Working sunday

Im supposed to write my quarterly report to our Foundation Board. Im supposed tor write about the project I have been nursing for three and a half years. The plans for the future. Fulfilled goals. Funding requests. Sales statistics. Im supposed to write about how Im now planning to recruit someone else to take over my job. To within 6 months make myself useless...or maybe useful...as something else.

Im trying to find energy and motivation to start writing. You know how it is. When you HAVE to do something boring... So I decided to take the morning slow. After my jog in the sunrise I sat down with my tasteless instant coffee, some music...and painted. I havent had time for that in weeks. And it felt good to try to put the colours in the right places again. Organize the chaos of shades and forms. I will shar the painting once its finished...its of one of the women in the project. Staring at the viewer, colourful with all her bling bling....


By the way...valentines day was yesterday... This is how I dream love will finally feel like. Just love this painting...the person that painted it is clearly a genius...a romantic genius...

Handmade baskets

Today my head is all into baskets.



Im doing this consultancy in a week or so for a handicraft project up in norther Kenya. Its a group of Rendille and Samburu women who have been weaving traditional camel milking baskets for quite some time but needs a bit of help when it comes to design, quality, marketing....well almost everything...

Im a bit freaked out about this whole thing. First of all, I have never taught a intense workshop with 60 illiterate bush women before on how to think about design and quality... I mean I have been working with it for some years now but in a project where it has come gradually, over time. The place itself is also scary enough, probably stunningly beautiful, but very far far away in a arid and harsh landscape. I will be there for a week. Relying on the plane to come and pick me back to civilization and mobile phone network again.

Ok, so HOW do you make these baskets look more appealing? How do we sell them?
That is the big question of today...

And I better come up with something good...my career and future development lies lurking within this...

Panic...slightly...

Kindness

I read this great article in the Guardian Weekly on the concept of kindness.
I suppose most of us dont think about it so much...kindness...and what it does to us. What it is and why we do acts of kindness.
Kindness controls our world. Its something we are teaching ourselves to live without. Because people are mean, evil and always have hidden motifs. Many of my friends have become bitter cynics, and we are just in late 20ies/early 30ties... why? because we dont believe that there is kindness in everyone anymore.

A act of kindness from someone can bring out all sorts of emotions. No matter what, it is emotional. Has a random stranger ever been nice to you? For no reason?

In the animal world apparently kindness is a bit different. There all supposedly random acts of "being nice" are to gain something personally. To survive. Does that apply to us too? Or can we still just be genuinely kind?

Im trying to think, when did I last do something that was just kind? Without a hidden agenda..? And Im thinking of my friends and people I know, and how they are sometimes choosing kindness and sometimes not.

Can we even call it kindness when there is a hidden motif?

Is kindness more about the general goodwill and group survival or about individuals? Is it a habit or something more random?

However...at the end of the day...kind actions is what makes us feel, trust, love, share and bond. So Im gonna be more kind. From today. Kindness is beautiful word.

Embrace..yes Im going to embrace

There are so many things to marvel about every day. Small things.
The happiness spreading in my body as I drink that great Dormans coffee in the morning...only that is a mind blowing human little thing that makes life good and happy.

Today is a good day. Just because our office is finally almost a place where I want to sit and work. Its comfy now. Almost nice. And after painting over the scratches on the big lion print on the wall I feel quite content having a big male lion staring at me while Im spending only 30 min...or 45...reading blogs and facebook thingies...and pretending to work. Well, Im thinking about the project review tomorrow...so that is almost work right?!

Im back in Nairobi and feet down on the ground. That urge to call him and go over to his place and...well you know...its there. But Im keeping it on a safety distance so far.

So today and hopefully tomorrow...Im gonna keep open minded, embrace whatever comes next and make my day a bit better with small means. I can spoil myself if I want to. If there was a good place for shopping I certainally would go buy something luxurious and glammy...but as I dont have that many options here I think I might just dye my hair.

Ok, maybe work now...

I feel like kissing someone....mmmwwwaaah.....lovesick...love struck...little me....

I suppose there is a certain feeling of accomplishment when I actually reflect over the work done by the women. Its easy to be blind for what you see every day. And I forget that what they are making are unique things. And those things have sprung from my creativity and their heritage.

But somewhere along the line I lost my motivation. I lost the energy and my way of clinging onto my happy believes. I might have become a cynic.

Its time to restore that. At least partially.

I do believe...still...in a person like Naramat for example.

I believe in her spontaneous laugh, her curious eyes and how she bares hear head high and never stops learning and living each day fresh. Im not sure I would do that if I had a drunkard of husband and a whole heap of cows and muddy goats to tend to, fetch water and firewood, raise children and make food and still have time to come work with this crazy white lady...

Why are we so great when we are close together. As close as it gets.
And ridiculously bad at being apart.
Still making the same mistakes.

Tearing and trashing the little kindness that rested in between us.

A dear friend told me yesterday that I need to chill out more, that I need to put my anxiety behind me and no be super efficient, super producing and super good all the time. That I should stop hitting the ball over and over again over the net without someone playing with me. I need to sit back, relax and drink a lemonade until the other player decides to hit the ball back. My friend was talking about work. But I reckon it goes for my personal life too.

In my eagerness I let myself down all the time.

And while Im at it. I feel guilty for feeling rubbish about life when Im so privileged, when I have such a amazing life full of fun stuff. So I shall stop sulking. And I shall stop beating myself up about it.

I have been without you for as long as
We were an item
For as long as I tiptoed in your world
For as long as you were part of my daily thinking routine


Still you occupy my unconscious moments of longing
When I seek for something
When I remember how it felt
To be attached to your skin

How we melted together only to be stuck with unbearable silence
How our bodies spoke the language
Our tongues didn’t manage
Like a birds nest I rested in your security
Of unspoken words

I know that you want me
Still
You know how I would bend for you
Remember
The passion so much greater than all those angry voices
All the tension and anxiety

But it wasn’t our time
Would it ever be?
More than the time of our bodies
More then the time of your unfolded length
And my pale skin

In my heart
Still a place for you
A piece that is broken
Until
You
You in a softer version

What happened to you?
What happened to me?
It felt so good to be close again.
And so shit to realize we were still doing the same mistakes.

It appears we only function when we are as close as it gets.
Any sort of distance creates a universe of downfall between us.

I cant stand the thought of not being important.
You cant stand me requesting you to exist in my world.

The only way we know how to love
is not right
and you refuse to fight
and I remain to hope
for the sake of resting a minute with you

Im in Christmas denial

For the first time ever I miss Christmas. I miss celebrating it with my family. Sitting in my mothers kitchen eating sweets, drinking coffee and staring at candles burning. Breathing in the smell of the christmas tree. Indulge in bad family movies all day. Bum around the house in woolen socks looking out the window praying for snow. Those things...things I miss.

Im far from my family and my friends and I miss closeness on a day like today. Yes, I do feel a bit sorry for myself. So the cure is to deny that it is christmas at all. To ignore it. And its not hard, being where I am. Not hard at all.

So let me now go and make some more coffee, munch a cookie and stare out my window on the bright african day.