Text and images Britt Arnhild Wigum Lindland
During my three weeks in India in 2008, I spent time every day on Carolyn and Hossy's terrace, talking with Carolyn, writing in my diary, painting and reading. Mostly reading. What a pleasure it was to come to this house filled with books, and what a pleasure to find a kindred spirit according female travel litterature.
I digged deep into Carolyn's book shelves, and while staying east of the sun, west of the moon, far from little Norway, in my mind, through Carolyn's books, I kept on travelling, east and west, north and south.
I have collected female travel litterature for the past 9 years, ever since I discovered its heaven in the bookstores of New York when I in October 2002 spent two weeks there as an observer at the UN General Assembly. I could hardly carry my suitcases when I went back home from there, and ever since my collection has been growing.
In Carolyn's collection I found dear old friends and also travel writers new to me. Like Isabella Bird. Carolyn's terrace and Isabella Bird's travels in Japan go perfectly together in my mind. I can't think of one without the other. Carolyn and Hossy have lived in Japan for many years, and now and then I let Bird's books rest in my lap while listening to Carolyn's tales from their years there.
For me it created a dream........to travel to Japan.
I was in Oslo yesterday, for a day trip, and sat on the airport train when the devastating news from Japan reached me.
Today my thoughts and prayers go to Japan!
My cry is "why God?", and still in the middle of my despair, of the world's despair, I know that God is there, is here, somewhere.......
Photos: Carolyns garden in India
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Let me also take you on a Haiti memory travel today:
In a small corner of our livingroom I have gathered some travel memories. I look at the items and my mind wanders to Eritrea, to Laos, India, The Dominiac Republic, Italy........and today most of all to Haiti.
It was October 1998 and I was asked by Norwegian Church Aid to go to Haiti and The Dominican Republic for two weeks together with a small group. The goal was to bring back information to the churches in Norway in connection with Norwegian Church Aid's annual Lental Campaign.
It was my first travel out of Europe, I left Terje home alone for two weeks with four kids, the youngest one, Marta, only 2 1/2. But the most exciting and kind of frightening part was that we were going to visit a country only days after Hurricane George which killed over 400 people and destroyed 80% of all the crops in the country.
I am sitting here with my travel diary from the two weeks. A diary filled with strong impressions, with memories when I wanted to close my eyes and take the first plane back to Europe, but also memories of a beautiful, strong, fighting, though shy (in my eyes) people.
We divided the two weeks between Haiti and The Dominiac Republic, and most of out time in Haiti were spent in Port au Prince. In a small, charming hotel with a swimmingpool where we could rest between our meetings with people and organisations. There I could pray for the children we met at the orphanage run by The Salvation Army, there I could cry out my "why" to God after seeing the sufferings in the prison we visited downtown, where prisoners lived for years without trials, without hopes. There we could laugh and cry, sleep and eat.......though most of my nights were filled with thoughts and prayers rather than sleep. And there I could linger on sweet memories from a night at Hotel Olafsson, where Graham Greene sat his novel The Comedians.
One day we drove out into the countryside, where the hurricane had done severe damage. We slept overnight at a guesthouse and I spent the whole night listening to the strange noises of a world so completely different from my soft security at home.
I am reading my travel diary tonight, and my thoughts go to the people of Haiti.
Right now they are in need of almost everything, and we can all help. Norwegian readers, you can read more at Norwegian Church Aid's pages, international readers, please find the way your country (through UN, Red Cross, CARE and organisations like them) is giving their support.
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Later tonight I plan to start rereading Edwidge Danticat's books;
