hun bor en times tid unna. Hun tar jaggu bilen sin og kjoerer for aa hente oss. Lykken er stor. Vi kommer til et meget hyggelig privat hjem i Pretoria og blir tatt med rundt omkring. Vi faar hver vaart rom og selv insisterer Riana paa aa sove paa stua!!! Foerst neste dag gaar det til min forskrekkelse opp for meg at hun har sovet paa noen tepper paa gulvet!! Hm!! Riana vil gjerne at vi bor hos henne til vi forlater Soer-Afrika. Vi har faatt en herlig venn. I loepet av et doegn har vi blitt bedre kjent og Riana er full av gode tips om sofa-surfing. Naa planlegger vi aa benytte denne innkvarteringsmaaten for alle de resterende landene vi skal til.

(Er du interessert i mer informasjon om dette kan du sende en mail til oss. Denne reisemaaten passer ikke for alle. Man maa vaere aapen og litt altruistisk. Man maa selv vaere interessert i aa ta imot gjester hjemme. Det krever en ordentlig innsats. Men vil man det er dette en fantatisk rimelig maate aa reise paa. Det redder reisebudsjettet for denne turen. )

Riana presenterer oss for Maski, en etiopisk kvinne paa litt over 30 aar som har omfattende reiseerfaring. Foreldrene bor i Etiopia, selv bor hun i Canada, men hun har studert i Inda. Hun er blitt en venn av Riana. Naa bor hun i Pretoria noen uker med sin mor som er til langvaring behandling for kreftsykdom.

Middag med kake hjemme hos Riana.

Riana, mamma og Maski paa kjoepesenteret.

Vi tilbringer en herlig dag paa et vakkert parkaktig kjoepesenter og i et hageutsalg med fantastiske planter og springvann. 2 papegoyer kurtiserer hverandre og slaar hverandre vekselvis. Om kvelden er vi paa en fantastisk teaterforestilling, et one-man-show som karrikerer alle de ulike folkegruppene i Soer-Afrika og gir et innblikk i mangfoldet i befolkningen i dette landet. Vi forstaar ikke alt han sier, for han sjonglerer mellom en rekke dialekter og spraak, men kroppsspraaket forstaar vi.

Riana bor i en leiegaard med 6 etasjer. Porten der bilen kjoerer inn er omkranset av piggtraad. Saa maa vi gjennom en jerngitterdoer for aa komme inn i oppgangen. Alle ytterdoerene til leilighetene har jerngittere. Det er litt som en festning. Veldig uvant for oss. Husordensreglene er meget strenge og helt nodvendige sier Riana, som har opplevd litt av hvert.