Ocala 2009 part 2 - Personal Story

Once he had a job. Once he had a house, a television, a cellphone. Once, he thought that he really did make a difference in the world. That he was important, that he had a life that really matter.

Now all that, is gone. He lost his Job, his house, and himself. He lived on the street, till hippies took him to the forrest, where there was a raindbowgathering, something he never had heard of before. After two days the hippies dissapeared, and left him behind. He didn't know what he was doing here, and how to return to the city was even more a secret.

He don't like dirt, he don't like alcohol, he don't like the wood. Every part of him, screamed for help.

He told me, that he was so happy we came in the woods. "some normal people, at least. All those hippies, what are they thinking? I mean, do they not have anything else to do?" I thought the same. He said I was the first of the group who talked to him. I felt ashamed, because it was the third day we were there. He is 31, his name is Gerald. We went looking for aligators in the water. Josse, Sam, Strings, Gerald and me. I was scared, but Gerald told me that I couldn't feel safer with 4 guys around me. I saw that he loved to talk, loved to share his stories about life with us, and I loved to listen. At the waterside we stared at the water, while Gerald & Strings talked about their lives, and about their lives in the woods. Gerald told me that his being here was not some sort of stupid excident. It had to do something with us being here. If as God wanted to say something to him. His being here, could be on purpose.

Strings, at the beginning a qieut boy who didn't looked very nice, changed while we were talking. I knew he was not old, he was 17, just like me. Strange for me, to meet a guy in the woods of the same age, but with such a different and and difficult history. My expectations of Strings were not true at all! It is such a happy, friendly, social guy! We talked all night. About serious stuff, but also about the differences between The Netherlands and The United Stated of America. About that I had to try funions ( which I never did:(), and that I had to drive in a car, because I never did before. It was a pity that it was night. To learn driving at a sandy, small road, in the dark, was not the best idea I had. By the way, I don't think Peter would allow it either.

Ha. We had great fun. We had great conversations. I asked him if he wanted to go back to school. When he said he didn't know, I felt free to tell him that his future would be more colourfull if he did. I do understand that having a job, and a house, and all that is not enough, but boring, but I think it is better that living in woods, wandering around America, hoping to have some sort of purpose of life.

For Gerald I pray, that he can find a way to go out of the woods, and return to the city, where he is happy. I pray that I can see him again.

For Strings I pray that he will finish his school, can find friends who love him.

I pray that I can see him again too!

Lydia