dear Indian,

i feel the lack of our cancelled meeting already. i am still talking to you sometimes in my head - now i try to convert a part of it into written text. hm. perhaps it is even better that i can share pieces of the chaos in my mind that i am continuously trying to organize only now, since i can give account of a basic change happening these days in my attitude towards perception.

to make it clean-cut, i have got into my stride to perform all my plans and tasks. i do not wait for myself  to be mature, prepared and well-skilled anymore. i wake up in the morning and it is just somehow natural that my day becomes so structured by its end without the smallest effort of constructing it -  i find it entertaining.

taking it by and large, my attention is divided into three more or less equally present projects (i do not like this word but now i am too lazy to figure out a proper alternative for it).

in this frosty weather one can hardly feel, but the spring is closer and closer, the time when we will start creating our garden and glasshouse in the yard of the monastery. i have no idea about cultivation. in turn, i have great wishes. this fact presses me to start an investigation on the related methods and techniques.

in the case of the kitchen garden i plan to construct a permacultural site with native species of plants and animals which needs to be planned carefully in the beginning, but becomes almost completely self-sustaining with time. I guess you know the system, but if you have some free time (i know that you rarely do) check this site: http://www.green-shopping.co.uk/ebooks/free-ebooks.html . this afternoon i'm gonna check the farmers in the neighbourhood, in the hope i find someone who is working with permaculture here. we have a common ground, soil and weather features - their experience is most precious. and i love to chat with farmers, indeed. ripping company.

the greenhouse: along with the plants i want to put fish inside. this set-up is the aquaponics that i was talking about to you in Toldi last time. if i really happen to start it, i will write you how that is going.

my other focus is on the work within the refugee camp. we have a lot of fun with the children in the open handcraft workshops, though we communicate in Dutch that is not my second language in fact. we have got to like each other. i have thought of inviting them for some afternoons to work with us in the garden. or rather playing around in the yard.

after discussing it with the sisters it seems that we, volunteers can be a link between the camp and the convent. i am glad that the community of the monastery is open to be involved in activities with the refugees though it is not that all clear yet exactly how. it is something that we have been working out these days.

i discovered after having started to work with these people that i have got to be committed to their case. it is something that just happened. i feel responsible.

the third subject of my focus is a concept that i have been working with in the ceramic workshop. it is related to fish with human heads. but for now this is all i want to say about it.

well, i got bored with writing. but you know that i have never really been fond of it. yep, one more thing... in this past few years that we have known each other i was rather motivated by the activities without taking care of their outcome. i discovered that i am interested in the results again. 

i hope it is going fine with you. write me when you feel like it. please email me your postal address - there has to be at least one postcard that has success in reaching you.

big hug,

ildi

ps. i am still not able to stand on the board.