Home with my body, not yet with my mind

Dear All,

Left: Wasim, Amir and papa and mama looking at photo's at my minilaptop

Right: with relatives in the kitchen.

Yes, I had a terrific time in Kashmir the last 5 weeks of my sabbatical and I flew back at the 17th of April. the first days in Holland I felt terrible: what do I do here, I want to go back!! and than I spent a few days with friends who were with me in India in December and I talked and talked and my headache stopped and I landed more and more in the Dutch clay.

And now, after 3 weeks? I still wish I would be in India, but I feel happy again here as well. There are so many relatives, friends and collegues who realy like to know and feel what I experienced. Than it is good to share that with them.

My last 5 weeks in Kashmir were very special, the cream on the cake of my sabbatical. It was special, because I had the experience to spent all those weeks in the house of the family Hassan Bhat in a suburb from Srinigar (summer-main city of the state Jammy - Kashmir). I was their guest and very soon their daughter, we spent hours in the kitchen, sitting on pillows on the floor

busey with talking to each other, listening, eating, drinking noon chai (salt milk tea, typical Kashmiri) or Lipton chai (green black tea with milk). And the group existed of me with on of the family:papa, mama, Wasim (oldest son), Amir (youngest son) or more family members or with cousins or nieces or neighbours. So you were there on you own or with two up to eight people: talking, laughing, eating and drinking. Not that I good understand anything they were saying: Kashmiri is realy impossible to understand, but I was amazed about myself, because I did not mind, I enjoyed it anyway: the way they interacted, their voices, their expressions. Specialy in the first week there were a lot of people coming to say hello to the family and to the woman with golden hair and blue eyes: me.

All people were so friendly and curious: is that your own colour of your hair, of your eyes? What do you use for cream on your skin, do you use lipstick, are you married. This last one is probably the most asked question. And they asked Wasim (the one how translated most for me besides Amir, but he had to go to school as well) about me: what does she eat, how does she eat (yes, she also eats with her hands and yes she eats everything but not to spicy).

After the first week we travelled around in the Valley of Kashmir and that was beautiful too. The valley is gorgious: beautiful yellow (Koolzaad), mountains behind that and behind the mountains the Himalya snowtops everywhere were you look. Around every corner you think: wow, this is beautiful and around the next corner it is even more beautiful! And we went to walk on snowy mountains and beautiful forests with a lot of animals in it. But alas, we didn't see them (the bears and the wolves and the leopards) or perhaps not alas...

And everywhere rivers: very big till small ones and a lot of stones are scatered eveywhere. I love stones and brought again a small pile with me.

The culture is also fascinating: beautiful mosques and shrines (a smaller mosque like building with rememberances of a important moslim. Important by his positive deeds for the nation or neighbourhood) and also hindu temples.

I saw a lot and enjoyed a lot and walked a lot.

But the biggest impact was the care of the family for me, that was and still is touching.

And I am happy that there are good possibilities to phone cheap to India from Holland!

Thank you so much for reading. I hear now of more people who read it and did not know how to react but enjoyed it very much. Thank you for all the positive reactions.

For me I made the best choice of my life to take the sabbatical and for me I also 'got' what I wanted: time to think about myself and I do understand now more and I wrote a lot down: many notebooks.

I am thankful every day for all the beautiful things that happened and the very beautiful people I have met.

And I do enjoy the atmosphere in India so much, because it is everywhere so religous in a pure sense that it felt easier for me to talk and think about Love and the Divine and that was and is important for me too.

I close my blog now. Everybody says to me: it was good for you the trip, you are looking very bright, you look happy. And I am.

Because I also wrote many observations when I was in the family I am thinking about to make that into a readable text, were I can make others aware of a warm islamic family far away from us with other rituals, ways of living and good human values in a for us different culture.

If you still have some questions, please ask them, you can always sent me an email on my personal mail: ellensiebenlist@gmail.com

All the best to you, that you also make 'that' important desicion in your life, like I did with this sabbatical.

And a very short movie with snowytops in the valley of Pelgram.