The Kindness of Strangers

A fragment from a letter of Ferenc:

Ouch! I have to write... I don’t feel like it at all. After our daily twenty-something miles I hardly have the strength to put up the tent. And after that I just hit the tent’s floor like a sack of potatoes. Nights are hot and suffocating, I bath in my own sweat. The scratches, the insect bites burn and ache like hell. I’m sleepy and I’m tired, I’d have to rest but I cannot get to sleep. The questions in my head don’t let me. Who will wake us in the middle of the night this time: the ranger or the sheriff? Today no one let us a private spot to stay for the night. So we sleep in a public park. The people around here are timid. There are still good folks who want to help, but more and more are and look scared. And even more when we ask them after sundown. They often say no. They don’t feel safe with us in their backyards.

But anyways, our major concern right now is different: what will we eat tomorrow? Our money is almost gone. We’re not allowed to work here, but even if we would be, there’s no time for that. We have to leave the States in about 45 days. Some 850 miles to go. We’ll walk tomorrow, that’s for sure, but our strength is almost used up.

Yesterday I sat down with my brother to talk about the future of the project. We chatted without tension. We remembered the most difficult stages of our walk. The starvation in the Africa... The last five months of hobo life in Spain. We don’t want to give up, but we have to decide soon. We would need a regular sponsorship. At least something that covers the food. 400-500 dollars a month. Without this kind of support it’s impossible.

This mail is scary. Scary because it considers about abandoning the tour. Scary because it meditates about hunger. Scary because it’s about 400-500 dollars a month.

Let’s try to help them together. We started a new sponsorship plan. The Burger Plan.

Burger is one of the simplest forms of meal. It’s uniform, it can be purchased in gas stations, diners, canteens. It’s unexpensive: 1-1.5 bucks a piece. Let’s calculate with one for each of the brothers. Make it 2.5 dollars a day for them. It’s one meal, a skimpy one. We’d like to ask for one skimpy meal for WorldWalk a week. That’s 10 bucks a month. It’s not much. Doesn’t seem like much. But it would secure their survival. It would help them survive if that sum was there to plan with. Half a year, six months, six times 10 bucks. This is what we ask for. Please, participate in the Burger Plan.

The Burger Plan is a PayPal subscription. 10 dollars a month for six month (cancelable). There are seven days in a week, so we need seven burger sponsors. Seven sponsors a month. Not much. Doesn’t seem like much. But will there be seven sponsors among us? You can find the current status of the Burger Plan at the top-right corner of the blog, just below the miles counter. Seven burgers. The saturated ones are covered, the dimmed are to go. Click on a dimmed icon and you can invite the guys six burgers in six months.

A Break in Marianna Hot Springs

by FERENC IVANICS
Probably all of you know that we’re in a hurry. We follow a strict schedule. Our next major stop is New Orleans, we have to get there before the 9th of July. The U.S.A. stage has been converted into a big, unpleasing race against time. It has become most unbearable recently, we couldn’t help it, had to make a stop in Marianna. The small lake was right beside the road we were walking on. We spent half a day there but it was definitely worth it.


The water is surrounded by amazing jungles, where water meets forest there are dozens of cypress trees with their typical “knees”, which are air roots. Around these roots you see small turtles and colorful fish, it’s like a huge fish-bowl.


The water of the springs is collected in a lake, even though the spring-water is cold, it grows warmer in these shallow ponds. There’s a small dam that controls water flow, and the water of the lake is drained into a shooting stream. You have to be careful no to be dragged on by the stream, it can be dangerous.


So, half-a-day of pleasure. We become children again. I’ve seen our wrinkles growing and growing deeper, the pouches under our eyes getting heavier during these last days. Our morale has been on the slope as well due to the strained march and the cruel weather. I’ve been thinking about that it’s too much, that maybe our background supporters who help us get the message to you, well, maybe even they could not imagine that we are giving all that we can, that we’re living on the edge of insanity.



We needed that afternoon, needed it to wash away the burden and tension of the last few days, to prepare ourselves to the next days, which are not going to be any better than the previous ones. Probably not.

WorldWalk in New Orleans

WorldWalk-Peacetour, i.e. István and Ferenc Ivanics will be expecting activists, journalists and anyone interested to join them for a multimedia presentation about their experiences. The event will take place at the Fair Grinds Coffeehouse in New Orleans (3133 Ponce de Leon St, New Orleans, LA 70119) on the 9th of July, from 5:30PM to 7PM.

Two Hungarian brothers walk around the world and stop here tonight. Looking for the world's best coffee? Not exactly, though we hope they find it here. No they are promoting Peace through co-living - Brotherhood and friendship. 25,000 miles and 5 continents, they walk to deliver this message. Learn more about them at Worldwalk, and don't miss this opportunity to meet and greet these adventurers FREE

Fair Grinds Coffeehouse

Blasts in the Sky

by FERENC IVANICS
Walking by an orange plantation Valencia came tom my mind immediately, though it was an abandoned plantation on sale. The quality of the oranges is fare from their Spanish cousins’, but they are OK to make juice. I stare at the thriving clouds above the orange trees, they remind me of giant cauliflowers, enormous cauliflowers, let me tell you. We would need a giant fan to blow these clouds away. But there’s no giant fan at hand, even though I would like it very much.

The clouds look impressive in the setting sun’s light, you see all the bulges and holes there, as they submerge into regions of pastel orange, pink, violet then blue as the sun submerges into the horizon. I like these clouds, like them when they are far away. I close one of my eyes, trying to focus on a branch of an orange tree while looking at the clouds in the background. I’m trying to figure out the direction they are heading. I’m hoping they will pass round us, but it’s just hope: I guess I already figured out a few minutes ago that they are coming this way. I hear a low rumbling in the background. It’s growing darker and you can see the flashes inside the monster-cloud. The flashing potential paints the clouds evil greenish violet.

“Oh yeah, they call us The Lightning Capital”, said the assistant at a gas station a few days ago. He told us that lightnings in Florida are the second heaviest in the world, you have to go somewhere in Africa to see larger ones. And he added that every year there are fatalities, people who have their soul removed by the giant light-whip. Another thunder wakes me up from my thoughts, it’s getting closer. Crackles than a half-a-minute long rumble follows. Now the lightning bolts are visible, too. I feel that it would be better to retire to my tent. Even though I don’t really feel safer inside, it’s better then standing outside. But I’m glimpsing out of the tent to see the infernal show.

An immense lightning strikes in the distance, practically sticks to the ground pulsing for seconds and growing a dozen branches that split into twigs, and even these twigs split into smaller paths. It almost covers half the sky. As if it were roots of a giant oak above our head. The crash of the main trunk fills and shakes the air then the cracks and pops of the branches and twigs follow. The rumble goes on for two minutes. I’m getting a bit worried.

I close the window of the tent and lay down. There’s no chance to sleep. I start to count seconds between large strikes and thunders. One, two, three... seven, eight... Bang! A minute passes and the tent’s skin lights again. One, two, three... five, six... Bang! Damn, it’s coming closer. I’m curling up into embryonic pose. My thoughts revolve around those basements where women, men and children huddle up and share their fears raised by the bombings. I’m scared, pretty much, though I know that the chances of survival are pretty high. Weapons of modern warfare are much more devastating than lightnings. Is that fear any different when you know that a bomb can shred you, your family, your friends and neighbors into peaces anytime? When the storm passes a clean sky stays and nature takes a breath, almost as if nothing have happened. But when you step out of the basement you expect to see debris and hear cries. Modern warfare: they let the machines take care of it. Machines don’t hesitate when pulling the trigger, there’s no need to face the terrible consequences. I push a button here, and there lay thousands dead there. There’s a small smoke patch on the satellite image. The screams, the blood are secondary information.

Another huge lightning strikes. One, two, three... nine, ten: Bang! It’s drifting away. Thanks heavens, Armageddon’s been canceled tonight. Nature provides us many goods but in the next moment it hits fiercely. Some say that this is the order and hazard of the physical world. Others think that we can control nature. Anyways, it takes a lot of our momentum to fight down hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, earthquakes, eruptions, floods and droughts, etc. And besides these challenges we kill each other. Shouldn’t we all get along to keep ourselves safe? Why is it better to spend our knowledge and gifts on sibling wars? It’s just plain crazy, everyone knows that.

As the storm is getting farther away my heartbeat is slowing down. I’m starting to calm down. I stretch myself on the floor of the tent and go to sleep. We have to get up early tomorrow, even if everyone else is still dead asleep...

The Last Straw

Due to regulations Ferenc and István have to cover the U.S.A stage in 90 days. They need to walk 25-30 miles a day to achieve that goal. Sometimes in thunderstorms, heat, suffocating moisture. This is a lot. A lot, but it’s not impossible. Achievable but it drains their strength and energies. They have to make up for it.

Food is cheap in the U.S.A. It’s cheap in the supermarkets. But they don’t have the chance to look for supermarkets while walking 25-30 miles a day. In smaller villages or in the middle of National Parks there are no supermarkets. Mostly, they have to do with canteens and gas stations. And these are expensive, damn expensive.

by FERENC IVANICS
Unfortunately, while planning the U.S.A. stage we missed these two hard facts. We had made some research, we planned our budget accordingly, but we didn’t expect to eat up our bank account at this speed. Next week we will bite into the last 100 bucks we have with ourselves. It might last until we arrive in New Orleans, it might run out on the way. Me made a mistake, even though we tried hard to organize the U.S.A stage, and even harder to gather the means to follow our Peacetour. Right now all we can do is hope that our readers can help us out this time. Please help!

When we were preparing for the African stage we worked for it on a private construction, we didn’t want to arrive at an unknown continent exhausted, weak, without proper reserves. We saved up the money spending it on the most important stuff only. After reaching our goal, Dakar, we had to leave Africa, without the help of our friends we couldn’t have made it back to Europe.




We wanted to work before the American stages as well, but due to the economic crisis we didn’t manage to get a job this time. Overcoming our bad feelings and putting aside our principles we started to beg for money on the streets. Finally we collected the money needed to begin the U.S.A stage. With the help of others we managed to collect it.



But it ran short and it’s almost gone. Right now we don’t know what to do, we are not allowed to work here, we’re tourists. We cannot beg here, there’s no time for that either, we have to go on. We’d like to ask everyone again, please, help us, every dollar, every euro, every pound, every peso helps. A buck more means one or two miles more. That’s how it is: we need to spend like US$20 on food daily, we’d like to ask for your support. You can donate by clicking on the Donate button. Thank you all in advance!

Update: Many thanks to Carolyn Tester (Musings by the Creekside) for her instant help.