Sunday, October 24, 2010

Trailer tales...



Autumn in Håga gård


Once upon a time in a land 4km from Uppsala city center there lived a beautiful princess. Her tall height and her proper manners were known all over the imaginary land. There was just one itsy bitsy detail that seemed to get in the way... and that she was lazy. However, the times she wasn't lazy, she just wasn't bothered to bat an eyelash about it!

So the days went by and she watched her ever so vigilant and highly skillful neighbor build an enormous palace, with beautiful verandas, delicate windowsills, walls with wooden panels and a whole future of possibilities of the most beautiful palace in the village. She kept wishing she knew her way around a saw and hammer to enchant her palace as well...

Vilhelm, my crafty man, shaping the window panels

My neighbor's roofed veranda with a terrace and storage

Testing if the planks hold... they did

She toiled about, dared to venture into the world of paint brushes and toners and ended up with a mango bedroom, pink living room and a minty green kitchen. But that wasn't enough. She pondered over the possibility of a bed-in-air so she could pretend to levitate but the enormity of the project confounded her. She she sat about, musing and pondering over the delicate matters of finding the material, making plans...

Caravana coffee time... sitting on my neighbor's roof overlooking the fields with Domkyrkan in the background

and suddenly a handsome old farmer prince came to the rescue the princess and build her palace bigger and stronger and warmer...


Olle Stevenholt, our landlord

or at least that's what she thought. Within few minutes, he showed his true colors and contampelated to bring down the palace walls...

Olle bringing down the partition wall

And when that didn't work, he brought out the demonic chain saw from tool shed and continued his work... into wee hours of the afternoon.



The place looks bigger once the wall is removed

After the ordeal, the princess was amazed at the beautiful potential of a lovely home in the palace. But as it looked bigger, was painted in colors, and was easier to breath in, plus it came with a free broom, the handsome old prince proposed the higher rent of the palace... in jest of course (hopefully).

So when the evening came and the princess left to spend some time cooking Italian food with her lovely neighbor for 14 people, in another land not so far away, she smelled rumors of finally having a bed that floats in the air. But their was a siege in her palace! The handsome prince's beautiful wife had came down the palace and decided to occupy the princess's bed... for at least a while.

Eva Stevenholt testing if my bed holds in the air

So last night, the lucky princess, slept in her palace for the first time and felt at home thanks to the handsome old prince who is helping her make a grand palace.

Friday, October 15, 2010

Tales from the farm

Last night, after having another voluptuous Ethiopian dinner at my friend Willy's houseboat, with Vilhelm and Saathi the dog, I got back home eager to keep working with fixing the patchy walls of the caravan. So at midnight, with a tiny torchlight in my hand and chilly winds whispering tales of winter in my ears, I entered the caravan and found an antique cast-iron wood stove, used several decades ago. Squealing in delight I went around knocking my neighbors' doors urging them to come see the shinny new present I got from Olle and Eva, our dear farmers and landlords.


A wood stove that may save my life this winter


Woke up in the morning to find frost everywhere and a bucket of water frozen hard. The thermometer said 1C but it felt much warmer. So like every other morning, there was porridge for breakfast with oats, honey, raisins, hard bread, and cinnamon all from local ecological farms cooked over a stove powered by a windmill. This wholesome treat came with undeding supply of organic fair trade coffee under the sun (sponsored by God).

During the evenings, horses and sheep roam around these planes

With sun on our faces, autumn leaves all around, we, the village people, sat and watched the world spin around it's own axis leaving us to breath in the golden fall...

Who knew death could be so beautiful... Maybe it is all about rebirth

But now the sun is calling me to get back to work hope I am able to create a home out of the workshop caravan that gives me shelter for as long as my heart longs for me to live there...

Under all the layers of grime, dust, and wall marks lay a beautiful living room


All set to work


Keeping appearances... find an ugly hole, patch it and paint it over as if it wasn't even there


Looking forward to tearing down that wall with Olle, our farmer


Alright, back to work. The walls aren't gonna paint themselves arright!

A part of me wants to hurry up and get it done. It wants to control and hope a certain future, but the words spoken by Olle sooth my nerves and bring a calm to me that is helping me enjoy life as is. He said, 'God has a bigger plan than I know. It's easy for me to try to control and fix things my way, but what is gonna be, will be and I have learnt to trust and let go knowing His plan includes us all'.

Friday, October 8, 2010

Sustainable what?!?

Once upon a time not so long ago, when bicycles were a bother, meat was tasty, long showers were a right, green energy was an experiment, KRAV and FairTrade were marketing gimmicks... or at least that's what I liked to tell myself, I believed everything will be fine if I just didn't care about it. It was all much 'easier'... Myopia has that effect on me sometimes...

My cluttered desk and ever growing to-do lists...

So the life went on and after another long but fun day at work, I drove my car back home. It was late in the evening and all I felt like doing was turn on the TV and lie back on my couch flipping channels. And that was how my days, weeks, and months had been.

Driving home in my car named 'Chandni'

Few years later, I find myself in Uppsala, a town about 40min north of Stockholm. Even though I am tempted to go into the details of how my first weeks were spent almost similar to life in Pakistan, but now doesn't seem like the place or time.

Flogsta student houses where a collective scream hundreds of student is heard every night at 10

After spending a year in a student room, screaming the Flogsta Scream every night at 10, I ended up living in a farm with horses, sheep and few dogs. Yes, the rumors are true that we poo in a bucket and pee in bushes, use sawdust as a 'flush', yes we walk one and a half km to do our laundry, and burn wood to keep ourselves warm. But to tell you the truth, I have never felt so much joy and peace in my life before.

Our tiny caravan village in Håga

Even though there is a degree in Computer Science somewhere amongst hundreds of other pages I have stuffed under a sofa I am finding my space away from it. This blog is making me relearn many things I chose to forget. But here I am, trying to get my thoughts straight and putting them down as words for you to read.