Lentil as Anything: feeling at home

Dear all,

Yesterday I had my first day of (volunteer)work at a restaurant called Lentil as Anything. I will, from now one work there once a week.
Let me try and describe the magic of that place to you...
I arrive at the beautiful old convent that hosts the restaurant at 16.00, walking through the community garden that lies behind it. There is of course a faster way to get there, but I like to walk through the garden! Outside on the terrace a few people lazily drink their tea (Lentil has been open already since 9.00). When I get inside everybody greets me happily and after an hour almost everybody (regular staff and volunteers) knows my name! The search for an apron is unsuccessful so I decide to do without. Until six it will be calm so we use that time to chat, clean all the tables, in- and outside, serve the people who are around and build up the vegetarian and mostly organic buffet. The person who is in charge of the volunteers tells us one more time how we can explain to people the philosophy of this place: Lentil as Anything is based on the concepts of social inclusion and trust. That is why there are no fixed prizes and just a box, on the counter, where everybody can donate what they can afford, or what they think it was worth, or what they would like to donate...the hope is that those who can, will donate a little bit more, to compensate for those who have no money. If by any means the money donated exceeds what the restaurant needs this goes to a house where homeless people can sleep.
It is Wednesday and that means: African Night! That also means that today there are quite a few Africans working and that some of them are drumming and jamming on some djembes and congas. When they are not, African music fills the air, and nobody can stand still...But is is not only Africans...the staff comes from basically all over the world, quite a few of them being refugees to whom Lentil is a place where they can build up a social network, have a nice time, learn some kitchen and serving skills and even get help in trying to find a job.
At six it starts getting crowded...some people already know their way, others seem a bit lost when they come, for the first time, into the big hall with all the tables, food, music and smiling people. So we, the volunteers welcome them, show them where they can sit and explain them how it works. It is funny, when you are not working for money people seem to be a million times more grateful when you offer to get them a bottle of water, or when you ask them if you can take their plates! Often you even hear a soft: "I could also do it myself..." or a big "Thanks so much! That is so nice of you" and well, that makes me smile and feel happy to be there, and I guess that is what makes the atmosphere so special!
Seven is kind of the peak of the night and you don't stand still! Coffees and chai lattes have to be brought to tables, tables have to be cleaned, people have to be seated and taken care of. Still everybody is in a good mood! There is no shouting, no hurrying, no stress. Even the people in charge have a smile when they pas by and ask how you are doing. Because the customers are not impatient: somehow the feeling of not having to pay more than you think the service was worth makes people much friendlier :)
After the peak I can have my own dinner. So I serve myself some of the delicious food and look for an uncrowded corner. Sitting there I look around. There sure are some weird people sitting around, just some minutes ago when I asked a guy if he would like some water he started talking about the problems he had with the motor of his car. He talked so fast that I couldn't understand and he just wouldn't stop, so after a minute I wished him a pleasant night and went on. He talked to the air about his car for a few seconds onwards and then resumed to his plate. But there are also people who note my accent and ask where I'm from, what I am studying and how I am enjoying Melbourne. When I come back with their coffees they tell me that after a brief discussion they concluded that they both don't know what anthropology is so if I would be kind enough to explain what it is exactly that I am studying :)
The drums beat outside, people talk and laugh, everybody is fine to be how he or she is, no matter what that means, everybody is welcome here...it reminds me a lot of the wonderful place where I grew up and I feel happy..I finally feel at home in this city on the other side of the world!
Around 9.30 the last guests are leaving, the music turns louder and it is time to clean up. At 10 I walk to the bus. My feet hurt and I start to feel that I am tired. But I have a big smile on my face. It was a beautiful day!

Here is a link with an interview with the founder of Lentil as Anything, because he can explain the philosophy way better than I can!
http://www.karmatube.org/videos.php?id=1887

And here are some photos to make up for the photo-less weeks that have passed by since the beautiful surf-trip!

Much love to you all!
Sara


Eater Brunch in Sterre's sunny backyard



Blowing and painting eggs - childhood revival!



The result!



My room as it looks now...



Stony Point, the end of the world, or at least, the end of the line...We went there for a hike



Walking over the swamps and mangroves




We were promised heavy showers, but that's the nice thing about the weather here...it will never rain a whole day...



We got home sunburned :)

Australia is more that trips, beach and beautiful pictures!

Dear all
Australia is not only trips, beach and beautiful pictures…Australia is also sitting on trains at 8 in the morning, it’s being addicted to the coffee to go at the shop of the nice Greek people at the station who stand there, sometimes for more than 12 hours a day, and always have a smile and a joke for you, it’s sitting in the library writing papers, preparing presentations, it’s having dinner with nice people from all over the world, it’s getting home tired and going to bed early, or having long skype conversations with the other side of the world on early weekend hours!
What I mean to say is that my stay in Australia has become something different than the holiday it was the first weeks! And regarding that fact today I want to share with you not what I have been doing, but what I have been learning…

I will not bore you with all the interesting things I have been learning…there is just one thing I want to tell you today, so that maybe, a few more people in this world will think a little bit further than the stereotype! It is regarding the Indigenous peoples of Australia: the Aboriginals.

I wonder how many of you share the ideas I had when I came here: the Aboriginal people are the indigenous people of Australia, who have been completely overwhelmed by the coming of the Europeans and have, like the North American Indians, succumbed to all the bad things the Europeans brought.
During the last weeks I have been immersed in reading about, on the one hand, the amazing cultural complexity of the people we gather under the name Aboriginals and on the other hand the cruel way in which we, or a least our ancestors have been blind to that complexity, have been arrogant enough to think we had a ‘civilization’ to offer them, and the things we torn apart by bringing that ‘civilization’ to them…
There are two things of which I think it is important to think while looking at the situation of Aboriginals today. The first is the importance of the family. I have been learning about the role of kinship in these communities, and without trying to Anthropologically explain the complexity of it to you, I guess I can take a shortcut and just tell you that everything in their ‘culture’ is related to kinship relations. You cannot address someone without knowing how that person is related to you, for it is the place of a person in society that defines his or her name. The worst punishment people could get before the Europeans came was to be banished from a community, for without a community and its relations, one is literally no one!
The second thing is the half-cast child removal policy that was used in Australia between more or less 1930 and 1970. This meant that children who were not fully Aboriginal (and thus were thought to be more intelligent) were removed from their families to be European-style educated. Sometimes the justification was that these children were neglected by their families, but other times ‘being Aboriginal’ was reason enough…These children were grouped together in homes where they got an ‘education’. I will not go on about what happened in these houses…I just want you to think about how it must have felt for those kids, whose identity was so closely connected to their family, to be ripped off from that family, to be told to be ashamed of the color they had and the language they spoke, and to be told that they were lucky to get the chance to become ‘civilized’…These kids forgot their languages, and with the language they forgot the stories they had been told, they forgot names, they forgot who they had been. 1970 was 40 years ago…
Imagine to grow up without a clue where you belong, imagine to grow up in a place where people see you as inferior, imagine to get out of that foster home and not finding a job because you are Aboriginal, imagine to be 20 when you find out who your family is, but you cannot talk to your own mother, because she doesn’t speak English! Imagine the identity crisis…imagine the trauma…Can we judge the people who turn to anything that might anesthetize the feeling of pain and loss?

The thing that shocks me most is that the average Australian seems not to give a shit! It might be the feeling of guilt that builds high walls around people, but I think it’s mainly the stereotype, the shameless silence about these facts in high school teaching curricula and the avid attempts of certain people to paint the history of Australia brighter than it is…
I don’t mean to depict Australia here as a heartless and racist country because it is not (at least not everywhere). I just want to share this little bit of the other perspective with you, so that, if you ever hear that Aboriginals are alcoholics more interested in spending money on alcohol than on the education of their own kids, you think twice…Even in the case of this being true for some people, there is a reason for it…

I could go on an on about this! I could also tell you how amazingly interesting and fascinating Aboriginals are, and how much we could learn from them if only we bothered to listen without a feeling of superiority. But I am afraid that I might already have lost some of you with this incredibly long blog!
For more stories, frustrations and fascinations there is always email or skype!

I wish you all a very happy Easter!
Love

Sara

Second time Great Ocean Road

Dear all!
I just came home from an incredibly cool weekend!
I went with a bunch of people to the Great Ocean Road to - for the first time in my life - try to surf!
We left Saturday morning with a van and a car, the mood was good and so was the music :)
It took us about two hours to get to the beach where we hired surfboards and suits and got ready for the adventure. Now, the waves were not really very big, but quite big for beginners so the balance ended up being the waves catching us instead of us catching the waves...It was fun though! The times that it was me catching a wave I got quite a rush and I even managed to sit on my knees :) But most of the times, at a certain point the water would just grab me and kick me around, with me not knowing which side was up and which was down, afraid to get the surfboard on my head, or to hit somebody else with it!!! I think I had enough salt for the week :)
It's incredible how tiring it is so after half an hour, maybe 45 mins I decided that the beach was a better friend.
After returning the surfboards we drove to the camping site (and I saw my FIRST KANGAROO!!!!! It was sooo beautiful, him hopping through the fields, with the late afternoon sun - amazing!), installed ourselves and had a pick-nick of delicious pizzas in the light of a nearby lamppost. In order not to disturb the other camping guests (we were a group of 14 young people...) we moved to the beach to chill. The stars there were really a-ma-zing... Southern Cross high up in the sky and a milky way that seemed unreal, with so many stars! And than the ocean underneath. I felt a very small but really very happy little person standing there between all those giants of nature!
The night was quite cold and after six I didn't sleep much. First I was grumpy about it, but then I suddenly had the great idea that I could go watch the sunrise on the beach! So I got up and walked to the beach. Unfortunately my bright idea had come a little too late, the sun was already up, but the beauty of it was still breathtaking!
Today, although the waves were much friendlier I was too tired and lazy to try and surf again. So I laid on the beach, I spend lots of time floating around in the water and having fun at the rocks, falling asleep and chatting with however was near.
And now I am home again...pretty sunburned (my color is closer to a lobster than to a human), tired, but utterly zen and happy!

Cheers!
Sara

PS. Some pictures!



The beach



Getting ready for the surfing



The campsite



Sunset



Early in the morning



It was really soooo beautiful :)



Gold!



A little friend



A few minutes later



The rocks!



Us...

Some facts about Sara in Melbourne

Did you know that:

- Thunderstorm means: Stay home! And close the windows!
- Australian students do not share my ideas regarding being quiet in a library...
- The Aldi sells food at European prizes (so now I can eat again!)
- After walking barefoot or on flip flops for a month, feet don't like shoes.
- I found out that I will have the month of June off as well!!!
- Living 3 weeks without a table, and only with a mattress on the floor, causes a sore back
- The cheapest study desk at Ikea weighs 17Kg...
- Sara can carry 17 kilos in her hands for about 4 consecutive minutes
- These intervals tend to get shorter at an alarming rate
- For Ikea furniture you need more than is actually delivered in the package (screwdrivers and stuff)
- Neighbors are nice and have screwdrivers
- In Melbourne it is not always sunny (in fact it can rain quite a bit)
- Anthropology teachers are really very inspiring human beings
- You can send postcards for free to the rest of the world
- There is always a festival going on in Melbourne
- Australians still drive on the wrong side of the road, and Sara still gets confused by that when she has to catch a tram
- You can spend one month in Australia without spotting one single kangaroo
- After heavy rain the eucalyptus near my window smells really good!

- Melbourne is still a very nice place to live and Sara is currently very, very happy!

Cheers to you all!
Sara

Great Ocean Road

Dear all!
I'm sitting on my bed, tired...if I close my eyes a see a coastline, I think the most beautiful coastline I've seen so far...and a road that plays with the sea, going back and forth in a never ending and petrified "catch me if you can"...
This weekend I have been at the Great Ocean Road!
Apart from the feeling of being a real bad tourist that is raced from one hotspot to the other by an entertaining and funny tourguide it was an incredible experience. The weird thing is that you have seen a lot of pictures, even very beautiful pictures, of it and so somehow you think that it can only be worse. But it's not. Somehow the beauty of it is too big to fit in any picture, fotoshopped or not, there is no way we, humans can reproduce something this majestic!
And than there is also the wild koalas. You will find them on particular spots along the way, chilling out in a eucalyptus tree or working on the 1 KG of leaves he/she will consume in one day. Those creatures are so, so, so incredibly cute, you just keep taking pictures of them :)
And you also have a rain forest, just a few kilometers from the sea, with huge trees and ferns and it is weird because at least I am used to rain forest where it is hot and humid and there is a lot of noise...this one was fresh and quite...amazing!
Also you will occasionally walk in to a Kukkaburra (bird) that will patiently and with some curiosity pose for all those hungry tourist wanting to digitally eternalize the moment :)

The sunset at the 12 Apostles was surely something I will carry with me for the rest of my life, and I am planning to see more sunsets there.
I will upload some pictures but, especially regarding the 12 apostles: these pictures cannot tell you enough, I invite you to come here and see by yourself!

Tomorrow starts the new semester and it might sound weird to some of you but I'm actually really looking forward to start classes again!

Cheers!
Sara



I won't spoil this with words...





























But isn't that CUTE?!!!

First weeks of Melbourne

Dear All!

Two weeks...and already I am in love with this city!
Apart from the rapidly changing weather (from cold and rainy to hot and sunny - and that in a few hours) there is nothing I can complain about and even that is not so bad, because at least, when the weather is cold, you know it will not last long :)
The parks here are amazing and so are all the cultural activities! Everyday there is so much to do that you don't even know where to begin!

Last weekend was the St Kilda festival, on the St Kilda beach and it was great! The day started grey but I came home sunburned. There was good music, beach volleyball, food, and lots and lots of people!

This week we had our international students orientation. It was tiering but also great! The Uni is quite far out of town and it takes me almost an hour to get there...but still I am really very happy that I am living in the city because the campus is not the most cosy place :) The orientation week was made up of doing the stuff that needed to be done in the morning, sleep or go to the beach in the afternoon and dinner and party at night. That, together with a lot of sun and new impressions is a pretty tiering combination :)
But is was great!

To see the processes in such a big group of international students is also very interesting! My guess is that we are bout 300-400 international students. 150 of those are Malaysian because Monash has a campus in Malaysia, so for them it is very easy to come here. There are also many Americans but I was actually surprised by how much Swedes, Danish and Dutch people there are :) Those nationalities turn out to be a good combination :) We've especially spend a lot of time with the Danish and some Finish people. But there are also nice Mexicans, some Germans, French and Italian...Somehow (maybe because they all live on campus...)it is harder to mix with the Americans and the Asians, but maybe they say the same about us, referring to us as the Europeans of course...it is funny how suddenly I turned out to be European instead of Dutch :)
One guy from Malaysia, after I told him where I was from, said: Oh Holland, that's a nice city, I've been there some years ago...I cannot blame him...seen from here, Holland is one big city :) Another Taiwanese girl told me: Ah...your prince (it's actually the Danish prince) is married to an Australian women. When I told here that that was not our prince, but the Danish prince her reaction was something like: yeah, but that's Europe as well, so he is also your prince :) She also wanted me to tell her about Europe: how did it look like, what was typically European. I told here there were a lot of differences, that there were a lot of European countries I've never been to and that there are a lot of people there with whom I cannot communicate (if they don't speak English). I think that was all a bit to abstract, Europe was one, in her eyes, and I was from Europe, so I should be able to tell her everything about it :D
The funny thing is that I think the same about Northern Americans and especially Asians...I mean, of course I am maybe more conscientious about the fact that they, like us, have huge differences between countries and states but I still refer to them as 'the Americans' and 'the Asians' and I cannot tell the Asians apart :)

Yesterday was our last day of orientation and it was lots of fun!
We had to form groups of 10 with at least 3 nationalities (we were group Stool because we were Danish, Finish, Belgian, and Dutch and the word for chair, in all our languages is pronounced in more or less the same way: stool - in english spelling...). We than got 13 cards with a mystery to solve that would lead us to a certain place on campus. The first one to finish would win a weekend away on the Great Ocean Road inclusive surfing lessons :) So we had decided to win...unhappily for us others had decided that as well and so we got the second price: a ticket to Phillip Island, which is also nice...I don't think I have ever run so much and so fanatically in my life :)
At night we had dinner in a Hotel and than an after party in a club luckily very, very close to my home. Today I can barely walk, but it was worth it!
This weekend there is a great sustainability festival in the city and the sun is inviting us to go to the beach so the weekend is going to be too short!

Here are some pictures from Melbourne!
Cheers!
Sara


My room



My bathroom



My kitchen



My view



My Street



Toorak Road



Some weird Australian thing...you see it everywhere



Rapskalion, already my favorite band in Melbourne



Park



Botanical Gardens



Connecting to the World overseas



Mini penguin in semi-dark, but I was not aloud to use flash...



St Kilda peer



St Kilda festival



St Kilda festival Fitzroy Street



Beach



Brighton Beach and Melbourne skyline



City center



Second time Rapskalion



Afterparty (with Sissel from Denmark)