Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

My Travel Diary

@brittarnhild

I always write a travel diary when we travel. As long as I am on the road I use my every day journal, taking notes, writing down travel tales, and then, when I am back home, I write out the day to day tales in a Moleskin. Over the years I´ve gathered a cupboard full of travel tale books.

For the moment I am a little behind with my writing, no I am actually way behind. I am still in Ethiopia, writing about my days there in October 2013. Still waiting are London, Tenerife, Terracina, Venecia.....and then our east, west, south, north in Norway summer.

Soon another travel is coming up.
It is time to make myself busy!

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The photos are from the Ethiopian countryside, somewhere west in the country, outside Bodji.

By the way, writing travel tales is so much fun, it is like reliving the travel all over again. And when I am too old to travel, which will not be for many, many years still as I plan to travel till I am 90, I will sit down and read my travel books :-)

 

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A travel tale from the day I took these photos:
We were out in the countryside, learning about how the local farmers, with help from the church, took care of the fertile soil. Eruption and termites are a great problem. I was busy shooting photos when I suddenly felt my leg was itching. "Au!" I criedf out load, and looking down I saw a long line of huge ants crawling up my leg. And believe me, these ants knew how to bite. The project leader who took us around started to laugh, grabbed his camera and shot a series of photos of the helpless white lady........... I am sure he has show the photos to all his friends! And I learned my lesson - always wear long pants when you explore unkmnown territory.

 

The tales from Ethiopia

@brittarnhild

I am writing a series of tales from Ethiopia in connection with the project we have; Give us this day our daily bread. The tales are based on stories heard, tales told, experiences shared during our time there this autumn. I had my notebook with me everywhere, making notes, writing down ideas, sketching, and a set of tale started to form in my mind.

The process of transforming my notes into tales worth reading, is time consuming, is difficult, feels impossible.........

- seven coffee beans in a picher
- one single candle lit on the middle of the diningroom table
- a kitchen without windows
- injera made and shared
- a dad proudly showing his children´s school reports
- ant bites

As I search for the words, I realize how these stories have changed my life, are changing my life. And I have a deep desire that the words can do magic in other people´s lives as well. Open our eyes. Let our hearts beat a little faster, a little warmer.

 The project we are doing together with the Ethiopians is called
Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread.

A prayer taught us by Jesus.
Give us, not give me, not give them.

Here, as so often in life, I feel like an apprentice.
I do have the best Master to teach me though,

and today, as every day, I fold my hands, silence my mind,
and pray.

 

Our Father in Heaven
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.

 

 

Along the road

@brittarnhild

Terje is on his way down south to visit his 90 years old father. Torgeir, our oldest son is on his way down south to visit his 90 years old grandfather. Terje has an overnight work stop in Oslo on his way down. Torgeir has an overnight work stop on Bergen on his way down.

In Terje´s suitcase are two handmade wooden object from Ethiopia. A gift from me to my father in law. 

My father in law is a wood artist, and make the most wonderful objects. From beautiful tiny pieces to all kinds of furniture. Aged 90 he is still down in his basement workshop for hours every day.

Along the road in Ethiopia we stopped at a small outdoor workshop where two men were busy woodworking. The Norwegian word for what they are doing is dreiing, I have searched in vain for an Engliah name for this wooden art. May be my readers can help me?

 I was thrilled to watch the woodworkers. How they worked in pairs, all manual labour, how they both knew exactly what to do, how they created the most lovely pieces of art. I had a hard time trying to decide what to buy, and ended up buying A LOT. Unfortunately a few of the pieces cracked in my suitcase on the plane, probably because of the dry cold air, but I think my father in law will be able to repair them. As soon as I came home I oiled all the pieces in olive oil, giving the wood a beautiful shining texture.

Lovely souvenirs from a lovely country.

 

Am I a real African girl now?

@brittarnhild

 I have been back home for almost a week now. It is Sunday morning in The House in the Woods. I am just out of the shower. My hair is dripping wet, even though I used two towels to dry myself, one for the hair, one for the body. Terje is making breakfast. We will have tea, juice, pastries, eggs, cheese, jam, honey, yoghurt. We will, as always on Sundays, set the table with a beautiful china. I have been back home a week. A week of daily showers, a week of comfortable nights under my eiderdown duvet, a week of family meals

I love comfort. I love clean water, I love to be able to change towel every time I shower, I love my eiderdown duvet. I love to be back home.

And I miss Africa.

 Yes, I miss Africa.
I am not sure if I could live there for a long time though. I am too spoiled with the Norwegian comforts of everyday life.

Though, who knows. May be I could adapt. 

 I remember when I was in India a year ago, there were some problems with the water, and one morning Sheri, my Indian mother´s daughter, who lives in Rome, came down to breakfast. Freshly showered.

"I am a real Indian girl" she smiled, "I can shower under a bucket of cold water"

 May be I can say that I am a real African girl now. Yes, I can shower under a bucket of cold water. Though I did wait to wash my hair until I was able to add some hot water in the bucket. Sure, I think I can say that I am a real African girl. I could even use an old cotton scarf for towel when I showered under my bucket of cold water.

 I did miss my eiderdown duvet though. My eiderdown duvet with absolutely no fleas.

 

I had planned to let yesterday´s post be the last one from Ethiopia. But it seeems like the tales won´t stop. May be I should continue to Agrica-blog over in Caffe Avec, which is actually meant to be my travel blog.......

And there might always be more Africa post over in Books on the Menu if you are interested in books.....

And who knows, there might even be one or two in Blåklokkeveien :-)

 

Another kind of a Saturday morning photo walk

@brittarnhild

I am back home after my Saturday morning photo walk. Today I have been walking in parts of Trondheim where I have never been before, and the photos and the tales will be posted tomorrow, or another day.........

I can´t remember last time I had a Saturday morning photo walks. The weekends have been filled with so many other things.......but when I look back, I realise that the photo walks have been there, all the same, though not in Trondheim.

 

Like a week ago. It was my last day in Ethiopia. We were in Lalibela. I packed my suitcase, my backpack and my camera bag, not knowing until a few days later that a bunch of fleas decided to come with me up north. After breakfast we were picked up by a prebooked car with a driver and our guide from the previous day. The drive from Lalibela to the tiny little domestic airport takes about half an hour.

Last Saturday it took longer. It was market day in Lalibela, like all Saturdays, and the road was filled with people walking in from the nearby villages and the remote mountains.

"Everybody comes to town on the market days" our guide told us. And he continued; "For many years I used to work up in the mountains, for Plan International. It took us five hours to walk from where I lived to Lalibela. On market days we always walked there, the five hours in the morning, then another five hours back in the afternood. As I worked as a teacher, I had nothing to sell. I walked there to meet people. And to have coffee!"

Most people carried with them what they were going to sell at the market. Some had heavy loads. Others had a hen, a few potatoes, a twig of herbs. If they could sell their goods they got money, or may be they could trade, tef (the grass they use to make injera, the typical sourdough pancake eaten everywhere) in exchange for a few coffee beans, a few papayas for some meat, cotton for a little sugar.......

My thoughts wander. I put away my camera and shot images with my heart instead. I reflect upon the life I am living. Where I can walk over to our local gvrocery store and buy whatever I want. Where my main concern is - there is so much to choose from, I have no idea what to make for dinner tonight.......

In Ethiopia people are lucky if they get one dinner a month with meat. In the news I read that in Norway an average consumer eat 77 kilo meat per year!

 The school of life has something to teach us. Every day.

The churches of Lalibela, the world´s 8th wonder

@brittarnhild

Already when we walked around, I told myself: this is going to be fantastic to blog about. Every time I sit down to write a new blog, I am thinking: Lalibela. But then my mind goes blank. No, that´s not correct. My mind doesn´t go blank at all, it goes rainbow!

Lalibela was so impressing. So different from everything I have seen elsewhere.

I had read a lot about the eleven churches of Lalibela before I came. I had seen pictures. Still I was completely unprepared. And walked around asking myself - is this real?

After my visit I have read Philip Marsden´s book The Chains of Heaven, and as I lack words myself to describe this place, I borrow some from Marsden:

 Lalibela is a town to die in. The tunnels that once linked the complex of churches are clogged with centuries of corpses. To make a pilgrimage to Lalibela eases your later passage to heaven - but to die here is much better. The soil itself is sacred, and those who take the journey are buried in shallow graves.

......It is not known precisely when the churches were carved, whether they were started during the thirteenth-century reign og King Lalibela or much earlier. Nor is it known where all the excavated rock was deposited, nor if any outside expertise was responsible. 

I have read somewhere that it must have been 40.000 men working on the churches. Or rather, they must have been built by angels. The legend tells that king Lalibela fell into a trance and was transported up to the heavens, and there he saw the eleven churches he was to build.

Philip Marsden again: So Lalibela became a Biblical Land in miniature. Here is Golgatha, Cana and Nazareth. Beneath Calvary is the Tomb of Adam. I had skirted the slopes of Mount Tabor. Mount Sinai, crossed the River Jordan and climbed the Moint of Olives. In the compound of Beta Maryam, I had bent to smell the single rosebush from the Garden of Eden. Beside the church of Beta Giorgis is a slope f un-dug rock which is Mount Ararat.

Often I say to myself: the world is filled with so many thing, places, people you have absolutely no idea about, how will I ever know it all, how will I ever experience it all, how will I ever learn it all.......

But then I know - it is not up to me to know it all, to experience it all, to learn it all. What is up to me is to know, to experience, to learn...... to LIVE!

 

Thank for walking the way of LIFE with me.

 

Maria, Mary, Miriam…….

@brittarnhild

Maria, Mary, Miriam. Her name is a little different around the world, but she herself is the same. The Holy Mother, who gave birth to Jesus. I am working on a book about her, a novel, where I follow her from childhood till old age. I read what I can find. The Bible. The Apocrypha. Legends. Novels. And wherever I go, she is with me.

Not only in my heart and mind. Not only in the written words. But also on a tiny road somewhere in Ethiopia. On her way to the market, together with her beloved Joseph, with the gem of her heart Jesus and with her dear old donkey.

Sturdy Joseph, always to be trusted. Jesus with his mind elsewhere, the faithful donkey who never complains. Maria´s heart is light as she walks towards the market with her husband, her son and her dear animal friend. At the same time it is heavy. A deep sorrow she know is waiting for her, today, tomorrow, next year or in twenty hears. She can already feel tears pricking behind her eyes.

 

While walking, her thoughts wander to the night when the angel came. With the impossible message,

 

to the strength from Elisabeth´s embrace when they shared their secrets,

 

to the long, difficult flight to Egypt,
when the baby, the man and the donkey were her only weapons to fight insanity.

Maria had known all her life that joy and sorrow were to be her companions.
Joy and sorrow.

A refugee. A queen.
A mother. A wife. A woman. 

 

She looked up and let her eyes rest on Joseph´s strong shoulders.
Love filled her, and with a smile she turned and met the eyes of her son.

 

 

 Photos:
two first one from a town somewhere in western Ethiopia
third from Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa
two last ones from St.Mary´s church in Lalibela 

 

The only way I know……..

@brittarnhild

Sharon commented on yesterday´s post about the rool-up book: Is there any way we can purchase one that you know of?

Sure there is a way. Not only a way, but the best way......

We asked the people we met: how can we help you, what is the best help we can give?

Again and again we got the same answer....

Come and visit us. Come to Ethiopia. Come as tourists. Leave your money. Stay in hotels. Eat our food. Buy our souvenirs.

Ethiopia is a beautiful country. Ethiopians are beautiful people.

Sharon, and all you others. Go to Ethiopia. There you can buy your own roll-up books. There you can take part in the coffee seremones in the birthplace of coffee. There you can count the million shades of green. There you can mirror yourself in the eyes of a smiling child. There you can eat well and leave rich tips. There you can........

.......there you can.......well, tell me, what would you like to do in Ethiopia?

I know of a lot of things I will do when I go back :-)

Behind the Blue Door. A Prayer.

@brittarnhild

A blue door caught my interest. Then I saw the paintings hanging from the fence.

It was dark inside the hut with the blue door, but when I came closer I saw a young man painting roll-up books.

Even closer I saw that he painted Mary, and Jesus, and the archangel Gabriel.

 

Now one of the roll-up books is mine. Part of my nativity collection. I will hang it all year round though. Behind a blue door. The door which opens in to my studio.

I will hang the painting today. And it will be a prayer. A prayer for my dear cousin who is fighting for her life. Against the ugly, devastating enemy cancer.

Please pray with me for Berit Olga and her family.

 

The photos are from Lalibela, in Ethiopia

 

A Land of no Safaris

@brittarnhild

Marta is going to Kenya in February, and during her stay she will go on a safari. It sounds like a dream, doesn´t it? Safari in Africa. I have to admit I am a bit jealous........or may be not. I did not go on a safari in Ethiopia, as far as I know it is not a safari land. But with an open eyed driver, with a deep love for his country, we were still able to get our adventures.

As soon as Ermias understood that nature fascinates me, he started to point out trees, flowers, birds.......and baboons. From somewhere under his seat he dug out an illustrated Birds of Africa. I drank the information greedily, wrote notes in my journal, shot photos.

One day we drove much longer than we had planned. Darkness fell and we started to look for pair of shining eyes along the road. May be we would, surrounded by the safety of the land rover, be able to see a real, wild animal. "Ermias, tell us if you see a wild animal" we asked, and suddenly he stopped the car. "Look over there" he cried, "can you see the hyenas?"

Oh my! We could for sure!

When we stopped I often picked a flower to press in my journal. Ermias had a poster with flowers and showed me their names. Then pointed out a bird, another tree, different types of grass and grains.

 

I loved to seek for new flowers and trees, to count the multitude of different greys, to watch birds. But when Ermias stopped the car and pointed out to us the baboon I had to laugh out load. I might never take part in a safari in Agrica, but I have seen a baboon doing gymnastics in the high voltage mast :-)