Durka Durka

 There it is: our traveling companion for at least the coming year. A 39 year old Mercedes 406 D van or should i say camion sauvage) who will bring us through France, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Morocco untill deep in the sahara dessert! In one month time we will be travelling and working our way around the globe for an indefinate period of time. This van is the only true pall who will accompany us along the dusty roads in persuit of a more concious and basic life enriched by the ones we will meet along the way.

 

It had to be named as we just fell in love with it. It's steady and simple 2.0 diesel engine has spare parts all over the dessert so it was also exactly what we were looking for. Durka Durka is named after Team Amerika's (movie ed.) Durka Durka stan where all arab's only seem to talk in Durka Durka Mohammed Jihad. It thanks it's name to the tough little guy he seems to be as well as the destination ahead.
We will start working in Italy for half a year at camping I Pini Near Rome before we head south to Morocco. Along the way we want to work as volunteers and even strand for a while in an ecological village. In morocco we would like to make ourselves usefull for social development programms like teaching kids english, built up a school or help in an orphanage etc. Who know's we would like to start up a project ourselves or who know's we will be in Asia two years from now. The sky is the limit: the aim is to meet and learn from people who are looking at life from another point of view.

We simply want more room to enjoy life. Spain is heading for the 50% unemployment and 300 house evictions are planned every day. Actiongroups gather to block the entry for

the police, houseprices are collapsing as the economic bubble has bursted. All through my life i have wondered why all we believed in as freedom I considered golden bars of an ever eminent jail surrounding me. I did feel alone always wanting to wander away. Not to run away from something but drawn towards something. The urge for something drastically to change, to be a part of that change. Why wasn't i born in the time of the hippies or Amsterdam's Kabouters? Why was i too late to get drunk on Mano Negra? Why was everyone just settling for a steady job to live the same routine every day calling that freedom?? I want to be a part of a new culture of nomads. Economic climats make thousants of migrants move. An exile we could never expect to happen in Europe where revolutions are belonging to the middle ages. In the year 2012 a lot is going to change. According to the mayans this is the year of the start of a new mayan calender. It is not so much the end of one as it is the beginning of a new era as happened for the last time around the invasion of the spaniards in Latin America. A new world will rise is the prophecy and unlike what christians believe it is not the end of this worldly existence for all although i am sure this new era will bring us to another dimension and a new concious. It won't happen over night but it is work in progress as the tension span of a novel; the point that turns the story in another direction.

Friday the 24th of february we have purchased Durka Durka and at home we emediately begin stripping it and updating it into our little hippie mobile home. In just 3 days time we have renovated it's dated decor out of the 70's to our likings. It will be the only place we know as home from now on!

 IM