Part 5 finally my eighteenth birthday arrived I did not have much money, only for 1 and a half month if I were to spend it only on food a last party was organized which succeeded rather chaotic then, I stood on the side of the highway and went away by hitchhiking it was a great feeling, the open car window the wind running through my hair and the most important: no concrete plans at all “now” and only “now” was important this feeling has never left me since x some might think it’s easy for a European to talk like this because Europe is rich and it’s nearly impossible to starve of hunger these people are right it’s a bit like Greek gods participating in battle of humans, those gods couldn’t die, so it was easy for them to be brave it’s more a bit like moving out of a situation, which somebody is used to x my money was fast spent and at first, I was a bit agitated about what to do sometimes, I worked on fields picking fruit and vegetable, sometimes, I had to beg for money or food, then again, I found some kind of job earning a bit of money and when I had enough money again, I enjoyed life but I never stayed at a place too long because I wanted to travel and look around in each country, I tried to learn the local language as quickly as possible x very often, arriving at a village or new town when my money had gone and I needed to look for a job, people old and young came up to me asking a lot of questions first but after some minutes, it was them telling me their story about their children having left the village for a better life in the city or somewhere in the north of Europe younger people wanted to know what other countries are like, but soon it was them talking about their dreams I listened to the strangest stories; they told me more than they had told their closest friends or family members because they knew that the next day, I wouldn’t be there and therefore couldn’t share these secrets x your closest friend or family, yes, you can’t tell them everything strange, isn’t it? it takes years to build up a good relationship with somebody, these people have a nearly ideal picture of you in their minds, that’s the reason why they like you and now, you are going to tell them that you made a fault: you were hungry and stole a piece of bread you were so much in love and did something to feel ashamed for to conquer this person somebody was punished for your fault and you weren’t brave enough to tell the truth you gained something but it wasn’t your merit of course, you are not going to tell the truth to your closest friend or family because you don’t want to hurt them, you will tell it to a complete stranger whom you hopefully will never meet again x standing outside of society made it clear to me why I had felt bad in my homeland being part of society one can benefit and earn one’s living but there are many compromises those compromises often force the members of society even to deny themselves everybody has to decide for themselves whether it’s worth it poor people are oppressed because they can’t participate in society but one is no less oppressed when one participates in society; in the case of poor people, it’s more obvious x I played a different role in every village or town, told a different story about myself as nobody knew me there, people could not verify whether I told the truth or not anyway, it wasn’t important to them, or better, I was not important to them of course, after a certain time, I didn’t know myself who I really was or wanted to be x travelling around, one day, I arrived at a valley in the Spanish mountains there was a very small lake with fish, a cave and no people I examined the cave, it wasn’t a natural hole in the mountain it had been made by people, probably shepherds but Spain is a rather modern country and they don’t do this kind of cattle breeding anymore me, I liked it a lot, so I spent 3 month alone in the mountains x Part 6 Back to list!