Jonesberries

What do they say. The best laid plans of mice and men.

We made plans to go to India and a major catastrophic event happens to wipe out most of the roads. What is that about. Well….. we think to ourselves. We can help. Help how. Bringing in stuff. But then what. Do we just become more of the hungry mouths to feed.

We planned on our kids being able to go to UK to school and our visa extension was DENIED. Plans. Plans. Plans.

We planned on spending some time in EU and the Shengan countries changed the rules. Now, instead of 6 months in and 1 hour out it is now 3 months in and 3 months out.

What is all this about.

We try to be organized and are stopped at every turn.

Now we are feeling quite rejected and unloved by the border peoples. We are feeling more and more like we have no foundation.

We are thinking of doing something quite drastic. Andrew brought up showing the kids the countries they have passports to and hanging with some relatives for a bit. A round the world trip.

Dang, that sounds extravagant. I know people fly all the time but it is NOT GREEN and NOT CHEAP and I DON”T WANT TO LEAVE MY TRUCK and WHAT ABOUT MY DOG!!!! Dang, I sound like my mother not wanting to leave her home and her STUPID DOG to come and visit her daughter!

Oh no! Am I choosing my beautiful, cute, in-training mutt over my beautiful, amazing, self-sufficient 2 oldest kids. You know, I am such an external processor.

OK, lets try this with the other objections. I DON”T WANT TO LEAVE MY TRUCK. You know we have been offered this amazing huge warehouse in Germany to store her in. It would be so much better if someone wanted to use her while we were gone. You know, try out this nomad thing in Europe or something. That would be nice. Our truck could hang out with some new people or something. We’ll have to think about that one.

Next one. IT IS NOT CHEAP. Several of the people from this squat we are staying in right now fly all the time. THey say it is cheaper. It is just that big chunk at the beginning and the limited funds after. It just seems so extravagant. YOu know, people have been helping us out  in so many ways. NOT to by high-flying but to live simply doing good stuff. Still, we have been trying to find cheaper ways of bringing the truck and all by sea and havent’t found anything yet. But maybe we haven’t tried hard enough yet. If we bring our tipi and a small stove and pots to cook on the road it could bring the cost down considerably. Hmmmm.

IT IS NOT GREEN. I can justify this by averaging it out over the years but there may be no way of getting around this one.

I dunno. I want to be fair to my kids. They have cousins they have never met. They hold a passport to the USA and haven’t been there for 7 years! They hold a passport to New Zealand and only those that were born 17 years ago saw it and then only for a week.

Decisions, decisions. Plans gone to the wayside. New possibilities coming up. May become plans.

In the meantime we will continue to work on our truck

and look at beautiful skies

and hang with new friends.

The morning sun is streaming into the truck. TJs new friend, Jet, is knocking at the door.

I open the door and look out. It is time to get up. Inigo went on a slow meandering walk with a little girl, her dad and her dog. They live in the truck just up from ours and she likes to get up early.

Andrew left hours ago with Willie to get Abi and Hannah. They have been at a camp with American kids here in Germany. Can you imagine. Some are their friends from Portugal.

TJ has been kinda lonely being the only child. She was calling herself the “Lonely Child” until Jet found her. Soon she will be off to play football and exploring around the “Squat” we are staying in this week.

We feel quite at home here. People are so friendly and practical. We feel like we can relax and be ourselves. Sometimes we get kinda overwhelmed with the rules and conformity in Germany, or is it simply being in a western country.

This place carries a refreshing freedom with it.

Not so much a violent exclaimation of “WE WILL NOT CONFORM!”

Instead it carries a gentle, “Let us be, let us be us, we don’t wish to be part of your world view or system.” Aaaaah.

We have been hanging with economically poor people for our whole teen and adult lives.

I went on many orphanages and dumps to visit people when I lived in Southern California.

I chose a nursing school on the East side of LA that staffed a hospital that took care of the poor. I remember cleaning all the maggots out of wounds and showering them with various insecticides before they were admitted onto the ward.

During this same time Andrew was hanging out with drunks in Australia. Filling a thermos of coffee and going out to hang with them.

Andrew and I met on a ship that brought really inexpensive educational books to poor countries in Central and Latin America. We slept in warm bunks and sailed away to the next port.

After having a couple of kids we lived in San Francisco. Almost at the corner of Haight-Ashbury, just as the area was being overcome with street kids after the death of Bob Marley. Sometimes we would sit with the street kids and hear their stories. We were counted as one of them by passers by and were spat upon.  People would look at me and my kids and shake their heads.  We ran a feeding program. Brought a big pot of soup and bread into the park and shared it with whoever was hungry. We went out onto the streets and invited the street kids into our home for a shower, a meal, a chat, a song, a conversation, a cuddle. We even shared some of their diseases. But we were still separated by the fact that we had a bed under a roof in a house where we paid rent. Granted it was just a couple of mattresses we strapped to the wall with a safety belt during the day so the kids had a place to play. We also shared the flat with 7 others. It was still something that set us apart. We sat on the streets during the day and went back to sleep under a roof. We were looking in from comfortable lives.

Now, we are counted with the poor.

We are downwardly mobile.

We live in a truck.

We are global nomads.

We are travellers.

This brings about certain problems. My kids don’t need a toilet to go pee. They all prefer to find a nice, private “shrubbery” to pee on. This is fine in Morocco. This is not fine in the United Kingdom. They eat lots of weird food but they are beginning to shun private plates and utensils. What does this mean? Well, for one thing we are having more and more difficulties hanging with the middle classes the more we hang with the poor. Not as someone who goes back to their apartment after but sleep side by side with the poor. It is out of choice, we are counted as poor. But what about our kids. For those that have eyes to see our kids stick out from the norm with their acts of generosity and inclusion. However, their inability and seeming ambivalence to typical social games can make them appear immature and weird. They are flexible and independent but Andrew and I get to bear the judgement of being bad parents when we give our kids freedom and responsibility and a voice that is alien to most kids.

We are counted with the poor. Are we doing the right thing? Are we being fair to our kids? As adults Andrew and I have a choice but are we plunging our kids into a strange existence and outlook on the world that can marginalize them. I am so proud of my kids and young adults (to see the joy and the pain look at Sam’s last 2 blog entries on his diary entry and coming home ). I really dont know how to raise kids differently. Are they going to get beaten up in a world that may never understand them? They are being counted with the poor and the marginalized.  I don’t know if I feel like a good parent right now.

We are counted with the poor. We are becoming less and less able to fit in to Western middle class. We share the shame.

We are counted with the poor. What are we learning? 
Inclusion and acceptance,
sacrificial generosity,
flexibility,

creativity.

How to love and forgive complete strangers.
How not to judge.

How not to let anger take over when we feel injustice.

Shanti, shanti, shanti. Peace, peace, peace. Hope.

Just been to Freakstock Festival again. We aren’t too sure how many times we have been yet. There is some discrepancy with the family historians. Dad says 7 times. Abi says 9 times. I say ALOT OF TIMES. Back at the Coptic Monastary/military base.
 
Lots of people!!!

Lots of really cool trucks and creative people in them.

Lots of tea and tea and tea.
Lots of friends – both new and old.

Lots of pizza. What was great about this pizza party is that Abi took over. I guess me and Andrew were being a bit too slow and she took over, then trained up a team of young people and they did it all. Young Jan (red shorts) won the hearts of every woman there as he served out the pizza with a beaming smile.

I also got further piercing coaching from my teacher and did my first 2 piercings. My teacher said he was happy with me and says I just need more practice.

One thing that occured to us is that going to the festivals has become alot easier. It used to be difficult because of the portaloos, cold showers, constant noise and camping in a field with so many others. This time we realized that it seems so much easier because our lives have changed so much. It is now easy because of the nearby toilets, regular showers,  the noise doesn’t bother us and we can sit out in a field with lots of friends and nobody is going to ask us to move on or complain about how strange we are. Maybe it is as my dad said – everything is relative.