And as if it was bound to happen: the day I had quit my job again, the day I was on my last day of hitching to work, I got offered new work by one of my drivers. I could not have been two seconds later at my usual spot as I was instantly picked up by her. Barely 15 minutes later she offered me to work for her, by making a television show about sustainability…

The show is already made and even broadcasted. It was a great success. The presentors and other members of the team were very happy with the work done and there is even the possibility to make more shows for them after the summer. And in addition, during this last day of hitching to and from work, I even got offered a bottle of wine by my final driver who dropped me off at my house.

Hitchhiking definitely works.

My biggest desire in life is to help enabling a world free of hierarchies. So when I did accept a job this year, I was only slightly enthousiastic. I needed some solid financial base and yes I was ready for a challenge but a corporate job was not on my list (at all). In the end I was relatively o.k. with giving it a green light for a while, until I would have at least build up some cash-reserves again.

There are good things about my job. I learned a lot about marketing, I got to understand the technologies that enterprises use to brainwash us, I traveled a bit, worked with some fine people and I learned a lot from them. But, there is so much more to life than just jobs and career.

So when to quit? There is never a better moment than now and I feel now is that time. There are so many useful things I can better direct my attention to, and there are so many more things I still want to accomplish in the near future, that most of my time in this office is wasted. And in the end, what is so usefull about working for someone else‘s profit?

If not for the heartbeat-collective and Matrixpoint I would not have enjoyed Boston that much. I was over for a week to the States, enjoying great views of the city from a 17th floor many stars hotel, for my j-o-b. I was thankfully pointed into the right direction by Anu and Sky, making it possible for me to actually make my trip something useful and slightly less boring.

While John gave me lots of insights on the birth and death of CS 2.0, the Heartbeat Collective gave me a lot of inspiration for projects and ideas, adding more roots to them. I was especially happy when I learned about the rhizome collective, and the urban farming projects they do. Somehow I also discovered that -though the US has a lot of toxic soil- apparently there are some really beautiful flowers growing there.

Some other things that come to mind when thinking about Boston: carving pumpkins; pirates; Obama equals hope; the radio-stations played great music but were full with bullshit in the mornings; food is cheap and there are vegetarian meals everywhere; people don’t walk, don’t cycle, but they do talk a lot; I am not born for bowling (nor my j-o-b).

Check out more stuff I wrote while in Boston here

• Hitchhiking Hitchwiki, that recently reached its 1000th article.
• Random Roads, a new magazine for independent travelers.
• Trashwiki.org, a new initiative for Dumpster Diving, recycling trash.
• Sustainable Hospitality Exchange, with a meeting soon in Antwerpen.

And there is yet more to come. Bewelcome if you feel like participating, or stay over for a while to help working on whatever social project that you are involved in or that you want to create. We have a nice and creative working environment here.

I never felt like volunteering for these networks though (couchsurfing.com and hospitalityclub.org). How they are organised simply does not inspire me: they are top-down structured and volunteers hardly have impact on how it is run.

But since a year there is a network that does want to be member-driven: BeWelcome.org. I joined its volunteers last weekend in their yearly assembly when they select the yearly board, do some brainstorming and make plans for the coming year.

I hitchhiked to Essen (Germany) with four cars and had an excellent and very inspiring time. Obviously, since it is a new network there is lots of work that still needs to be accomplished but I am looking forward doing my share for this first hospitality network that wants to be truely democratic (ie. member-driven or grassroots), transparant and opensource – one that is not only able to facilitate hospitality exchange but also able to share the access to the buttons and empower volunteers.

Waking up…
upset stomach…
alcohol in blood…
4 am.

My first working day,
my value is added,
and my belly hurts.

Almost
lost a job
once
because of adding too much value
at the bar

Please
fall back asleep
let’s remain one piece
enjoy
sun
and beach!

8 am.
A bug in my ear.
I hit.
The alarm-clock.

Brushed my teeth
but no help against the buzz.
Not here.

Sun comes up,
rays of light.
Solutions
through sounds of waves.
Revenue
through excitement.

Can we have one meeting …
managing the journey?

A break.
And coffee helps.
Waves come in
go out,
light arises.

And the sun
on my Mediterranean balcony
warms me up.

My new job,
the first in 13 months,
brought me to Malaga and Munich
already.

Yet to come:
Boston,
Paris,
London.

My towel is with me.
I
love
it.

Istanbul, Sunday morning. Church bells wake me up. A familiar sound as I grew up in a large town with well over twenty churches. But hold on, aren’t we in a moslim country?

Istanbul is pretty much well-known for its diversity; it always has. It is a very cosmopolitan city with people from all different identities from all over the world, while at the same time there are currently still over thirty different original ethnicities within Turkey.

Still, politicians in this country see it as their life-goal to make everyone believe there is just one Turkish identity. Nationalism is an important asset of power and to challenge this is still uncommon. You are free to believe in whatever religion but you must not emphasize other parts of your identity, such as speaking in another language than Turkish (Kurdish for example).

In this sense Turkey is not very far from other countries that have led a top-down approach of enforcing one national identity, in particular France. Over the course of more than two hundred years France has almost successfully gotten rid of many different identities and traditions that find their roots in the many French regions.

And for me personally this is a sensitive issue. One of the main reasons why I originally left the Netherlands was the rise of nationalism and subsequently the growing disrespect for people that are considered to be different. I felt very powerless against this stream. It left me frustrated. Among other elements it was this feeling of frustration that made me leave 3,5 years ago.

But thankfully there are still people who challenge this ideology of one national identity. Also in Turkey. People that challenge this idea keep on emphasizing what Turkey still is between the lines; that the country is actually made up of more than thirty different etnicities.

And they emphasise that all people should have the right to express themselves in their own chosen way  such as language, clothes, sexuality, religion, dance, food or any other cultural-political element, as long as they permit others to do the same.

For the past two weeks I worked as a photographer and followed a political candidate for the upcoming parliamentary elections (22nd of July  2007) who is of this line. The candidate supports the idea that there is not one Turkish identity but many. He even turned this into his main issue. He is therefore also supported by different Armenian communities and many other minority communities in Istanbul.

These weeks have been quite fulfilling as such. Not only have I learned how political campaigns work in this country – also have I learned more about photo-journalism.

And wow, that can be quite a tough job, as you have to be on the spot and focused most of the time however boring it sometimes can be (even more since you don’t understand what they are talking about). All in all, these past weeks have revealed to me a new or rather different scope of politics, campaigning and photography.