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Leaving “Easter Island” after 3 weeks. What an amazing time.
We finally got the brake seal on Thursday. Willie and Andrew fixed the truck the same day.
Abi wanted to stay a few more days so she could celebrate her 15th birthday with her new friends.
Hanna took the opportunity to learn some graffiti art on an official graffiti wall with paint cans that have been left over the last few weeks by all the graffiti artists.
We left richer than we entered.
We got our truck fixed for free.
Free training for Inigo from a professional dog trainer.
We were given a very,very cool old, German motorbike (only 50cc, don’t worry nana).
The best of all we have some new, very amazing, friends that we hope to see again soon. 
Oh yeah, one of our new friends, Kolya, is selling his truck. Yeah, I know. He did all the boring bits of doing a far better job at insulating the box than we would ever do. Get this. He has replaced most of the metal frame with wood frame. Put holes in the wood frame so that there is a barrier of circulating air. The next layer in comes the insulation and then the walls. All you need to do is add the fun bits. He loves his truck but needs to sell it because he has terminal cancer and can’t drive it anymore. If you’re interested email us and we’ll put you in touch.
I am still processing so much that we learned there. Our time at “Easter Island” has to be one of my favourite travelling experiences over the last year and a half. It has changed us, I believe for the better.
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.
We have now left Czech Republic and are in Chemnitz, Germany. We have been greeted in, what we have determined to be, classic German hospitality. It is just over the top. We arrive to put our truck in a large shed where Mirko has gathered a team of efficient German welders and mechanics have been gathering supplies and do the work. On the agenda are some mechanical repairs, waterproofing the roof, new tyres, etc. After one look at our bicycles they were promptly added to the list.
We have a choice of 2 places to stay. We stayed the first nite in an idyllic little fairytale cottage on the edge of town and a room in town with food, washing machines and a kids program. We are being pampered German
style.
Andrew is trying desperately to be more German by simply being on-time
but is sadly failing miserably, despite his best attempts. I think he
might have become a bit more “hippy” over the last year. Our adventures
are transforming us and I think it depends on where or who you are to
determine if you think it is better or not.
As me and the girls have had some time to hang out while Andrew works in the warehouse me and the girls have been exploring. Among our favourite places in Chemnitz are the Eiscafe. Dare we say that this place has our favourite ice cream so far. I know, I know, we ARE in Germany and this ice cream is the absolute best. I had “chili/chocolate” and my mouth was numb from the real chillies. Abi had “Pina Colada” and had real chunks of pineapple and coconut. TJ had raspberry and it still had raspberry seeds in it and the sour taste of the actual fruit. We found this place after making a major wrong turn on the bus and the kids say it was definately worth it.
Another favourite was our free tour from the nice man at the salt grotto around the corner from where we are staying. Sure, it is man made but what an effort. Locals come in to take care of health problems of the respiratory system and skin problems. Himalayan salt stone walls. Salt steam. One relaxing 45 minute session, complete with mood music, a couple of times a week is supposed to cure what ails you. There is even a special kids session everyday at 3pm. The kids didn’t want to leave and really liked the sweeties at the front desk. These sweeties had no sugar of any sort (not even fake sugar). Just himalayan salt and herbs. http://www.salzgrotte-chemnitz.de/
The Chemnitz claim to fame is the giant Karl Marx statue still in the centre of town. I was told I couldn’t miss it. Uuuuuhhhh, we missed it. Honestly couldn’t find it. Apparently this town was called Karl Marx town during communism and they are quite proud of their giant statue.
You know, ever since we went to SLOT Festival in Poland the first time, we just can’t seem to avoid it.
We have now been 4 times in a row.
We weren’t even planning on going this year until about a week before. We all love it. There are workshops on everything from black-smithing swords to tightrope walking.
We saw many old friends and made alot of new ones.
Andrew taught under the tree again.
I did something a bit different this year. I made the tipi into a space to make wings.
The thing is, I had this dream a few months back. I was in Africa. I found some beautiful, semi-transparent fabric and thought it would make beautiful wings. I have often thought of making wings. I dreamt that we went to SLOT and people were walking around in wings that were made in a space that I set up and this helped us get around the world.
Strange huh? I thought that if we go to SLOT I should do this. But, since we weren’t planning on going to SLOT this year I wouldn’t have to do it. I was safe. The dream could remain this strange and distant image in Africa, the land of dreams.
Then our plans changed and we went to SLOT. I felt really silly doing this. I did a lot of moaning to my family, Sasha and Derek while setting things up. Moaning to the point that there was a bit of a role reversal with my girls. I was doing the little girl moaning and they were coming back with heaps of motherly encouragement. Doing this hit all my issues. I don’t like the attention. I don’t like looking stupid. Silly I don’t mind but stupid is another issue. I couldn’t quite figure out how to frame it. Was I to do it all for free? Was I supposed to sell the wings? What about a donation?
I need to tell you, at this point, that I have a belief in a God who cares about me and speaks to me. So, at the risk of seeming even more strange than I already am, I need to say that I think that this dream was from God and that He wanted me to do it. OK, I said it, Whew. To add to this, Derek had some really good advice for me. He said that the exact frame for a wing-space was unimportant. If I think that God wanted me to do this, then it was a simple matter of obedience.
So, instead of doing what makes sense and making money by selling wings to unique, eclectic shops in wealthy countries I take my partially made wings and set up a space in an art festival in a struggling country among economically challenged young people alongside over a hundred free workshops and then ask for donations for our diesel in a country where “donation” is a bizarre concept. All this because of a dream I had in the Sahara and a very strong feeling that I was supposed to do it with no assurance that I wouldn’t look like a complete idiot doing it.
Abi and I cut out and sewed together hundreds of wing panels, with my hand-crank Singer sewing machine, the week before.
We went to slot and set up our space. We set up the tipi. Painted a sign. Hung up some wings.
Our space was completely full of people pretty much the whole time it was open. We covered our costs with a single generous donation.
We left the tipi up for overflow for the neighbouring tea tent after we ran out of supplies to make wings and sold every last pair of intact display wings for donations.
I need to say, at this point that we didn’t do any clever marketing or advertising. We tried to print some cards off and our printer cartridge suddenly became defective. People just saw the tent and the wings and asked if they could make some. After we ran out of supplies for making wings people sought out me, or one of my girls, to ask for wings.
 Over the next days the wings were popping up everywhere. Just like my dream, only better.
I think the wings made people happy… and beautiful… and free in a world where this is all in way too short supply. There is just something very special about wearing wings. It opens up a world of possibilities. Especially wings that are huggable.
We also got to fill up our diesel tank on our way out of Poland. Which was incredible because we drove to Poland with no money to fill the tank for our return trip.
Technorati Tags: Slot art festival, poland, wings, dreams
Sorry for the silence but we have been camping on some friend’s land in the Divoka Sarka on the outskirts of Prague. It is an old farm that was last used by the Nazi’s. Legend has it that the Communists and the Nazis had a bit of a battle right at the edge of the land. The new owners plan to make it into a retreat center, farm, home for 3 families and ??? It was a wonderful time with frequent bike trips to the spring fed pool and the pub right next door, which can only be reached on foot or bike.
We have received a homecoming welcome from our old friends. Made new friends that feel like old ones already. We have had our backs cracked by the muscly amature chiropractor next door. Chased fireflies with his wife. Heard hilarious stories from a very aminated czech ambassador. Heard from a Thai businesswoman about an amazing education program she is involved with in Thailand where their students learn practical skills for life and their 8 year old graduates must build a house before they can graduate. We drank great czech beer (the kids drank Kofola, alias communist coke) and ate great czech food.
WOW! What a great week. We have now left and are at the SLOT art festival in Poland. We have been invited to return to Divoka Sarka after SLOT to do some work on our truck. Hmmmmm… what would you do?
Just thought you might like a photo of how Inigo is doing. He is getting SOOOOO big. He is fitting right into the family. We think he is the perfect dog for us.
He frequently gets hiccups. He likes to do a froggy sprawl when he finds cool tile floors, he is truck trained, he has a muscly strutt, he still pees like a girl.
He now has his puppy immunizations finished, a little blue microchip floating around inside somewhere (how strange to think about) and his EU passport (wish we had one of those).
We have been given some great books on dog training. The best one is these 3 monks who breed and train german shepherds, called “How to Be Your Dog’s Best Friend”. Bizarre cover (Do those 3 monks all naturally tilt to the right or did they change a slanting horizon to straight to help the cover look more symetrical, or the monks look drunk?), great book.
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If art is a language then what makes an artist?
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