Interlude continued - froggy suicide

After three pointless days at work last week, and an evening with naomi klein, i set off on Thursday morning for Karlshof with [E] - who arrived at the station just two minutes after our train left because of the train drivers' strike. She said such situations stressed her, I on the other hand wasn't stressed at all, and we got the next train an hour later.
[E] is basically the Very First Person I met on my travels. She came along with the clowns on 31 May to the Bombodrom and we chatted a lot in the train. And when I came back to Karlshof in September from Vienna with Anna, [E] picked us up at the station - the coincidence was so strange, so much had happened for me in between, I'd met so many people and seen so many faces, that I at first couldn't even remember where I'd originally met her. Since then we've met a couple of times around Karlshof network meetings and decided to go off to the farm together last week.
Gorgeous landscapes and light out of our train - very flat as Brandenburg is, but still oh so joy- bringing after two weeks in the city. Arriving on the farm felt like arriving home, one home, or at relatives' - in any case, a place to feel good and comfortable. We thought we were coming for four days of hard work - doing whatever needed to be done before the winter comes. But instead, it turned out two people of the group had birthdays, one after the other - so we spent a lot of time having lazy brunches, eating cakes, going out for long communicative walks and not working much.
Still, we pargetted walls and the lower part of the living house - someone from another project south of Berlin came to teach us how to throw the parget on the wall and get it straight and flat. It was frustrating at first - my parget kept slowly slipping down the wall instead of staying put - but eventually I got the hang of it and it worked. As I looked at [P]'s section of the wall, I felt slightly jealous though - he had already finished polishing it, it was flat and clear and ready to dry beautifully.

Except that a bit of his parget started wriggling. And slowly, oh so slowly, a cemented frog's head and two cemented frog's front legs wiggled their way out of the flat surface. We were horrified by the vision of this frog who'd ended - bob knows how - in the cement mixture, been thrown onto the wall, flattened and polished and had already started drying and hardening along with the rest of the wall - but still managed to find a last inkling of strength to start separating itself from the parget. [P] grabbed the poor thing with horror and threw it away. We were all so shocked that none of us thought of sticking it into water and wash it. Soon we'll find a stone frog on that side of the house.

interlude - two weeks back

typing out bits of my diary, i wonder what I can use from it for the blog. so many ellipses, unwritten events and thoughts. my writing was primarely a tool to help me clarify my thoughts when i had to come up with new decisions - and the whole diary is filled with 'today i decided to do this and that and go there' - and the next page the next day tells the exact opposite. Or is doubtful again. And then there are all the intimate parts i leave out - because i don't want to display intimacy - but at the same time, having these open, giving, intimate relations represents a big part of my trip too.
i've been back for two weeks. exactly two weeks. two weeks was a lot of time on the road, with whole worlds developping in between, unclear borders marked mainly by geographic changes. two weeks in the city - in spite of the hectic, in spite of all the projects, the opportunities and options offered by the city, in spite of seeing all the people i hadn't seen in months, and seeing the new people i got to know on surrounding farm-projects - in spite of all this: a sense of stagnation. most of all, the realisation that i'm letting old daily structures take control of my life and have to react, and react quick. sitting every day in front of the computer, spending so little time outside, giving up so many hours per week to a job against my desires. forgetting freedom - no no, there is no forgetting freedom. I'm going to move out of here, in december, at the latest in early january, find a much cheaper place, reduce costs, reduce work hours, change rhythm.
so many projects in mind - and the slow realisation that there's definitely not enough time for them all - various political campaigns, clowns' actions, developing photos, singing, writing my thesis, making interviews for my thesis, following one or two uni-seminars, preparing the article for the publication of last year's project paper, developing the non-commercial network further, working and learning at the bakery (to bake and distribute non commercial bread), developing direct contacts with farmers for my food co-op...
The city is so treacherous - makes me think it is possible to follow all these projects - just because the people are there, the infrastructure - but i end up hopping from appointment to appointment, hop hop hop, my diary - after four unwritten months - is scribbled all over again. And I try to be conscious of my time use and realise: next week for instance is planned out and NOTHING can be added to it. Monday to wednesday work, tuesday and wednesday evening uni, wednesday evening also either clowns meeting or food coop plenum, thursday to sunday on karlshof. joy, i will leave the city again.
So many people to meet in the city, for such superficial fleeting moments. I want a different way of meeting people. With more time, and more options for the continuations of conversations a few days later - no more than a few days.

a french guy moved into the flat above mine. he 'eeuuuuuuh's loudly and often.

Trip Diary Extracts - July + August

29 July, La betranmatz

Rain, rain, rain. We can't work today because the rain is too strong. Feeling mor elike going down south after all. I think I'll skip the Haina construction weeks and go down to Madrid after the workshop [on non violent direct action] before going back up to Germany. The Karlshof women's construction week has been pushed back to September, so it leaves memore time. I really want to learn the straw bale construction technique. If I have extra time before the clowns' camp end of September, I'll go to Haina or Ulenkrug. I hope Striedl will make it to the clowns' camp. Should write to him.
Am once again mentally / emotionally back at the beginning of the trip / in Mecklemburg, walking on the hills of Wischmannsdorf, sitting near the fire, helping myself to food, sitting in the plenum tent, watching the sunset over the baltic sea, falling asleep in the forest huddled with morgan, pia and andi... what do I miss exactly... the enrgy, the consensus, the self-organised structures, the people, the randomness, the twirling of events, the place, the bonding, the social setting (lack of bourgeois codes).
Melancholy or rather nostalgia is really annoying. I'm there, longing for a point in l'espace-temps that can't be recreated ever. [...] It motivates me even more to go to the workshop near brest.
[...]
Decision making on tour is a sssslow process! But I'm happy with my decisions because I leave them time to filter out and transform into gut feelings. My belly tells me where I want to go - and oh beautiful feeling to base decisions solely on what I want to do! How new, unusual and gewöhnungsbedürftig [that needs getting used to].
Realised I hate the concept of holidays. I'm not on holiday. This is a window of freedom, and I'm well decided to ensure I turn my life into a field of freedom.


31 July

EXCITEMENT: I called up the guy from désobéissance to ask about the workshop on non violent direct action. It sounds so cool! It's part of the journées d'été du réseau sortir du nucléaire, which lasts one week, and involves trainings and actions. I asked whether there'd be clowns, and he said yes indeed, as marsios would be there to give a training. Marsios was with us at the McDonald action and at the bombodrom, and in general all g8. I didn't have much contact with him at all, but he's nice - and I'm excited! 1) to meet up with a g8 clown again, 2) to see what french clowns are like, 3) to take part in actions again, 4) to spend a week on an activist camp again and meet all sorts of people. That's settled: I'm GOING!


01 August

Absolutely and entirely exhausted. Eric and I did part of the "ceinture" today, in the sun, taking heavy buckets of cement up and pouring. I feel v. tired but relaxed at the same time. It's our last day on the chantier. I'm off this weekend. Poor Eric will have to finish alone, I wonder if he'll manage. There's still a LOT to do.

05 August, Ferme du Meot, near Loperhet, near Brest

Mum drove and left me outside the camp of the journées d'été du réseau sortir du nucléaire yesterday. Green camp, not quite Zempow, not quite Wichmannsdorf, but something similar. I felt right at home immediately as I saw a girl with dreadlocks and the usual German activist camp look. "Just like in Germany", I thought. She turned out to be German, as I soon realised - I happened to put my tent up right next to hers and her friends'. One of her 2 friends happens to be jan, who was a g8 clown and with whom I nearly paired up for an action the Thursday! [...]

Helped all afternoon to set the infrastructure up for the camp in the BOILING sun. Chatted with Xavier, who was the guy I talked to on the phone to find out more about the workshop. I felt comfortable around him, but i'm slightly annoyed by his leader streak.
It's good to meet up with activists in France. Reassuring because in spite of vast differences as regards the communication culture [less efforts to reach consensus, more open and accepted hierarchies], I feel relatively at home.


06 August

Cecile, the "other french girl from germany" several people told me about, arrived today. It turns out that I HAD after all seen her before, against all my expectations - at the bombodrom and in Zempow. Crazy to think there will be a total of 3 or 4 clowns from Zempow who end up on this camp. The activist word is small...

Trip Diary Extracts - July (cont.)

19 July 07, La Betranmatz

I was a bit worried when I arrived that I would not have much to do here after all, but mum, Eric and I spent all of today planning the chantier for the little building behind the house where mum thought of putting the bathroom. The maçon called today to say he would take over 5.000 euro, so we looked at it and decided to do it on our ow. Together we thought of all the steps needed, I made a for the next 7 days, there'll be a roof taken down, a wall destroyed, a new wall built, a new roof put up. We looked at the material we have - windows to put in the new wall, beams - and eventually, bit by bit, it felt like we had a real project taking form. It's definitely plenty of work for my time here. What I'm a bit worried about is that we're not taking time to consider building in energy-saving items - like a solar shower for instance. I don't yet have the knowledge. It would have been good to know how to make strohball walls [compressed straw and mud walls] instead of building a wall out of classical parpaing. What I'm happy about is that we're making sure to keep whatever we take down intact so as to reuse it, either immediately or later.

Trip Diary Extracts - July

02 July, Haina

Wondering whether I shouldn't change my whole travel plans so as to be able to take part in the Frauenbaustelle [women's construction site] in Haina and Karlshof. The Haina weeks are from 02.08 - 14.08. I think the Karlshof one is in late August. Which would mean shortening France and überhaupt only going to Paris and Bretagne and not to Grange Neuve and/or Madrid.
[...]
I need more than four months of free travelling. Right now could imagine just going on like now for a while - although I would eventually have to think about how I secure my health insurance.
[...]
Spent most of Sunday afternoon clearning the after party rests, cleaning glasses, packing, putting stuff back where they'd been taken before the party. At 6pm I felt I'd done enough. Which got me thinking about time, chores, day structure. It is so easy to wake up, get up, have food and see whether something pops up during the day where I can help out. Go for walks. Read. Go to bed. And start again. I'm not really worried about it yet because I need a break, I need to feel how I can live with a totally different rhythm and feel for time outside of Berlin.
But in the long term, I would need to find a way to structure my day, have projects, have the feeling I'm going forward, not stagnating. And deserve my food...


04 July, Haina

All sorts of possible decisions slowly being made within me regarding trip and destinations.
[...] Confusion. I'd originally decided that tomorrow, Thursday, was the last day for me to leave and set off for Karlshof. But I've spent all day unsure as to whether I should follow the plan. I don't really feel like hitchhiking tomorrow, nor do I feel like leaving.


10/11 July, Berlin

How strange to be walking in the city today - to feel hard stone under my feet, walk though vast areas without fields or forests in the distance, feel how walking at my own rhythm disturbs other walkers - because I suddenly think and stop in the middl eof the path, not keeping in mind that I'm NOT alone in a vast open space. How strange also to realise the impact of trafic lights on one's rhythm - how my pauses in the walking are determined mechanically by the lights.
[...]
Arrived yesterday evening at Daniela's after a meeting of the Non-Commercial Agriculture network at Armin's in Niederfinow. I spent the weekend on Karlshof - drove up early on Saturday with Gudrun and Nadja. Sad I was to leave Haina... My last night there was spent chatting with Uwe, who eventually gave me a book - I'd said I had no novel with me - and seemed to genuinely want to see me again. I like Uwe. I missed him somehow after we left. I definitely left some starting roots in Haina.


13 July 07, Vigneux S/ Seine

I eventually managed to get to Vigneux yesterday evening after an exciting trip. The emotional highlights were the evening at Tobi and Marlene's in Cologne, and, on the next day, the Turkish trucker who was against letting me hitchhike alone.

The evening in Cologne was insanely comfortable. I arrived and felt at home. I had hesitated on the road and wondered whether it was a good idea to go to Tobi's, as, even though he's really fun and intelligen, I often ended up quiet and non-conversational. The first trucker who had picked me in Berlin - an Asterix look alike from Normandy - was heading for Paris and I considered just staying with him instead. But the thought of one last social evening in Germany was pleasing, and so I got off before Cologne and was taken to the corner of Tobi's street by a friendly young woman.

Marlene looked like Adam - squary glasses, small eyes, uneven hair cut, broad jaws. There was something satisfyingly punkish about her. Her name and her voice on the phone hadn't made me expect that. She was rushing to a meeting in a garden and Tobi and I said we would cook for her return two hours later.
So we peeled and sliced and cut and exchanged stories - stories about Haina people, other communities, hitchhiking and traveling. Marlene came back before I even noticed it was evening, and food was served. It was nice food, there was joking and more swapping of stories. Marlene has a spot in a schreber-garten like allotment, and they were interested to hear about Schreber father and son. It's amazing how nobody knows where the name for schrebergarten comes from, considering how the term is broadly used.
Eventually it was midnight, and we all went to bed. I felt like I'd known them for years, like I'd often come to their flat. It was strange, but sweetley comfortable. Tobi is an instantly lovable character. I had breakfast with him and chatted for another hour until I eventually got myself together and decided to set off. Marlene popped out of bed, all sleepy headed, to say bye, and Tobi took me to the bus stop. I will definitely see them again.

I got a lift to Aix la chapelle within 15 minutes and thought I would be near Paris in the afternoon. And it probably would have been the case if I hadn't foolishly taken a lift from a Turkish trucker who spoke no French, English nor German. He said he was heading for France, and as I showed him my route on the map, he nodded. It turned out we'd misunderstood one another fantastically. He was heading for Calais via Brussells, not via Lille. He stopped around 12.30 off the motorway in an industrial yone where a doyen other Turkish truckers had parked and were having their lunch break. [...] Another Trucker, younger guy, spoke French and German. I eventually realised I could use his services for translation. Pointing at the map in the coffee room, I made sure Ahmet understood that he had to let me get off at a services area before Gand. The young trucker translated, ensued a dialogue in Turkish I couldn't follow, and eventually he told me they were calling a taxi that would take me to Liege, from where I would take a train to Paris. They would pay for the ticket.
I stopped smiling and said in my most authoritative voice that IIII was the one deciding and I would not take a taxi to liege!
Ahmet was sad when he eventually left me before Brussels. He put a drink, an apple and a banana in a plastic bag and made sure I took it.
The situation didn't look rosy: I was on the wrong road, and had to handle a motorway crossing to get back in the right direction. I wasted several hours in Belgium and got to France (Lille) around 5 or 6pm. But bit by bit, I managed to get to St Denis and took the RER to Vigneux, calling father 20 mins before my arrival.
Arriving in Vigneux... The flat is cramped and greasy and dirty, and I realised I'd forgotten to say I'm practically a vegetarian now. I didn't feel like sleeping on the sofa and decided to take my Iso-matte and sleeping bag on the terrace. I don't know how long I'm staying.


15 July

Realised yesterday late afternoon that I'd missed the clown brigade's 14 July parade. I'd forgotten about it! I was upset, especially as it would have been a nice opportunity to get access to a different scene in France. But numbed as I was by the uneventfulness of passive banlieue life, I forgot all about political actions happening.
[...]
Vegetarianism. I realised as I arrived here that I hadn't really thought about the fact that I don't eat meat (unless I'm on the farm producing it). I would nearly have accepted eating meat here, out of habit, but I got myself together and didn't - which started some snippets of interesting discussion on meat as a luxury, the link to global food production and the destruction of the rainforest. But then, I don't always feel like having this discussion - for instance not with gabby today at lunchtime. Fortunately (in a way), I'm cooking for her and could decide to make the only French meal I know that is vegetarian: ratatouille.
[...]
Everything here is so different to my "normal" environment. I have to make special efforts to eat according to my principles, I'm surrounded by consumerism, abuse of packaging, wasteful use of resources - all done without a thought, taken for granted. And all set up in the frame of small family structures, bubbles where people think they feel safe and protected from whatever lies outside. [...] It's the first time I notice I'm disturbed by the small family structures and the impact they may have on people's mentality.


16 July

Been looking at all sorts of pages to find alternative projects in France. So many seem to have been evicted or somehow died. The only one that leaves constant traces is les tanneries in Dijon, which I'm more and more intrigued by.
I found that workshops on non-violent direct action were taking place, also a theater festival of the compagnie jolie mome near Clermont ferrand. So I've spent several hours perusing my maps and websites to find interesting places and figure out what I wanted to do. [...] I need to find out whether Xa would be interested in coming with me to the workshop + festival. It would mean shortening my time in Britanny.
-
Just talked to Xa who wasn't all up on the idea of going to Clermont because he'd looked forward to Corseul, which i can understand. That's alright. I should ask Veikko for the details of the project of a friend of his he mentioned in the ardeches somewhere. That would also be a station in central france that could conveniently take me away from the paris stop on my way back east. Or even provide a stop on my way south.
So: decided to move to Paris tomorrow and leave on Wednesday.


18 July, Rennes

Surrendered. Resisting in Paris and Banlieue is too difficult. Probably because I don't have the network to support me. I stood at Portes d'Orleans this morning in vain, the spot was bad, my hopes fairly low. And eventually my gut feeling said "take the train!" and I went back to the metro, up to Montparnasse, and bough a horrendously expensive train ticket to Dinan. Why not to Rennes, and hitch from there? I don't know. I just gave up for the day. I think it shows I'm not ready for the alternative tour of france and should go back to germany, where I feel I can fall back on my feet more certainly. but that's exactly what I'm not happy about - not trusting to take up the challenge.

Trip Diary extracts - June

17 June 07, Templin

Spent the last few days slowly 'arriving' and adapting to Karlshof - although adapting is the wrong word. I'm just taking my marks and taking time to discover the place and people, and to open up. Yesterday, the summer meetings started to discuss the future of the project and all the wonderful things that could be done within the network. At first it was difficult to find my position and see where discussions were or should be going. Eventually I realised that I'm sticking right in the beginning of the whole project - that I'm seeing the first impulses of a network forming, that I'm a witness to an exciting process.
It makes me want to stay longer here. I feel like going to France and Spain is Verzettelung [dissipation of energy]. Altogether, I seem to be more attached to Germany. I also want to take part in the Clowns' meeting sometime in September, somewhere in the Wendland.


19 June 07, Templin

Developing further. I eventually took informal responsibilitz for moderating the last discussion as well as the stimmungsbild [general mood of the group] this morning. Moderators are definitely endowed with a certain power, and as I was trying to formulate what cristalised from the stimmungsbild, I felt I was pushing one position over another, perhaps unfairly.
[...]
I feel strong alone, and feel it's a good thing I am taking my trip alone. Although I still have some uncertainties as to where I can go, these tend to disappear and I get the feeling I can easily visit the projects I want.


21 June 07, Templin

Opened Jungle World [a left wing German newspaper] this morning and saw a photo of Pia and Andi [two friend clowns] smooching on the grass surrounded by dozens of photographers. Heehee. And then I checked my mail and there was a message from Pia. Nice coincidence.
The G8 paranoia hasn't totally left me. Yesterday night, a helicopter flew over the house twice and I couldn't help thinking it had something to do with me and my email update to the friends - to openly talking about what I did? But it's ridiculous. And just a few minutes ago, hearing once again police sirens in the distance, took me back to Wichmannsdorf [the activist camp where I spent my g8 time with the clowns], where sirens were constantly part of the background noise.
Yesterday I pedalled into town to take petrol to [P] who was stuck there with the car. Turned out it wasn't because of lack of petrol but just because the car was broken. In any case, I realised once I was there that I hadn't left the farm at all in a week, which was strange. It's good that I'm leaving on Saturday and will spend time on other places.


23 June 07, Fuhlenhagen

Where in flip did I land? Arrived drenched at around 3pm in Fuhlenhagen. I got caught in a storm at Wittstock as I was trying to get to the right motorway entrance and tad to make do with covering myself and my bags with my bicycle pelerine rain coat, crouching in a bush and staring ahead of me as the hail bombarded my back. Other than the wet weather, hitchhiking went fairly well. I hopped from place to place on the small roads until, after the storm, somebody saw my drenched carcasse and took me all the way to Fuhlenhagen.
Fuhlenhagen! O merry a place! One street, 'Village Street' (Dorfstrasse), and NO-THING. This is paradise and hell all at once - more hell than paradise. The gardens are lovely and neat and look as if a full time gardener worked on each of them. The houses are huge with large windows. I walked up Dorfstrasse until I reached #7 which happened to be empty and lifeless. I put my bags in a dry corner and waited outside, walked around, dozed off, walked up and down Dorfstrasse in the hope of finding - haha!- a place where I could get hot chocolate, or even just chocolate. But nothing.
Eventually, after 2 hours of my being unsure of whether to wait more or run away and set up camp in a field (the wet weather and the food question left me waiting), a mini bus arrived with a family. I stood up from my stone and walked up to them - oh how awkward. A bubbly young woman jumped out, a younger girl with an inquisitive look, and eventually The Parents - a stern, thin, dull pair with no facial expressions. Both looked embarrassed as I introduced myself and explained I'd arrived earlier than planned (it has to be said I changed the date of my arrival twice...).
"Well..., the mother said, that... will work too..." with the most unconvinced tone.
It turned out the bubbly young woman had just been picked up at the airport after a year away in Namibia. What an awkward timing to arrive in a awkward family.
[...]
I felt so uncomfortable... longed for the chaos of Karlshof, where at least I didn't feel I was acting inappropriate when I was making myself at home. I am definitely not going to be able to stay until Thursday morning in this place. As if to make it even clearer that I don't belong here, the cup I ended with at tea time said "Rudolf-Steiner-Grundschule". It feels like I've landed in a sect.
[...]
Felt melancholic during the day... on my trip, drove through the Bombodrom, passed the point where we'd entered into the forbidden zone on June first, and then through Schweinrich. 23 days ago that all was...! Tomorrow, Morgan is taking his boat to Canada. Wonder if I'll ever see him again. Thought of how I met the Vienna gaggle - Andi pestering against his bus. Katia, Suse, Markus - and Striedl of course. Longing for clowns' days. [...] And being stranded in this religious-alike family doesn't help me feel better.


24 June 07, Fuhlenhagen

[...] Am really having melancholic fit. Feeling lonely. Looking at the map to figure out where and how to go next (Doch Lübnitz zuerst? Visit Martin? Straight and earlier to Haina? If Lübnitz first, cancel weekend option in Berlin with clowns and leave earlier for France?) I end up staring at Wittstock-Schweinrich-Zechlin and longing once again for the camp. Why? Where does it come from? It was only one day at the bombodrom, so why do I have such intense links to it? I think what most disturbs me is the temporality of the even. It's not like Berlin - going back there, the people that I left when I set off will be around. But in Zempow and Wichmannsdorf, there is absolutely no one now. The whole life, community, feeling of common action, of togetherness - gone. I guess I must be mourning.
--
7pm. Very interesting afternoon spent with the Wirtschaftsgemeinschaft [economic community]. Started with a presentation on breeding and on the being of the plant, and how one could draw how it felt to eat the energy of a such a plant. The people seemed to buy it all enthusiastically, even the drawings of food-energy-perception, light etc. The farmer added that if we kept on eating plants which hadn't been planted and bred with "the idea of the plant" in mind, then our health would suffer. I'd never been in a setting with lots of grown ups accepting such esoteric shit. But why not... [...]
But then came the discussion and lots of questions I had [on the parallel economic structures] either got answered or raised, so that I could get a much clearer picture of how it all works. I also talked to a handful of members and to the treasurer. The latter finds the idea of decoupling money from the products fantastic and insisted the products in itself had nothing to with money, only the production and work behind it did. It is the agricultural activity, not the products, that people need to think of and finance. Most members - or at least the ones I talked to - seemed however only (or mostly) interested in food quality.
[...]
There was something very church like about the venue where we were gathered - including some spiritual-light-angel tzpe painting one gets in modern protestant churches. And there was some loud collective thanking of mother earth at lunchtime. I looked and smiled but it didn't help me one bit to feel more at ease.
[...]
Just talked to Haina and checked that I could arrive on Tuesday. Woman said was no problem. Looking forward to being in chaotic-collective settings once again.


27 June 07, Haina

Haina is gorgeous. And hitchhiking yesterday went wonderfully according to plan. Except... I arrived in Haina, or close by at the Autobahn exit, at 7pm. I called up to be picked up and explained where I was. The guy couldn't really understand the name of the place - until he eventually realised I had headed for the OTHER Haina... It was 7pm, I was in the middle of nowhere, and had to travel back to where I had been earlier in the afternoon, to the CORRECT Haina. The comic of the situation was well mixed with a dose of bitter annoyance. Hardly anyone drove up the motorway heading for Erfurt, and if they did, they were only going for the next exit. I hesitated: should I just pitch my tent in the field along the road and give up for the day? I had eaten my last sandwich and appel earlier in the afternoon and am too food obsessed these days to renounce a meal or even two.
So I took the next car that stopped. The grumpy man drove me to a train station - GRIMMENTHAL - which looked a mess and had no indication of when trains came nor where they went. I felt no trains ever came and would be stuck there for the rest of my life. Soon after though, my train came.
I was heading back for Eisenach - which I'd reached around 3pm with Philipp who had taken me in the pouring rain at Hildesheim and happened to head exactly for my way. We drove past where I should really had gotten off - but I didn't know.

In any case, once in the train, a certain sense of comfort took hold of me. I was unhappy about having paid 10.60, but considering I hadn't paid anything to get to Hamburg, to eat and sleep in Buschberghof, and to get down to Thuringia, it's still ok. The scenery was lovely - after flat brandenburg and mecklemburg, Thuringia is all hills and small mountains.

[...] How relieved I was to eventually arrive... at nearly 10pm...
Beautiful it is here. I slept in a Bauwagen [living wagon] - une roulotte. Small and sweet. The moon was beaming outside the window along the bed, the river goggling close by, hills and trees in the background - and delicious bread, cheese and farm produced saussage in my belly. I felt a deep and exciting sense of happiness.
The group here is much bigger than in Karlshof. It makes it more difficult to remember names - but the people are friendly. The family structures are much clearer than in Karlshof - clear papa-mama Bezug, and the parents take care of their own children. I suppose Karlshof is special in that respect because there is only one small child born in the community - and lots of single adults willing to treat Ella as their kid.


28 June 07, Haina

Funny coincidence - Benni from Ulenkrug whom I'd briefly seen in December there, and then again at the camp in Rostock, then in Wichmannsdorf, is here too until next week.
I've moved out of the roulotte until after the party, as it was planned to have someone sleep there who is arriving today.
[...]
Feeling a little unsocial tonight. I still need to arrive, settle down, get more of a feel for the people. Although this is already well on its way. Most of all I need to sort out my own uncertainties regarding my absolute lack of practical sense - or at least practical experience. I feel like I'm doing everything for the first time - setting up a dish-washer, unscrewing a bar off a Gerüst [scaffold]. I feel pretty useless most of the time and hope that people will tell me what to do - which isn't a good behaviour.


29 June 07, Haina

[...]
I don't really feel like leaving this place. As I was walking over to the Scheune [barn] this afternoon, I realised I was doing exactly what I wanted to do back last winter - visiting communces, these places I could locate on the map and had only heard of. I had found the entrance key. And yes. I am glad to be travelling alone. But I think I said that already.

69 lifts, 6 kilos, a skin mushroom and four months later...

Back in Berlin, back in my flat, back at work. The absurdity of it all - I step into my room, 30 square meters, way too big - whenever I had my own private space during the trip, it was usually my tent, and I came to perceive it as a luxurious portable home. I nearly felt like setting it up in my room - to feel back at home... I open my cupboard - empty of course as I'd put all my stuff away for the person who took my room during part of my trip - but it's so huge, or seems to be compared to my rucksack. I open the trunk where my clothes are stored to try find clean trousers and wonder why on earth I have so much stuff. And then I can't even put my old trousers on because I've put on weight anyway. Tomorrow will be spent sorting out stuff and keeping a minimum, giving away everything that's superfluous. Packing my rucksack out yesterday, I felt like packing everything back in. My sleeping bag, my isomate - basically my furniture - how strange to store them in other, solid furniture. Walking through the streets with four months of memories, people, moments, tied to my back. Confusion. Noise. People playing Car Driver, playing Woman, playing roles. Children crying. Police sirens. Buildings. Senseless repetition of activities, day in and day out. much to write...