Dec 29, 2011

THE PATH OF CHANGE

WHO WE ARE
Gustavo Schütz, 21, student of Social Sciences in Porto Alegre and Diego Steinhöfel, 24, student of Political Science in Munich. We are a mix between European and Latin American roots. We met in a class of Human Rights and Peace Studies with Perez Esquivel at the University of Buenos Aires.
One of the major pillars of our study is to develop a critical view of what is happening in the world and in our society. To create this view we analyze the included and excluded actors as well as the institutional framework of countries, we study the history and culture of a society taking into account it’s socio-economic situation. To really understand all this, we consider travelling and the direct contact with social reality essential and indispensable.

WHAT WE WANT TO DO
On a bicycle trip from Cordoba in Argentina to Antofagasta in Chile (2500 km, 50 days) we want to make a documentary about the thoughts, ideas and feelings of our generation. What are the current struggles? How are those struggles perceived in the population and by the authorities? (such as the struggle of the students in Argentina and Chile, the struggles of the indigenous people for their land in Jujuy, the fight against the criminalization of social protest in Cordoba) Is there support or repression?
Latin America is the continent with the greatest social inequality in the world. Where does this inequality come from and which effects does it have on the youth of our generation? Argentina has experienced a profound crisis in 2001 and spending a semester in Buenos Aires as exchange-students we see a society and our generation politicized in a search for alternatives. Everywhere we hear the question: Is this the society we want to live in? And if not, what do we need to do to change it? Who do we study and work for and where do we want to go?
The theories we study are a simplification of reality and sometimes they help us to explain and to understand what is happening. But they are not always satisfactory. This journey provides another important piece to complete the complex picture of reality. On the journey we are living the practice of reality.

HOW WE TRAVEL
The bicycle is the materialization of ecology. It is the machine at our service (and not vice versa). The bicycle allows us to connect with nature in a sustainable manner and with the people directly. The slow pace allows us to open our mind and see and feel reality. For this trip it is the perfect medium. Cycling gives us joy and makes us happy.

HOW TO REALIZE THIS PROJECT
Are you interested in a current critical view of our generation in Argentina and Chile? About it’s ideas, dreams, fears, about it’s activism and the obstacles on the path to a different society? And do you want to be part of making this documentary possible? Those are the three pillars on which we need support:

1. Funding: This documentary is a non-profit project. For our equipment, accommodation and food we calculate with costs of approx. 1500 Euro (2000 USD) per person. What can we offer in return for a financial contribution?
a. $ 10 a postcard with a story of our trip to your house
b. $ 20 a postcard and a copy of the final documentary on DVD
c. $ 50 a&b plus reference as a SPONSOR on www.whywetravel.net

2. Presence in the media:
If you have a contact to a magazine, a radio station, a television show that you think may be interested in this project please recommend us! Follow our journey www.whywetravel.de/caminodelcambio or on www.facebook.com/whywetravel and share it with your friends and family!

3. Contacts and Ideas:
If you know social movements, people, places that are along our way please send us an email! If you have ideas, constructive criticism or questions, don’t have any doubt to contact us, this project is a community project and the more people we are the richer the experience becomes.

EL CAMINO DEL CAMBIO

¿QUIEN SOMOS?
Gustavo Schütz, 21, Estudiante de Ciencias Sociales en Porto Alegre y Diego Steinhöfel, 24, estudiante de Ciencias Políticas. Somos una mescla entre raíces Europeas y Latinoamericanas. Nos conocimos en una clase de Derechos Humanos y Cultura de Paz con Perez Esquivel en la Universidad de Buenos Aires.
Uno de los ejes más importantes de nuestro estudio es desarrollar una vista crítica de lo que está pasando en el mundo y en nuestra sociedad. Para crear esta vista crítica analizamos los actores incluidos y excluidos y el marco institucional de los países, estudiamos la historia y la cultura de una sociedad teniendo en cuenta su situación socio-económica. Para realmente entender todo esto, el viaje y el contacto directo con la realidad social nos parecen fundamentales e indispensables.

¿QUE QUEREMOS HACER?
En un viaje en bicicleta desde Cordoba en Argentina hasta Antofagasta en Chile (2500 km, 50 días) queremos hacer un documental sobre los pensamientos, ideas y sentimientos de nuestra generación. ¿Cuáles son las luchas actuales? ¿Como es percibida la lucha de los estudiantes, la lucha de la tierra en Jujuy, la lucha contra la criminalización de la protesta social en Córdoba? ¿Existe apoyo o represión?
América Latina es el continente con la mayor desigualdad social en el mundo. ¿De dónde surge esta desigualdad y cual efecto tiene a los jóvenes de nuestra generación? Argentina ha vivido una crisis elementar en 2001 y pasando un cuatrimestre de intercambio en Buenos Aires vemos una sociedad y especialmente nuestra generación politizada en una búsqueda de alternativas. En todas partes escuchamos las preguntas ¿Esta es la sociedad en cual queremos vivir? ¿Y sino que necesitamos hacer para cambiar la? ¿Para quién estudiamos y trabajamos y por donde vamos?
Las teorías que estudiamos son una simplificación de la realidad y a veces nos ayudan a explicar y entender lo que está pasando. Pero no siempre son satisfactorias. El viaje nos da otro pedazo importante para completar la compleja imagen de la realidad. En el viaje estamos viviendo la práctica de la realidad.

¿COMO VAMOS HACER ESTE VIAJE?
La bicicleta, es la materialización de la ecología. Es la maquina en servicio de nosotros (y no el revés). La bicicleta permite conectarnos con la naturaleza de manera sustentable y con el pueblo de manera directa. La lentitud nos permite abrir la mente y ver la realidad. Para este viaje es el medio perfecto. La bici nos da alegría. La bici nos hace feliz.

¿COMO SE PUEDE REALIZAR ESTE PROYECTO?
Te interesa una vista critica y actual sobre nuestra generación en Argentina y Chile? ¿Sobre sus ideas, sueños, miedos, su activismo y los obstáculos en el camino a una sociedad distinta? Y quieres estar parte de la realización de este documental? Eso son los tres ejes en cuales nos falta apoyo:

1. Financiamiento: Este documental es un proyecto sin fin de lujo. Para nuestro equipo, alojamiento y alimento calculamos con costos de 1500 Euros por persona. ¿Qué podemos ofrecer en retorno a una contribución financiera?
a. 10 $ una carta postal con una historia de nuestro viaje a tu casa
b. 20 $ carta postal y copia del documental en DVD
c. 50$ a+b y mención como SPONSOR en www.whywetravel.net

2.Presencia en los medios:
Si tienes un contacto con una revista, un radio, un show de televisión que piensas puede tener interés en este proyecto recomienda nos por favor! Sigue nuestro viaje en www.whywetravel.de/caminodelcambio o en Facebook.com/whywetravel y comparte lo.
3.Contactos y Ideas:
Si conoces movimientos sociales, personas, lugares que estén cerca de nuestro camino por favor mándanos un mail! Si tienes ideas, críticas constructivas o preguntas no tenga dudas de contactar nos, este proyecto es un proyecto comunitario y más gente mas rico.

Dec 24, 2011

Looking at reality – living the change. Together with my sister Laura and my friend Gustavo from Brasil we made this short documentary. Students from Buenos Aires are talking about their perception of social reality today, about the current problems and the steps necessary to overcome them. About what Europe can learn from Latin America. They are talking about their dreams of a society that is more equal and just and about their fears on the way to get there.

Some of the students in the documentary studied with me at the Universidad de Buenos Aires, some others we got to know during our stay. We decided to do this documentary, because we feel such an active energy among our generation in Buenos Aires. In many conversations we realized how critical people think about the current reality, how alternatives are discussed, and how steps are actively taken to go a different path. Argentina is a country with (mostly) free university education, where students from all over Latin America are going to study as in their homecountries it become close to impossible for many of them due to shockingly high tuition fees. Looking back home to Europe and the crisis it is living at the moment with such high unemployment rates among the youth, with ongoing social readjustments and cuts in social benefits which in many cases affects our generation the hardest we were curious on how people think here and what we can learn from them.

We are aware that we only interviewed a fraction of society and we do wan’t to continue with this project in different aspects, talk to more people, hear more oppinions. As a next step Gustavo and me are going on a bicycle trip through northern Argentina from Cordoba over Salta and Jujuy to hopefully reach Antofagasta in Chile after crossing the Atacama dessert. We are about to finish a short info-paper about this trip and I will upload it as soon as possible.

Dec 18, 2011

waiting in Quines to get to Mendoza, 38 degrees.

waiting in Quines to get to Mendoza, 38 degrees.

Ver mapa más grande

Oh man, there is so much left to reach Lima. ok google is a bit wrong, because from arequipa we can go along the coast. but still. i guess the distance is like from moscow to lissabon. our asses our going to be pancakes when we arrive. but we are going to spent christmas with our family. worth it.
waiting in Quines to get to Mendoza, 38 degrees.

Dec 15, 2011

Day 1 – Buenos Aires to Rufino
My sister Laura and me left Buenos Aires on sunday morning. We bought some facturas, sweet Argentinian bakery, and took the 157 to Plaza Italia. In front of the Rural, an old building which used to be a market place if i got that right we hopped on the 57 direction Mercedes, payed the 10 pesos fare and got of in Lujan. From there we continued with the 276 (5) to the Toll Station Villa Espil where we asked the driver to drop us. It took about 2 hs to get here.

Ver mapa más grande
We had prepared a sign to San Luis, but used it only for the first ride.
After this rainshower the sign was gone and we did not miss it at all. Our first ride was with Victor, his girlfriend Gabi, his sister Paula and his nephew Louis. We put our stuff in the back of his pickup and squeezed and the backseat. Driving through the Pampa, soy- and cornfields we listened to Cumbia and Reggeaton and started to get this silly happy face, when it is hard not to smile and the cheeks start to hurt. Our next ride was with a trucker, Hector, who carried Corn. The entire region is highly agricultural, and everyone we talked to explained us with pride how Argentina has the best soil in the world, enough potential to produce food for the whole world. Carlos, a geography teacher explained us the dangers of the monoculture, of how the export of soy helped the country to leave the crisis of 2001-03 behind, pay its foreign depbt and show high economic development. And how the fertilizers and pestizides are dangerous for the soil and the groundwater.
He planned to go on a hitchhiking trip himself after the school year ends in december, going up to Bolivia with a friend.
He dropped us at a gas station where we met Julio.
He is from Colombia, has 5 Children from 3 women, has been to Buenos Aires the last weeks and is on his way to Colombia hitchhiking over 7000 km. When we met him he told us how he met a women on Facebook who lives in Colombia. They fell in love and now he is on his way to meet her, calculating with two months of travel. He had 4 pesos in his pocket and a small backpack. It was a brief moment we shared and I wanted to ask him much more about his travels as his voice and his stories inspired me. But as the sun set we both tried to use the resting half an hour of daylight to find a ride and not spent the night at the petrol station we were standing in fron, we said goodbye went on.

We spent the night in the City Park of Rufino, which Guille, a 26 yaer old argentinian, had recommended us. He dropped us off at the entrance of the park, and returned half an hour later with spoons and forks because he remembered we didnt bring any.

The next day our first host was a midd 40s man, who was the menager of a local wheat mill. We decided to go with him and have a look, and he explained us how the fabric stopped to work last year after the government cut the subsidies and how they restarted with some of the old workers.

Ok I would like to continue here to write about our trip, because every single day has been full of stories and experiences so far, but we are sitting in an internet coffe at the bus station in Mendoza and need to get to our hostel, because a theater piece we want to see starts in one hour! So i’m just going to upload some pictures and write more these days!

Day two – from Rufino to Cordoba

Luis, who took us from Rufino to Cordoba. He also invited us to his hotel, paying a double room for Laura and me, taking us out for dinner. He was so generous with us and we spent good times together.
Day three – from Cordoba to Quines

José. He took us from outside Cordoba (carlos Paz). We cooked dinner with him. He did bring meat and red wine and we made pasta.