We are days away from driving our truck to Africa. An anonymous donor just gave us GBP1000 which is enough to get our truck and team of 9 people on the ferry to Northern Africa. So off we go. We will be in Sevilla today, meeting up with Jonah Bailey of 24-7 Prayer. Then down to the ferry and across to Africa. We have enough funds to look after ourselves for a while but we still need to raise US$40,000 to resource social entrepreneurs and their projects in the countries we explore. This money will go directly to the people and it will also be part of a matching grant offer by another Foundation. Potential sponsors should send me an email for details of the organizations handling the funds. Please.
Interesting: The Overland 12 expedition launched this month also. They will go from Italy down to South Africa and back by May 2010, using only Iveco trucks.
Whats interesting to me is that two of their trucks are actually Magirus Deutz overlanders – 330.30 ANW 6x6s – to be exact. See the videos. Iveco bought the Magirus Deutz company many years ago and removed their badge. Roland Sparling has the skinny on that. Our overlander is a 4×4 Iveco Magirus Deutz 150.16 and has less spotlights but thank God it doesnt have that ugly orange color!
And as we found out a few weeks ago, even with 4 wheel drive AND diff lock AND axel lock, these overlanders can still get bogged in mud if the driver is a moron. Yeah, that would be ME!
Blogging will be more sporadic again, since wifi will be harder to find, but please stay tuned. And remember that Jonesberries.com will have more info on our travels that I will be putting on this blog.
Hey Andrew I linked robcassels.com to your blog.I love you and hope to see you this summer
Andrew – are you going all the way? Cape Town, and specifically our community, would be delighted to have you here.
Thanks for your comments on the Sout Project site and on Emerging Africa in recent weeks. I’d love to develop a better channel of communcation than blog comments.
For now, all the best with the venture.
Nic Paton
nic. not driving all the way down but i will be in capetown in october for Lausanne 3 meeting. maybe then????
I think it is very irresponsible of you to be doing what you are and relying on ‘funding’ from others to indulge yourself. You & your wife, OK, do what you want, be left-over hippies. But you have responsibilities to others that should come first. Your children should be receiving full-time education and it is an offence if they are not. Your ‘wild teaching’ – have you informed your local L.E.A. of the whereabouts of & educational provision for these children ?
You sneer at “white plastic” but at least these motorhomes are purpose-built to fit the needs of travelling. Most d-i-y conversions are shabby & sub-standard – e.g. do you have enough seats / enough seatbelts for the people in the vehicle. If you were stopped in Europe, heavy fines would be incurred, epecially where children are endangered.
Mike, thanks for your concern.
We HAVE already been stopped in Europe and the truck is perfectly legal in every way so there is no problem.
Your concern about homeschooling is common but we have found, and studies have confirmed, that homeschooled kids do as well as trad/institutional-schooled kids and actually, in many cases, much better. our youngest has already passed her peers by a couple of grades.
Overlanders are designed to withstand far more punishment than white plastics and are also safer. such is the case with ours.
home-schooling is not illegal. 1.5 million American children are currently home-schooled and so our kids are in good company. read for yourself before you criticize.
lastly, a missional lifestyle means a poor lifestyle. if we wanted to indulge ourselves, we would go home, make some decent money and start to pay off a house or a car. we are doing the best we can with what we get. if you know of a cheaper and better solution to moving a team around then let us know.
again, thanks for your concern. please comment again and tell us how institutional schooling has benefited your children and why you think it is superior to homeschooling. love to hear your views.
You tell him Andrew