How come I am now in Germany

I am writing to you from Germany. Surprised? I can imagine! We have only been to India for four weeks and here we are, back in Wiesbaden, at home with Thomas and Iris. Let me tell you why.

This story starts exactly ten years ago. A decade ago, my friend Dr. Michael Kosak from Germany came to visit us in India. Not only just a normal visit, no, he spent his 50th birthday with us at the Ashram, on the 14th September 2004. He had told me of this plan and we made preparations for a big celebration! We invited lots of people and when he came, there was a big stage program, many tables where people had a delicious dinner and there was an Indian classical dance program as well. He thoroughly enjoyed that day!

It was in that time when we made plans to be together again for the celebration of his 60th birthday! I promised we would spend that day together.

At first the plan was for him to come to India again for his 60th birthday as well, together with his wife Andrea. For some reason however, it didn’t work out in September and so they will come in December this year. I thought of our plan however and when we were in Luneburg in summer this year, I spontaneously decided to come to his birthday celebration! Said and done: we booked tickets for the three of us – Ramona, Apra and me. And here we are!

We arrived in Wiesbaden in midday and are now relaxing for a while. Tomorrow, Apra’s grandfather will come to visit us. On Saturday we will then go to Luneburg by train, so that we are there to celebrate into Michael’s birthday, which will be on Sunday. They have invited guests and, which is a wonderful act, he asked them not to bring presents but instead to donate to our charity, for our children! This will make it all the more special that I will be able to be there on his birthday!

On Monday we will already return to Wiesbaden and on Wednesday, we will fly back to India. It is only one week. I have also flown for only a weekend before, when I had to give a program in London, and also have had four flights in between cities with only a few hours of stay for a program in between when I was in Australia. This time however, we have Apra with us and in order to make it easy for her, coping with the jet lag and changing places so quickly, we decided to stay for the full week.

Also, we travelled very light: we came without any check-in baggage! It was wonderful and easy. But now, I will go and watch Apra play with Thomas. She is so excited – more about that tomorrow!