Hiphonest: ethical fashion in Amsterdam

A cross in a circle, passing by on a bag, a jacked or a pair of jeans. Ethical fashion brand Kuyichi made it quite far in The Netherlands! In Berlin we had to suffer to find more than one kind of Kuyichi male jeans, here Kuyichi is rather mainstream. Even in the village where my parents live there is a shop with a better collection than any shop in Berlin can offer, meanwhile also selling Misericordia and Inti without even marketing their shop as ethical.

Is ethical fashion more hot in the Netherlands than in Germany? Hard to say. Germany has been a pioneer with organic cotton clothing, and still has a strong position in the "eco 0.1". But what about "eco 0.2", the new, young and trendy eco-fashion movement?

Something especially developed is the amount of projects, campaigns and organizations that commit themselves to hyping ethical clothing. In Germany I have the feeling this is not happening too much. That's a big difference. In example dutch organization Solidaridad, inventor of the Max Havelaar - Fair Trade label, the Utz-certification for coffee (a sort of Fair Trade Light for the mainstream coffee market), brains behind several ethical clothing brands including Kuyichi, and the Made-By initiative.

Also other initiatives have been a lot in the picture, in example the actions of the young, creative collective YOI, with a guerilla store and fashion shows, who introduced and hyped the term Hiphonest for the new eco-fashion generation. Now 'Hiphonest' might be the most used term in the Netherlands for trendy ethical clothing.

The reason for my Amsterdam visit this time was a meeting with Goede Waar & Co, a dutch consumer organization specialized in ethical consumption and sustainable production. One of their focuses is clothing. One of their activities is a "clothing checker", a tool to give information to consumers about social and environmental aspects of their clothing. They ask ethical and mainstream brands to fill in their questionnaire, visit the companies when possible, and give scores for the categories: social, environment, economy (people, planet, profit).
Goede Waar & Co do also a lot in campaigning, in example organizing swapper parties, and swapping your clothes on parties is getting hot if you did not know it yet.

After my visit to Goede Waar & Co I walked back through the Jordaan to the station. On my way through the Haarlemmerstraat I passed two stores for "Natural clothes", and off course the ethical fashion store Nukuhiva, with a rather strong choice of ethical classics. Not a daring choice, most of the collection was black (if green is the new black, it still looks quite black!).
About half of the Nukuhiva clothing collection is Kuyichi, a heaven for 'style conscious' Kuyichi lovers! Furthermore brands like Edun, Misericordia, Loomstate, and Intoxica. They had also a small but cool choice of shoes from Veja (organic, vegan shoes) and Worn Again. And the fantastic jewelery from designer Natalie Dissel, who I lately met during the Africa Inspires workshop in Kenya.

This part of town is loved for its small houses and picturesque atmosphere, and what once was a poor area is now a yuppies paradise. Still I am amazed that with the extreme house prices this area is still lively and dynamic, with a good blend of students, expats, LOHAS, artists, weirdos, dealers and grandmothers. For the ethical consumer there is a lot of offer, with a bio-supermarket, and the booming 'honest' coffee and bagels concept. The largest ecological market I have seen so far. And not to forget, bikers are the number one in traffic! At least they believe so.

*** article by Frans C. Prins


More interesting dutch initiatives on ethical clothing:
- Sustainable Fashion Community: Het is groen en het...
- Cotton Clash, hiphonest parties, ethical fashion shows: Move Your World
- Fair Wear Foundation
- Finding ethical products in The Netherlands on: Alles Duurzaam
- Clean clothes

Organic cotton farming in Uganda

In Northern Uganda, in the region around Lira, there is as much as 27 thousand farmers (!!!) growing organic cotton. The farmers are united in a cooperative with chosen representatives. The organic cotton project here is started by and running through the Dutch company BoWeevil. The cotton from the Phenix factory in Kampala which I visited the day before, origins from this project as well. As might do the Edun or M&S clothes you are wearing on this very moment.

I went to see the project and visited some farmers. It was quite a trip from Kampala, it takes about six hours on crazy roads. As I understood, this area has been under control by the cruel guerilla Lord’s Resistance Army until very recently. Now there are peace negotiations, so the area is calmer and the farmers, who lived in refugee camps, are living on their lands again. So until one, two years ago they had to go to their lands with fear and go back to the camps before the evening fell. One could understand that’s not an easy way to work. Okay, no Army anymore, but on the way back our driver refused to stop at the beautiful Nile waterfalls because there was a danger for guerilla bandits.

The farming life looked all quite romantic to me, traditional huts, some chickens running around, people hanging around or working a bit. The farmers have small fields with different crops. They do not make use of irrigation, so depend on the rain seasons that occur a few times per year. Next to cotton they grow sesame, red peppers and vegetables for local consumption. The income from cotton and sesame, which is exported, gives income which the farmers can use to send their children to school or buy medicines from. From the extra income they gain with growing organic, the farmers can afford building small houses instead of huts. This is a development from the last years, and if it continues, traditional huts might disappear pretty fast from the landscape.

This is the ambivalence of development. On the one hand it is a positive achievement for the farmer, having a good roof, a house with a door that you can close of, on the other hand it can be a loss of cultural value. An even stronger ambivalence I felt when visiting the Maasai women project in Kenja. In this project, run by catholic nuns, they make traditional jewelry to be able to send their children to school. As they said, they hope that their children will then be able to give the Maasai a stronger presence in municipalities, politics, and that this will decrease their oppression. But while these children go to school, they will live less tightened to their traditional culture, and if they become successful, they will most likely be westernized.

There is not much enemies of cotton in Uganda, so the need for pesticides is not all that high. Often farmers do not have the money to invest in chemicals either. So the step to become organic is not all to large. What makes a difference, is that the organic farmers are trained in methods to prevent their crops in a natural way. A rather genius but logical invention is to plant red peppers around the cotton. Quite some animals don’t really like peppers so they will stay away. And by using this method, they also produce peppers. Another part of growing organic is using crop rotation. The different crops use the ground different, which keeps the soil fertile, so one does not need artificial fertilizers to pimp up the ground. The crop rotation also results in a more efficient use of the landfill and a higher production. In this way it is also more economic. And off course also the non-organic farmers are very interested to see what their neighbors are doing…

In the end, the social effect of this organic cotton project might be much bigger than the ecological impact. The farmers get a guaranteed price and buy for their cotton, the get training and a organic-bonus of twenty percent. This can mean the difference for sending their children to school or having a proper housing. As they are organized in a cooperative, they are relatively self-organized. In that sense, it is a logical step that the project is becoming fair trade certified now. But also the ecological impact is important, as it supports and conserves a relatively traditional way of farming, and is a good alternative to technolization, GM production and ‘improvements’ with pesticides, often introduced or forced by large corporations, who also try to get more grip in Africa. In this fall, the Ugandese case is an interesting example because the success of the organic production, the support from the Ugandese government and the result might be that the whole North of Uganda will be organic within a few years.

Uganda: the reality of production

After the workshop in Kenya I took a bus from Nairobi to Kampala, the capital of Uganda. The trip with Akamba bus took about fifteen hours. It was relatively comfortable, compared to Matatu traveling, where you sit in a small van pressed against each other, but the roads where wobbly, sandy and dusty and one feels quite exhausted after such a trip. On the way I spotted a lot of colorful birds, zebras, antelopes, and apes. After being in wealthy circumstances of hotels, restaurants, and good company, this was quite a difference and I felt arriving in Africa for real!

Kampala roads are much worse than Nairobi roads! And traffic jams are relative if you get used being stuck five hours a day... In Kampala we visited a few projects, in example a designer who makes jewelery and bags from recycled materials (see picture left, she is holding a bag made from recycled plastic), which are produced under a women support program. We also visited the Phenix factory, where they produce fabrics and garments form organic cotton. It was interesting to see, since they work hard to make the factory vertically integrated, one could see the whole process from bringing cotton in to a ready sewn and printed garment in one factory.

Actually it is really worth visiting so many places of production because it gives much more of an insight in the reality of garment production. One of the things I learned on my journey is how complex the matters of fair trade is and also how relative it can look. Complex because it is a whole production chain involved. The cotton can be organic and fair trade, but that doesn't make the final product organic or fair trade. Relative because fair trade, even when certified, is not always visible directly, fair trade does not automatically mean smiling workers (as the marketing of fair trade will make you believe), so it is more in the invisible part (control on labor rights, transparency of the production chain, etc.) that makes the difference.

Retour / Detour

Since we moved upwards through Italy we feel that our journey is getting closer to it's end. Meanwhile we recognized that this way of living hjas been very valuable to us, and we hope that we will be able to travel more often like this and work while we travel. We promised ourselves not to stick to the ordinary citylife too long. When we come back, we will have some projects to do, such as starting up the Pamoyo clothing label, which we have been preparing a bit during our trip. It is not easy to work while traveling the way we do, with a small child and intensive travel experiences and work visits. The travelling blessed us with inspiration and imput, and we look forward putting our ideas into practice!

We have had a bit of a break seeing Klaas en Riki, though the start was a sort of strange nightmare with a cursed house in a village called Spello. We calmed down from our negative experiences on the lovely Renaissance landhouse La Fratta. Here we celebrated Gaya's birthday. It is special to celebrate your first childs first birhtday. A wonderful day! Now we are a few days in the Riviera, close to Cinque Terre. Soon we will visit another ecovillage in Italy and then visit some in France, before we go to Holland.

United colors of Shqipëria

Shqipëria? Wait a minute, isn´t that this poor country somewhere in Africa… What, is it really in Europe? Albania, also called Shqipëria, is one of these countries you hardly hear anything about, though it is interesting visiting it! From Macedonia we had the main road through the country to Tirana, more or less a small mountain path going over the tops rather than just over the passes. On the sides of the road wild dogs, farmers with their goats and chickens, hitchhiking families, children selling cherries or a car wash.

Tirana is a strange mix of third world slums and hip, western looks. There is a lot of trendy bars and fashion stores in Tirana, but if you look a bit higher up you often see the old, loose brick walls almost falling down. Discussing the ´surface´ of western capitalism in a shopping street, we heard some chickens just from above a trendy clothing store.
People in Tirana seem to have a good style taste. Old men wear the right old fashioned suits and sixties glasses with thick, black frames. If you see them walking slowly between the palm trees, or playing chess in the parks, you will start to believe you are in Cuba rather than Albania. Young people dress up according to western fashion, and it is quite surprising how much diversity and style one can find here on the streets.

The mayor of Tirana is famous for his project to give buildings a colorful look. It is a rather simple concept: you have a grey, poor, post-communist city without much ancient or old buildings, so you let some buildings be decorated with daring colors and creative patterns. Possibly the hardest part is to make everyone believe this is a good idea to do. But it really, really is. There is no other city we have seen that looks like this.
We tried to imagine how this city looked like fifteen years ago: grey, dirty and poor. Changes have been fast here. Rainbow waves painted on flats, pink and green striped buildings, an American bank painted more colorful than your local squat. But how much of all this color and style is just on the surface, hiding the horror of poorness within?

Moving on

We left Turkey overland, with a bit of pain in the heart. It has been such a good country to travel in, with its hospitality, the surprisingly delicious local dishes, more or less unspoiled countryside, the small men on their donkeys.

We found a beautiful spot on a beach in Greece to stay overnight, though in the morning we noticed it was just next to a large military area, maybe that´s why we got checked by civilian police in the morning. Not all too bad, but this day we were being stopped three times by the police and asked for our passports. And we know we are lucky with our fancy Swedish and Dutch ones, imagine being a Turk traveling through Greece!
Next day we drove to Kavala, a small coast town in Northern Greece. We enjoyed the food and the local atmosphere of the old town, but for the rest we did not find this part of Greece so inspiring so we decided to move on.

We entered the country of Macedonia (FYROM for the purists) and found it amazing to see the difference of landscape just changing when you pass a border. From summer we drove into spring again, with fresh green leaves and spring flowers. We climbed the mountains and found a spot high above the beautiful lake of Ohrid, very close to the Albanian border. The lake is surrounded by steep mountains, some with snow peaks, and we realized this was one of our most beautiful spots ever. Such a silent, overwhelming view, and just us here, high above everything. We were a bit afraid for encounters with border police, and in the morning two cars stopped next to us and a group of men, some of them in military uniform, stepped out and… just smiled at us.
We had picturesque expectations of Ohrid from a book written seventy years ago. Ohrid is not that unspoiled anymore, filled with grey architecture from Tito´s times, and new, plastic bars and shops. The old city is still worth visiting with its small houses and old churches, but one realizes the world has changed. The Ohrid you get is the tourist version of what it was once, as with most interesting places.

Hos Geldiniz!

We left Istanbul and traveled some days on the countryside. We visited an old mosque on a hilltop today, a beautiful place without any of the sultan glamour of the Istanbul mosques. Just round bowls, floors stuffed with carpets, old tombs, praying men and women. As soon as we arrived, we were surrounded by women who praised Gaya, laughed, talked, kissed to her. Some later we were invited to a food party outside the mosque and invited by different people at their homes in Istanbul. We had a nice lunch there and we enjoyed seeing all the people in and around the mosque being themselves, enjoying life. Being invited to a party is maybe not the first thing you think of when it comes to religion, but we felt it was quite an spiritual experience!

Being invited is here part of the culture, though in the cities and tourist areas it is rather rare. Travelling trhough the countryside, we could hardly stop with our van without being invited, or at least with some people gathering around Gaya to praise her. We were quite out of gazolin, we tried a few tankstations but their tanks were emty. When we found one, we were invited to chai (tea) in the small, smoky and dirty office, but sitting there drinking our tea was a wonderful experience. After all it is not about the perfect spot but about the intention.

We had an overnight on a mountain pass, with a view in all directions. The farmer of the fields passed with hiss tractor and stopped. Off course we wondered if he was going to send us away. He stepped out, walked to us, shaked our hands: Merhabba, Hos Geldiniz! (hello and be welcome). He showed us chickpeas from his land and when he was very worried that Gaya gets too cold so we show him our heater. Later he waved to us when he passed by again. We felt welcome.
Next day we drove on a small road, in the villages we felt really watched, we realized here noone came except for people from there. Imagine driving with your camper bus through a small village, everyone stares, you have to find your way between chickens and cows hanging around on the streets. We sweated, but found our way, next to a water well, of which you find a lot in the coutryside, for animals to drink and for humans to wash themselves before prayer (or just for refreshment, off course!). With a view on the close by snow mountain.
Also here villagers welcomed us. Frans and Gaya went into the mountains next day, and when they asked the road in a small village, an small, old man expressed: no road. But he took them through the village, knocked on the doors, organized chai and all off a sudden we were having tea party with half the village.

Later we visited the great Pamukkale sources by night. They are hundreds of meters high chalk clusters, formed naturally. It used to be an old holy source, and on top of it is Hierapolis, a large ancient site with temples, baths and amphitheaters. In the daytime we saw a stream of touring cars, but amazingly we were the only ones who visited it in the magic moonlight. It was spooky to walk in the dark, moonlighted sight between some large tombs and reading a signs: Necropolis North. But also really special to visit one of the worlds largest tourist attractions all alone!
The guard was first suspicious about us: forbidden! Forbidden! No camp! Go! But got on better terms with him, and he promised to watch our car. When we got back after about two hours he was standing just next to our bus. And off course we were invited for tea…

Later we found a overnight spot next to a well again, and next morning a tractor stopped next to our bus, we were invited for breakfast at the farmers house. We had a marvelous breakfast on the ground of a very small, wooden farmers house. Honey, cheese, olives, vegetables, everything came from their own land except for the bread. And they just shared this with us because they liked us to be their guests. Just like that!

Culture shocks from Istanbul

It is quite a kick driving into Istanbul with your own van around 4 o clock pm! Five track roads without street markings, all kinds of vehicles crisscrossing wherever they can go. We got fuzzed around and wondered how big the city would be. Okay, driving into a city of about 16 million inhabitants without any preparation may not be recommendable, and we felt quite lost. Asking people for a map, no one understood, or just started to laugh. Trying to park, roads got stunningly steep and narrow and one moment even some locals thought that our van would turn over!

After some desperate hours we found our way, and started to enjoy the city more and more. In Istanbul every kind of shop has its own area, you have whole quarters just for car radios or ship robes, wand we found our home in the music instrument area. In some shops jams sessions were going on, shop owners were playing guitar outside. The main street in our area, Istiklal Caddesi, is broad and just stuffed with people, they say in the weekend there are 5 million visitors per day in the area! Walking this street you get pretty dizzy after a while. It has quite an impact on the ecology of your mind, all this chaos, all this people, and we noticed the enormous contrast with living on the countryside, where the mind gets calm and you forget to hurry. But a huge city does not necessarily mean loose structures. In all the chaos there is a lot of hidden orders and codes. It is just that they seam to differ per street so it is hard as an outsider to read them and adjust to them. A man showed us how a dog was waiting outside a butchers till they came and gave him a bag with meat. The dog always smelled first if the meat was good enough for him. As a special customer, all butchers respected the dog and gave him meat. The dog smelled the bag, took it in his mouth, and walked.

Istanbul carries huge contrasts next to each other, a big shopping street, a yuppie area, and a poorest area are just walking distance from each other. When we entered the poor area, we felt it was not normal that foreigners came here, everyone watched us, and although no one was unfriendly to us we did not feel too comfortable in the small slum-like streets. Around the Istikal Caddesi you have to get deaf for all the street sellers, beggars and restaurant people, but five minutes from there we had a hard time finding a place where they were willing to serve us a dish!

We met some friends´ friends and had a nice time with them. They are buzzy with a project documenting street culture in Istanbul with photo´s and sounds, categorizing them in themes like ´stencil art´, ´little notes´ or ´Don´t leave your trash here or your family is cursed-´signs. Now they want to do the same in Amsterdam and Berlin. It is nice to come to such an enormous city to get to know a few people working on their own crazy ideas, and we started to feel quite at home in the city. Hard decision: nature and culture, but we felt the fuzz of the city was a bit overwhelming and longed for nature again!

The road to Istanbul

Without any money we entered Bulgaria by night. A lot of gates and checks, and then in nomansland a small office man: `Pay 5 Euro`. For what`? Frans asked. Again: `Five Euro´s`. Ok, we did not have a single Eurocent. The last peage we emptied all our pockets to get through. The man let us sweat, then smiled: Ok, you can pass. We had already a lot of stress on the way because our last Euros were just enough to pay peages in Kroatia and the first one in Serbia, and the last peage costed all our Serbian dinars. Ok, we are crazy not bringing any cash. No bank wants our travelers cheques. But somehow we managed all the times passing with just enough money. Thank the almighty!

In Bulgaria roads got worse again, it was night, we just drove in a side street, and slept on a field between the stars. In the morning we saw the view: we slept close to a snow mountain again. We drove to Plovdiv, recommended by Frans´mother because it was such a quiet, nice town when we are there in 1990. But Bulgaria has changed a lot! Now it is a westernized city, full of shopping crowds and traffic, huge commercials and hard to find the picturesque spots in between them. The landscape also changed. Empty fields full of trash, some herds with goats or cows just in between the trash. On a stop Gaya and Frans had an encounter with a wine farmer, hitting his donkey to work harder. He was very nice to us, but not so nice to his donkey.

The project we wanted to visit in Bulgaria was canceled, and so we decided to drive further, being so close to Turkey. The Turkish border was a huge terrain and we passed at least twelve checks. At one they sent Frans to get a visa, and meanwhile the others ´checked´our buss, found Gaya. One of the officers took her on his arm and walked to the other officers. They all melted as little boys! This was just the beginning of a long story of masculine, macho man shouting, bubbling, laughing, tickling, kissing, when we pass with Gaya. It is hard to walk streets in Turkey because everyone wants to talk to her, touch her. Massalah, a bless of God, people say all the time. We have to give a good travel advice: it is not always easy to travel with a baby, but it also makes everyone weak and friendly. Even the most annoying market sellers just melt and forget to sell us anything!

Again we slept on some fields, next morning we drove into Babaeska, a small town. We felt a bit like home again in Kreuzberg, and people even spoke German to us. The first mosques, the calling for prayers, the different atmosphere, we started to realize we entered another world, somehow. But this was just the beginning...

Entering a tropical Novi Sad

From Istria we had a long trip to Novi Sad. They are building a highway through the mountains between Rijeka and Zagreb all at once, just everywhere there are huge bridges and tunnels built, and we wondered who finances this, until we had to pay peage (highway fee). After Zagreb there is a certain change of atmosphere. Slovenia looks quite western nowadays, although the countryside is much less polluted by mass tourism or high tech agricultural industries. There is still a small farmers culture and a lot of people grow vegetables and fruits in their own gardens. Istria and the Kroatian coast are more polluted by tourism, and there is a certain welfare ass well. After Zagreb, tank stations started to look crappy, cars drove more crazy, and all of a sudden we were driving in the middle of a Dutch army convoy!

We crossed the first ´real´ border, and unfriendly officers were asking loudly: Gaya Prins Palmer! But off course even they could not refuse to smile after all. And in Serbia, everyone was really, really friendly to Gaya, smiling at her, coming to say hello, talk to her. We are noticing a culture change getting stronger and stronger since we corssed the alps. The more south east we go, the more enthousiastic and open people get towards Gaya, and I guess also towards us.

The political situation in Serbia is insecure since they don´t have a government, and the Kosovo affair still hanging in the air as a sword of Damocles. No one wants to get at power, because no one wants to be responsible for the though decisions to make. The International community have been punishing Serbia a long time, and with the isolation the ultranationalists gained more influence. It seems to be double, on the one hand capitalism is conquering Serbia rapidly, in tow years since we were here, there has been a rapid boom of clubs, cafes, fashion stores, international banks, etc. in Novi sad. On the other hand there is not such a Europe friendly atmosphere. As Serbia is a black sheep for Europe, it is maybe not even so strange that foreigners have to pay a double highway fee (50 Euros for 200 km hobly highway).

Most people are very friendly, and the atmosfere was good. It is actually hard to say what is so nice about Novi Sad, but it has something special. Maybe it is the strange magic of the enormous Petrovaradin Fortress (largest fortress tunnel complex of its kind in the world) at the other side of the Danube, maybe just the atmosphere of a rapidly changing city. A city in which youngsters try to live more western than westerners,and where the pourness is expressed only at the backsides. It is off course nice and exotic to see horse and carriages in the streets of a city. And soon enough they will drive around tourists in stead of garbage.

It was great to spend a couple of days with Goran, sitting on his balcony in the evening drinking Hungarian champaign, going barbequing with his friends in the forest, sharing ideas and opinions. Goran has a lot of ideas and plans to realize, which is quite brave in a country where not everything is just possible like that. You need great courage and believe to realize your ideas while swimming upstream! We wish him all the best and if anyone is interested in the support a group of promising cultural activists and creatives in Novi Sad, we will be pleased to bring you in contact with them!

Wilderness experience

Nature in the alps is so tres magnefique! It is a wonderful landscape to experience wilderness and come closer to yourself and to heaven. Not for nothing people greet here with `Grüss Got!´. High in the mountains you feel the energy is pure, the water is flowing from fresh melted snow, the birds sing without sorrows, the view is far and bright. Experiencing the wilderness is a good way to recover your senses and fresh up your mind. The beauty of wilderness goes far beyond the world of purposes and usefullness, it simply has value in itself. Something for philosophers and researchers to bother about: what does make this so special? Though when you experience the wilderness itself, one can just feel one with the wild nature as the source of life. That´s something of the mystery where people greet their God for here, high up in the mountains.

We stayed overnight at the foot of some high snow top mountains. Under us a frozen lake, a fresh mountain stream and a marvellous view. It was pretty cold in the night as snow was around us. In the morning we walked up a mountain until the snow was getting up to our knees. In the snow we found traces of different animals, but really not one single human. If it wouldn´t have been so cold, we would have stayed longer, now we moved on, over the Alps, heading for Slovenia.

Brothers and sisters of the rainbow

In the morning we climbed the hill to the hippie camp. On top of the hill was a tipi standing, with a little fire still burning, and around it people sleeping or just waking up. In the shades down we found a base camp with tipi´s and yars, surrounded by small tents.
People were sitting around a leek and some were playing music and singing, while others where doing their dishes. Between the trees children run around and climbed in the trees. Some people were cutting wood, others were making coffee and tea on a fire. We had found a little forest community, looking like a nomad tribe.

There were not too much things were going on. There was the care for food and the campsite, and some spontaneous encounters were happening. There was no goals or forwardedness, people were very relaxed and living the time being. For us, having always another idea to realize, this was not easy to accept, though it is quite a sustainable way of living, not using more of your energy than you really need. The question for us was, is this then a ´good way of living´? We missed creativity and real dedication. We both were also too tired to give a really inspiring input, so decided it was better to go for more silence. It was nice to experience the atmosphere, and we enjoyed the fire in the night, with music, singing and dancing, and a still round moon shining upon us. And it is a nice idea that real hippies are still gathering around in nature all over Europe. We will see if we find more of them on our way…

Leaving Berlin full spead

We worked our asses of to be able to leave the day we planned, and still we had to arrange paperwork on Sunday morning. In all the hurry Frans forgot our passports and about 700 euros cash at some Arabic internetcafe in Berlin. But the gods were mercy, the local boys honest and we were ready to go. Around noon we left Berlin with our red minivan stuffed with clothes, a sewing machine, materials and a computer. We did not have a plan or route, but decided to see on the way where to go...

We were driving in the mountains when our van started to make strange noises, produce smoke and a burning smell. We stopped and dediced to sleep where we were, in the middle of the Ertzgebirge. But everywhere in the mountains there was some sort of pollution, by factories and by tourists. The small river next to our buss smelled awful and the trees looked sick. We expected beauty but we got the beast!

Next day we went on, all the way through Czech Republic, through hills and mountains, until we were in the south east of Bavaria, close to Passau. Somewhere there we expected to find a hippie camp, but we did not find it. After some 1,5 hours searching we gave up, gave it one more try, and then we got lost again. The full moon was spreading it´s light over the hilly landscape and gave it mysterious impression. In the middle of the darkness we got followed by a white car. `Hey, isn´t that car following us?` we stopped. The white car stopped in front of us. A small man in some centuries old suit stepped out of the car and walked to our car. What are you searching for? He asked in strong dialect. He showed us the way. We found it immediately.
`That was a gnome´, Cecilia said, when we finally had found the way. `They always drive white cars.´ I realized it was true, and remembered being totally lost while hitchhiking, being picked up by a small man in a white car, talking only local dialect. He just put us on the right way again, and than he left us again.

We drove on a small sand road, found a parking lot full of vans in the valley and a full moon party on top of the hill. We heard drums and guitars, singing and shouting, and we knew we were right. We were just too tired to climb the hill for the full moon party and rolled into our bed. We realized we were still going full speed and it we had to slow down. Living in a city, you are getting used to some kind of speed. Every city has it´s own speed, and Berlin is much slower than in example London or Paris. But still, nature and countryside are slower, and we definitely have to slow down! Talking about sustainability: taking care of the energy and balance firstly counts for oneself! Slowly we are slowing down, and all the unnecessary sorrows and ideas fall of from our shoulders. Sustainable living is living in a tempo that you can walk on for days. Not running and than breathing but breathing deep while you walk, and enjoy the view on the way. Let´s be slow!