When I confronted Mark Deamer was exactly what I expected; physical dry, face framed by a bit 'of a beard, and that air of reassuring those who knows how to move with the decision in a critical state without losing control of himself.
On the other hand could not be other than a man who bestrides the bike one day and decide to ride thousands of miles in lands torn by a thousand dangers in the West are used to seeing, sweetened, on television. All this time in Afghanistan to bring a message of solidarity from our country, accompanied by a donation to Emergency.
The first question is obvious, namely, what is the reason why he decided to take a journey so fraught with danger for one man. In fact, forget to say that the journey has taken him from London to Kabul, Mark has run solo.
"The desire to travel, meet new people and new places is born with me, is part of my DNA and I could not do without it. As a result, more than one I can not be stopped altogether. My soul nomad leads me to unknown territory for which the bicycle gives me a sense of freedom. "
This is not the first company to have done, what other sites you have visited?
" I've been passionate since baby travel in general and I started, like everyone else, taking the traditional trip but quickly I realized that not enough for me anymore. Then I started to do the real exploration land. Among the most important trophy of the trips I've done, is running around the world solo in 2001, which lasted eight months and is told in my first book published two years ago. After that I made this trip Kabul, Afghanistan. Other remarkable journey that brought me from Venice to Beijing in the footsteps of Marco Polo, this one running along the legendary Silk Road. Always on a motorcycle I rode a good part of Africa, Australia and all Australian deserts, but also New Zealand and Tasmania. We say that a motorcycle, for eight years, I touched, always lonely, and all five continents. "
-We say that everything you're doing comes from your curiosity to know new people, new customs very different from ours.
"Certainly the major driver of this trip is just the desire to discover new cultures, new customs, especially the desire to learn new things, even in context, I compare it to a sponge when it comes to assimilation. I am very open with people I meet, I do not like to isolate myself indeed, it is clear, however, that in such trips, there is a lot of loneliness it is essential to be able to control their emotions. "
- During this last trip you touched different reality from the emotional point of view, what impressed you most.
"Above all the silence - is the answer - and surreal atmosphere that envelops you when you walk through the desert of Kazakhstan. Immerse myself in that landscape that I imagined as a child thanks to the books I read, the boundless steppes where no one could tell me if it does not use gestures. I speak a bit 'of Russian, I try to make do with driving directions that are only in Cyrillic, which often made it difficult to find the way to go. Problematic also supplies gasoline, eating, sleeping, but what struck me most is to see with my own eyes the devastating effects of war, because my generation has seen only on television, fortunately. "
- From human point of view in the West know that the status of women in Afghanistan is total submission to man. A condition experienced passively or there is some rebellion.
"I could not talk to any woman in Afghanistan and no foreign can afford to stop a woman on the street. I even tried to ask for a claim, but ignored me and pulled right because they are afraid of their own families. Above all, the Taliban have imposed strict rules that never existed before. In fact, in the '60s, when the king was, there was a cultural openness and the woman went around dressed like in the West, they could stop in a bar for a coffee. With the arrival of the Taliban have imposed a series of prohibitions that now women have been segregated, and they live virtually in a state of slavery, the grate behind the burka, the age of adolescence onwards. "
- At the beginning you mentioned your desire to travel to get to know things Again, the purpose of the hour ruler of your trip to Kabul, that your message of peace to be substitute for a real help to Emergency.
"Let's say that the main purpose of the trip was just that. When I got the idea to go to Afghanistan I tie this volume journey, not just the usual travel adventure, but I thought it should have been more motivated by binding then the adventure solidarity. In my little I wanted to bring aid to those who were worse off than me. Energency I identified a very serious organization, which has been operating for years in the territory of Afghanistan and in all areas of world conflict, and I opened a fundraiser connecting to a bank account number is intended to Emergency. So that number has appeared on all newspaper articles that dealt with my travels as well as in radio and television broadcasts. Same thing they did the sponsors of my steps to where we started the birth of a small hospital that has arisen in a village near Kabul.
- When I started taking the first questions - to confess - I have tried to take your stories in the human side of your trip in a country in permanent war, provided there is something human in a war.
"Let's say that the Afghans were greatly intrigued by one man who came from nowhere on a motorcycle and occasionally I could also see the hatred on their faces painted, perhaps, who knows, because the war had wiped out the entire family, and I have been a Russian or an American. On the contrary, I also enjoyed the many expressions of sympathy and solidarity, perhaps housed in their home and offered me some bread. Especially the children of the villages around me cheering, clapping her hands around the motorcycle. For me this was an important moment, and I was very confident against them because maybe I'm an incurable optimist and I never think that something bad could happen to me and the relationship with the next I think is very important. "
An uncommon man Mark Deamer. It can not be an ordinary man, a street that runs just drawn, riding on a motorcycle, with the risk of ending up on some of the thousands of mines scattered in over thirty years of war to bring a gesture of solidarity with the suffering. Travel stories said, lived fully and told with enthusiasm that only those who have really lived can revive them in a book to be discovered.
0 comments:
Post a Comment