Leaving

It is Thurs­day morn­ing, 8 o’clock. With a huge water­mel­on in my back­pack and a full shop­ping bag hang­ing at the han­dle­bar, I cycle through Gilling­ham on Freddy’s bicy­cle. I deliv­er the big bag at the char­i­ty shop halfway, but the mel­on is com­ing with me to work. It will be part of our farewell …

Natural history

A lit­tle red bee­tle walks over my arm. On this won­der­ful­ly warm Sat­ur­day I have noth­ing on my to-do list, so I can enjoy our square meter of veg­etable gar­den. Dur­ing the week, Fred­dy is the hero in the gar­den who keeps every­thing alive. The bean plants tum­ble over their grow­ing strings and bloom abundantly. …

Happy Holi!

Slow­ly but sure­ly I’m find­ing my feet in the office. This week I brought two plants and today installed them in their pots, with our new peat free com­post. Today I saw that my new name­plate adorns the door of our office. I also saw a jar with bright pink pow­der on the desk of …

Run for your life

There is noth­ing like a half hour run to start the day full of ener­gy. The sun peeks through the low hang­ing clouds and the sky looks dif­fer­ent every morn­ing. At moments like that I am total­ly in touch with my pri­mal feel­ings: run­ning across the savan­nah instead of star­ing at a com­put­er screen. My …

Moon, Mandela, Muslims

Today the moon is round again — we have been liv­ing in Gilling­ham for three months. I have not exact­ly expe­ri­enced them very con­cious­ly. Espe­cial­ly since I work in the office, my life is a bit lim­it­ed and not very excit­ing. An overview of the high­lights: Fred­dy and I sang in a gospel choir during …