. . .

Since I m right in the middle of the writing my thesis in anthropology (which should keep me busy for the rest of the year), I ve got time to look around me in search for inspiration for my thesis. As it happens most of the time when I m looking for something I turn on my computer and search the Internet. Spending a long time in front of the computer doesn t make me particularly happy most of the time. I wonder what the heck I am doing in front of this machine when the sun is shining outside and I should be swimming or riding my bicycle. What am I supposed to do? What is the meaning of life?

No. This is not an all-embracing documentation of my personal meaning of life.  It s, as always, another approximation to it. A post which hopefully could inspire one or the other of my fellow readers (if there are any out there).

On one of these “browsing around my RSS-Feeds” tours I ve stumbled upon an interesting TED talk from Dan Gilberts. In his talk he raises the question of “Why are we happy?”. Yeah – good question. Since my first travel in South America I m constantly asking myself what makes me happy. I have successfully figured out so far that neither a car nor a brand new computer does make me happy. So I did not buy any. Neither Smoking nor spending huge amounts of money on partying makes me happy – so I avoided doing both.

Exclude things or actions, which are expensive and do not help me to raise my level of happiness, but cost money, which I would have earned, doing things which most probably neither do make me unhappy, worked pretty good so far.
So what I am doing is limiting myself. I ve limited myself before and did pretty well with it. For about 5 or 6 years by now I m a vegetarian. So less choice when you walk into a Supermarket or in a Restaurant. It just makes a lot of things easier. I don t have to worry that much while taking a decision. Decision taking is a very complex taks I experience all the time as well with other people I work with.

Just last Friday we, a group of people, living in an around Freiburg, founded an organisation which will produce food and deliver it to the members of that organisation. It will be seasonable and regional food. So in fact the available food from that farm will in fact be way more limited then the offer I can choose from in the supermarket. It will be a self imposed limitation (for good reasons).

I experienced another example for the difficulty of choosing on that Friday evening. Before and after I held my part of the presentation I worked behind the bar serving our guests some drinks. We had two different types of beer, two different types of lemonade and about 6 different juices. The people walked up to the bar – made up their mind what they are going to order – take a decision and order, lets say a juice. When I ask them what kind of juice and show them all the different option they get kind of baffled and try to make a choice.
Like Dan Gilberts explained in his talk I maybe should not give them the too detailed choice. Just give them one of the choices and in most cases they will just be fine.

Lessons to learn on your way to happiness or your meaning of life:
You have to choose not to choose.

During my time in Costa Rica I was wondering why the catholic religion is still the official religion in Costa Rica. The church does get a share of the general taxes. Thats not fair to people of other (or no believes).

I ve thought that in Germany it s different. Even though the state takes care of charging the church tax (what I disslike as well)  you can avoid to pay if you leave the church. Now I ve found more information about that.

Actually the state pays additionally to the two churches (catholic and protestant) another 450 Million €. Thats on top of the estiamted 1.2 Billion € which receives just the catholic church each year.

Tax money is not just invested into arms but as well religious institutions I do not support. I would like to change that and thats why I m going to sign the petition against this tax.

Pictures of the BP Oil Spill

Shock

Sadness

ANGER!!!

I can t hold back a smile when I frequently read the collums “Test: One week without a mobile phone”.

These guys are brave – an entire week! Wwohhoo! I am living without such a device for almost all my life. For a couple of years I tecnically had a mobile number but the pre-paid card was hardly ever charged and the battery was a disaster so it was switched of most of the time.

There are so many reasons for not having a mobile phone.  I guess the biggest reason I reject these devices is because I don t wan t to carry more stuff in my pocket then necessary. Then there is the issue of privacy. Even though I don t know if anybody is trying to trace my daily life (probably not), the mere possibility that anybody could do it so easy makes me feel uncomfortable.

Even though I m using Gmail (which is not known for respecting privacy of their users) I m still not convinced that I do need to carry a mobile phone all the time with me.

Hitchhiking is an act of peace,
and every act of peace is a protest against the everyday war!

Hitchhiking is an act of peace because it brings people together. Total strangers, most of the times from different social or cultural backgrounds share some time together. They talk, get to know each other and on this way both, the driver and the hitchhiker see behind the others curtain.

I just came back from a week-trip to Berlin where I ve met some friends I ve met in  Costa Rica. Hitchhiking to Berlin was nice again … 11 hours each way for 800 km. Nothing super-fast but quite okay …

Hitchhiking rulez!

No, local & organic grown food which is directly bought through Food-Coops or on a local marked is actually the cheapest food.

The conventional food you might buy in the supermarket at a lower price does not include the price of:

• water pollution
• antibiotic resistance
• food-borne illnesses
• crop subsidies
• subsidised oil and water
• . . .

all the hidden costs to the environment and the taxpayer make cheap food seem cheap.

AND

Americans and Germans pay on average around 10-11 % of their disposable income on food. In the 1950s this rate has been around 20 % in America. This rate is probably the lowest in the history of humanity.

We spend our money on mobile phones, cars, alcohol, cigarettes, TV/Hifi, Computer, etc. but we refuse to pay for good food.

So is the unwillingness to pay more for food really a matter of affordability or priority?

For more Info check out Michael Pollans Book: The Omnivore´s Dilema

Wir leben in einer dunklen Box, die sich Europa nennt und blicken nicht darüber hinaus. Wir haben die Welt nach unseren Vorstellungen geordnet, haben Kolonialismus und Seuchen über die Welt gebracht und versuchen, alles mit Entwicklungshilfe wieder zusammenkleben.
Wir zwingen die Welt unser Wirtschaftssyste auf. Aber wir wissen über die Kulturen die wir zerstören, überhaupt nichts. Das ist ganz dramatisch. Wir müssen doch erkennen, dass es neben uns andere Gesellschafte gegeben hat mit anderen Lebensentwürfen und Visionen der Existenz, die wir dabei sind zu zerstören.
Interview von der Süddeutsche Zeitung mit einem Ethnologen

We are living in a dark box, which is called Europe and we are not looking beyond it. We have formed the world according to our imagination, have spread colonialism and diseases all over the world and we are trying now to fix all the with a bit of development aid.
We oblige the world in our economic system but we know nothing about the cultures we are destroying. This is dramatic. We do have to be aware of the fact that there have been other societies with other designs of life and visions of existence, which we are destroying right now.
Interview by Süddeutsche Zeitung with an anthropologist.

Sitting in the ICE train, leaving the freezing gate of the train station in Frankfurt. I m writing in the train – there are tables and electricity for my computer. On the airplane from San Jose to Frankfurt I ve met the boyfriend of my ex-flatmate from San Pedro (2008). It s a tiny world. I hope they are coming to visit me in Freiburg during his stay in Europe.

I m not even here (in Germany) for more then 3 hours and I m already missing Costa Rica. Here it s freezing cold and the people look strange. Most of them are very well dressed business people. Despite my friend the people on the Condor flight have been pretty uninteresting. Would say that most of them did their yearly 2 weeks holiday in the “green” Costa Rica, chilling at the beach and spending their 150 US $ per day – the kind of tourists the government of Costa Rica is looking for. From this point of view (and maybe for other reasons Masa Critica)the government of Costa Rica is probably not unhappy that they have got rid of me.

Entering the Terminal from the plane there were about 8 civilian officers probably from the migration department – the only person searched by them was black (probably there were ~ 8 black people out of 300 passengers) – welcome to Europe!

In the train station a woman, arriving as well from Latin America, was asking for money to make a call. I gave her 1 € without even thinking about it. I still did not arrived -. speaking tico-spanish while queuing for the passport control with my friend. I don t fit in this environment of the Frankfurt Airport with my pullover and my trekking shoes.

I probably look like a badly prepared visitor coming from a warm country. Let s see what the coming days bring to me – atm I m so tired – constantly falling asleep… I hope I m not missing my station to leave the train…

As I wrote before – in Longo Mai / Finca Sonador communication is scare. The public phone works most of the time but is blocked for ointernational calls, the internet does work every once in a while and the next Internet cafe is 30 km away in Perez Zeledon.

Now I m in San Jose for a few days to meet some friends and meet my old comrades of Voces Nuestras to tell them what I ve done during my internship.

In the beginning of my stay at Finca Sonador I ve got visitors from back ¨home”. My sister and a friend of her started their three month visit in central and maybe as well southamerica. Now I m doing interviews with the people of Longo Mai for my thesis in anthropology. It s gonna be around the land distribution system of Longo Mai. Nobody in Longo Mai has land titles but can use the land practically for free because it belongs to the European association of Longo Mai which facilitates half of the finca for agriculture and housing and protects 400 hectares of forests.

I ve already wrote about a similar topic but in Chiapas (german).

There s no time to waste in about 10 days I m coming back to Europe where the temperature is about 30 degrees lower then here in Costa Rica. *shock*