Wonderfull day. Waking up with a violent hangover, just in time to see the winter light pour in over the rooftops like a bowl of fresh milk spilled in heaven.

Jag tycker om doften av nytvättat hår.
Jag tycker om vatten som är rent och klart.
Jag tycker om det heliga evengeliet, men jag är inte alltid säker på att jag förstår vad det handlar om.
Jag tycker om att inte kunna skilja mellan vad som är religion och vad som är filosofi.
Jag tycker om att begå misstag, ibland kan det vara väldigt uppfriskande.
Jag tycker om öronsnibbar och knäskålar.
Jag tycker om en köldspricka som jag brukar få mitt på underläppen om vintern, min kusin har en likadan.
Jag tycker om att försöka beskriva känslan av att bli berörd i själen.
Jag tycker om att inse att ibland är inte orden fel, bara för många.
Jag tycker om min mormor Margot väldigt mycket, när hon blir arg växer hon ett par decimeter och får ett grönt skimmer omkring sig.
Jag tycker om att vara ledsen när jag vet att det kommer att gå över.
Jag tycker om sorgsna filmer men jag gillar inte att gråta på bio, ändå kan jag inte hejda mig många gånger.
Jag tycker om att tänka på att Lars von trier borde få böta för onödigt användande av stråkar i filmen "Dancer in the dark"
Jag tycker om Björk, trots att hon ställde upp och spelade huvudrollen.
Jag tycker om att både Björk och Trier påstår att de aldrig hört talas om varandra innan de började arbeta tillsammans med filminspelningen.
Jag tycker om helgonbilder, men jag pussar inte på dem om det inte är någon jag känner.

Postblog

I am in Budapest already, but I have had some trouble with getting Wifi conection until now so I am going to post a lot of old blog posts. Budapest is beautiful by the way. I think you all should go here if you have the chance.

I had a dispute with god again before I left the monastery in Minsk. We didn't agree and I haven't heard from him since. He sent me two beautiful angels but the border patrol wouldn't let them leave the country without the proper documents.

Now I'm sitting on the doorstep to heaven in the highest building in Warsaw, thinking about what the old prophet once said: It takes a lot to laugh, it takes a train to cry. And the only mistakes I regret, are the ones I make when I think I'm doing everything right.

Dimitri speaks good English since he has been working for several years in a greenhouse in Norway. He earns five times as much money in Norway as he does in Minsk

-But that is also because I have nothing else to do in Norway but to work. I don't have my wife there and so I take as many shifts as I can. If I would move there I would probably not earn as much because I would like to spend more time with my wife and raise a family.

He has been thinking about moving to Norway permanently but most probably he will stay here in Minsk. He runs a small business with some friends and together they tour around Belorus with a huge tent and sell honey at markets.

But today he is working for the monastery and the honey tent is going to be placed in a big square in the middle of Minsk. The Sisters will be working there on easter eve to sell candles, icons and handcrafts. This morning offered my hands to help out and since Dimitri speaks good English I was assigned to help his work team put up the tent.

We stop at a huge square in front of a big supermarket and start unloading the truck. The work is heavy, because the frame of the huge tent is mainly made by thick steel pipes. I work with a determined fellow who apparently has done this many times before. He and I stand in the large truck handing down the steel pipes and the decorations to the guys in the square. He doesn't speak English but he's got a very good signlanguage which makes him very easy to work with.

After an hour or so everything is unloaded and we proceed to put up the tent. The air is still mild but the hard work and the beaming sun makes me thirsty, so I run across the square to by a soda at a small wending cart outside the huge supermarket.

The supermarket is a huge old building in old soviet architecture. The lady at the wending cart is nice and helpful and I manage to buy an orange soda pop mainly just by smiling and pointing.

For several hours we work hard to get put up the tent up and to assemble the interior furniture. I am assigned to put together the shelves from Ikea which is a task I like, it makes me feel like home.

When practically everything is in order there is a man in a gray suit who comes up to Dimitry and starts arguing with him. He is a heavy middle aged man dressed in a well fitted suit. He's got the posture and the look about him as someone who is very rich and used to get his will through.

After the rude guy has left, Dimitri quickly tells everyone what to do and there is a noticeable increase in the work pace. So when the man in the suit returns, everything is finished and we are already packing the tools back in to the van.

The guy in the grey suit has brought yet another person also with a big belly and gray suit, they look so much alike that they could have been brothers. The two of them have also brought and a third person whith a puffy red face and peering eyes. He seems to be some kind of official or inspector.

I toy with the imagination that these guys belong to some branch of the Russian mafia and that they are here to squeeze the convent for money for protection. I keep myself in the background since I don't know what they would do if they found out I am a foreigner without a work permit.

The two bloated guys in gray suits argues for a while with Dimitri who only shakes his head and seem to say tat there is nothing he can do about it. The suits points at him and then waves with a hand at the tent and it's obvius that they aren't happy with the situation.

Meanwhile the red faced inspector walks around inside the tent inspecting it thoroughly. He even scrutinize me for a while as I am sitting having a smoke, but I turn my head away and look in another direction.

After they have left we continue to pack up the tools and I ask Dimitri what it was all about.

-It was the owners of the supermarket and they weren't very happy, he says, they told me we have to take it all down again because when they gave their permit they thought it would only be a small tent.

Everything here seems to need a permit of some sort, even the house I live in have it's own passport. As if it would go anywhere.

Monuments in Minsk

Dima and Natasha have both offered to be my guides in Minsk. They are very eager to show me the sites and they seem to argue about where to take me and what to show me.

Dima has studied English for only two months but he has already learned much. He tells me that it's important for him to learn English because he wants to travel and to tell others about Belorus.

He asks me how much I knew about Belorus before I came here and I confess to him that I didn't know much, except that Lukasjenko is the president both for Belorus and for the Belorussian hockey team.

They tell me that it is hard for a student to travel abroad. It is only possible to go to Russia and Ukraine without applying for visa, and visa is both expensive and hard to get.

Belorus has actually it's own language appart from Russian. There aren't many people who speak Belorus but some - mostly younger people - study Belorus at the university.

We stop for a cup of coffee at the central railway station. In the background they are playing old revolutionary marches on the speaker system. A policeman with green uniform and a large hat walks his beat and wakes up a man dozing of in his seat. Everything is very tidy and neat.

The railway station is huge and a fairly new construction. The architecture is symmetrical and based on simple geometric forms. It's bombastic in it's design but I don't think the result is very impressive. It is as if it wants to give an impression of practicality but it actually isn't even very practical.

Minsk was totally destroyed by German bombs during world war two and almost all the buildings are built in the 50's. There is a small Island called old town where there still is some houses from 19th century, but that's all.

Natasja and Dima takes me to the old town and afterwards to the war memorial called the island of tears, in honor of soldiers from Minsk who lost their lives in the war in Afghanistan.

I am repulsed by the monument since it reminds me of one of the most stupid, horrific and illegitimate wars in the history of man kind that has caused political destabilization and cultural regression in a large region.

Why is it, that the history of man kind seems to be written only in the pauses of respite and truce, in a war that never seem to end? Why is it that destruction and destabilization can so easily be justified and accepted amongst common men, while understanding and cooperation is so rare, and often met with grave suspicion?

Natasja tells me that the Island of tears is a very popular monument. There is a tradition in Belorus to put flowers at your favorite monument when you get married, so many newly weds come here and honor the dead soldiers.

I am glad to leave the Island of Tears and as we walk slowly towards the Square of Victory we talk about famous people who we all recognize. Both Dima and Natasja tell me that they have read Selma Lagerlöv and that "Carlsson on the roof" was one of their favorite stories when they were kids. I tell them that Michail Bulgakov is one of my favorite writers and that the "Master and Margarita" is one of my biggest literary experiences.

As we continue speaking about Ingmar Bergman and Fjodor Dostojevskij there is a notion among us three that we grow more familiar because we know the same people. It is as if these famous people we talk about are good old friends that we put trust and faith in, and as being a friend of a friend this trust and friendship is shared also between us three.

And I guess this is why culture is the most efficient weapon to disarm the warmongers, who aim to unite people by pointing towards an alien enemy. Heroes and idols that don't partake in the bloody history of the ever ongoing war against mankind is vital to peace and prosperity. There will never be enough monuments of famous men and women who never fired a bullet or never waged war against his neighbors.

But the monuments of such people aren't built with stone or cast in bronze, they are written in books, performed in theaters and hung in galleries all over the world. Theirs is a living monument of knowledge and of culture rather then one of victory and defeat.

Working in the church

Brother Max offers me the last cup of coffee. Instead of coffee he prepares for himself a mug with hot water mixed with homemade jam. Blueberries, raspberries and currants.

He has kind face and a friendly smile. He's a big man and seems to harbor a big calm. I am told to help him to paint some of the walls and ceilings in the big church.

He doesn't use his hands to explain the work to me, but what he lacks in sign language he makes up with his immense patience towards me. We paint and work in silence.

Later I am assigned to work with Vitalek. He objects when I try to take a picture of him but I do it anyway. Afterwards he demands to see the result and flips through all the hundred images in the camera.

I stand beside him and wonder if he likes them. There are som of the pictures in there that I'm actually really proud of. But as Vitalek flips through the pictures the only comment I hear is reoccuring word "Normal"

-Aha, mhm... , normal... , normal... , mhm... normal...

He says "normal" so many times that I'm starting to think that he is very unimpressed with my work. I feel my heart sink for a while before I realize the comedy of the situation. He says "Normal" and use the word to express something good, while normal to me mostly mean mainstream and boring.