Time to go, my own way.

I just spent two interesting months at Merazonia, during which I had both good and bad times. The same can be said about the management, who had to deal with the arrival of new animals like a capuchin and young howler monkey, but also with the politics of the margay (wild cat) that had to leave again. Why? It was in good health and looked happy, but that wasn’t the issue… Maybe the worst about this is that it proves that the people involved in taking the margay away don’t care much about the cat and that you can’t trust anyone.

Another interesting event was the arrival of Nick, one of the two people who wanted to start their own animal refuge. He came by for three weeks to look at the possibilities for working together with Merazonia. He has big plans for expanding Merazonia and working together with students from South Korea. For this he would like to work with me and he asked me if, in about two years, I would be able to guide some groups of Korean students on a sustainable tour through Ecuador. This sounds interesting and challenging, since Koreans are very different people to guide around than Dutch people.

Yep, I think that the arrival of Nick, his wife and daughter in Merazonia in July this year will be interesting for me and can bring a new spark into Merazonia J

Before I came back we had decided that I wouldn’t be part of the management again. I wanted to see if this would make it easier to work together. The first few weeks went all right, but then it turned out that we weren’t really able to define responsibilities and trust each other with them. Also my stubbornness and direct way of presenting issues aren’t the easiest character habits to work with. I always thought that honesty was most important, but I am slowly learning that that isn’t enough. Two advises I got it the last year are ‘to bring it with flowers’ and ‘slowly, slowly catch a monkey’, skills I will try to practice on.

About five years ago I decided to help Merazonia. It sounded like a crazy project to start an animal from scratch, with not much more experience then working at volunteer projects. But there were four dedicated people who could use some help in construction and planning and I like challenges, so I decided to cancel my flight and help to build their volunteer house. We were all having a good time and Merazonia was dreaming about a big future. I decided for myself that I would continue to help Merazonia until it would be a proper animal refuge and then find myself a new challenge. Maybe I would help two other people who wanted to start an animal refuge in a few years from then? Or maybe I would start a small travel agency with office on the land of Merazonia? Time would tell.

When everything on the land of Merazonia started to take shape, all the hassling and threatening from those ‘brothers’ started. Now the dream suddenly looked very far away.

It took almost 2 years of stress and fighting for Merazonia and when it was finally possible to safely work on the land again, only Frank, Jennifer and Guido were left. I was asked to join the management team, but however I felt honored, especially because I had almost no money to invest like they did, I denied. I wasn’t ready to dedicate myself to just one place and I was also afraid that the differences in our working methods would cause too many arguments.

Now it seems that I have reached my goal, Merazonia is a proper animal refuge that is well managed and doesn’t need my help anymore. My biggest challenge at Merazonia last year has been to try to work together. But now I have come to the point that I have to admit that I failed in that (just like I predicted years ago L. Besides just building there are no new challenges left for me that I can solve, so I’ve decided to leave and find new challenges. One of them is still to set up my own travel agency.

If possible and Merazonia can use my help in the future, I will still try if I can help. Although it isn’t my place, it is still a very special place and I owe a lot to it. But my first priority will now have to be my own travel agency.

With ‘www.Peruperu.nl’ this didn’t really work out, because all of us were busy doing other things and none of us had much time or money left to put in this project. 

I still don’t have much money to start with, but I have good help again and more time now to put in. If I’m careful with my money, I should have enough to get this agency started.

The two main reasons for starting my own travel agency are:

Second, I want to do this to prove to myself that I don’t only have a big mouth, but also the qualities to set up something of my own.

Of course I can use some help with this and I would like to ask any of you to have a look at my temporarily website:  

www.fairtravel4u.org/index.php and to give your opinion/ critics/ tips. Also, if some of you have some spare time and can check on myEnglish spelling, and bushiness plan (below ‘about us’) this will be great! The Words program can only help me so much with that and my writing is often like my speaking ;-)

In a few days I will go back to Holland J for the first time in over two years.  I will only be in Holland for about three and a half week, this so I don’t spend too much money. Within this three and a half week I will try to registrar Fairtravel4u, work out how to pay taxes, how to get an insurance and a new bank account. On top I also need to find a way to get a new Ecuadorian visa (I have some wild ideas, but nothing for sure…) and of course see my family and friends J It will be some busy weeks.

In the main time I continue working on my website setting up more contacts and try to help another starting animal refuge with providing information about the things we learned at Merazonia. It sounds like I will not be bored any soon…

Martijn