ShanT History 1998 - 1999
| Sitemap | ShanT's childhood | ShanT's 20's | ShanT 1994 | ShanT in India 1995 | ShanT with Mary 1996 | My history 1996-1997 | My history 1998-1999 | My Work | My home in The Hague | Cotton paper factory from India|
I decide to go live in a bus. I feel lost, not knowing what to do now. My friends are not my friends, the mother of my daughter is not my friend, and above all, needs someone beside her, to be able to function, I have to start a new career, and I don't know how I want to live. I lived in squatted houses for years, in communes with hippies and seekers. And all has become past. I am torn out of my security into the void. Alone again. An old friend, who has his own decor business, asks me to come work for him as a carpenter. As I actually never worked as one, since I am allergic to wood dust (or was) I decide to take the challenge. Very successful it came to be. From then on I am being asked to work as a carpenter more and more.I am invited to work in Las Vegas, as a exhibits builder. Tim, a German friend of mine works there, and my ticket is paid. It is exciting. Traveling and being paid for this. I need a break anyway. Staying there in the Hague in this situation, is not helpful for me. Tim is great. The workers in the company are so slow, and incapable carpenters, it's like one eye is king. The weather is great, and so is Las Vegas. While the people I meet in the casino's are strange, on the work floor, they can all write a story about their lives. I get along well with a guy who looks like Frank Zappa. He is a former Ranger with a conscience problem. It's beer at the local German brewery, concerts like Underworld, and taco's and burrito's. Life is good.
My friend starts to live more at night than at day, and it takes some time for me to find out he is using too much speed. Actually, all of the guys are using. The owner has his own dealer working for him... Now I am getting paranoid. I get into an argument with Tim, and decide to move out of our apartment, to live by myself. Suddenly I feel terribly alone. On site, I tell the union guys I don't feel well, I feel lost and alone. A woman tells me this is the time to show what I am made of. She gives me so much strength, that the problem is over, there and then. I feel connected again.
I had a dream about Tischa, she calls me to come home. I saved some money, thinking I would buy a Winnebago, but decide to go back home. My time is over here, as is the work. I get can get a seat on the plane within 2 days, and decide to go. When I arrive, the meeting with my daughter is exactly as I dreamed. I missed her, and love her. I decide not to leave her so long any more.
Living with Brigitte gets more and more difficult. Sharing this little space, she not very communicative, but pushing me out, brings me to the point I have to go. Then I find a camper for sale. Not just a camper, but an old one. 32 years! It's marvellous. I can live like a gypsy, and travel europe... Maybe even to India, an old dream of mine. I buy the car, and start renovating. It's summer, and falling asleep at the beach, or driving into the RAI (I work as an exhibitsbuilder now) with my home and tools, is fantastic. Everybody waves as I drive along. It is a fun bus, and I drive it with a big smile. I live in it for the rest of the summer, looking for a heater to build in the bus. Winters are cold, but more, Holland is wet, most of the time, and the combination of those two, living in a camper without a heater, is not appealing to me, to say the least. So, here is the winter, and
