Who are we? Documentary on Mongolia
Jordi Blanco
My name is Jordi Blanco. My life has elapsed between Spain and United States. Malaga and California have been my places of professional and personal development. 4 years have gone by since I began a bicycle trip from Santa Cruz, California to Ushuaia, Argentina. I returned to United States after traveling by bicycle through Latin-American and I realized that this was going to be the hardest phase of the trip: the adaptation to “normal” life. I spent two years of my life working as child therapist and enjoying many comforts afforded by life in western society. However, something was missing. I enjoyed my work as child therapist and at the same time I was not satisfied. As something natural for me, my mind was preparing another trip…
I believe that in order to be happy you have to do what you feel. It is essential to be aware of your own needs, your desires and goals and then try to find a healthy way to achieve them. It seems easy to forget what we really want in this chaotic thing that people call “life”.
I like to be in shape and I have practiced different sports along my life. Currently, I swim, ride my bicycle and run. And of course, I have done triathlons. When I swim, I am aware of myself. Nobody is there to distract me and I can concentrate. These moments are important for me, knowing myself and learning from my own process, learning to be happier with what I have.
At times I believe that our life is controlled and conditioned by large private corporations that make us believe that we have different needs that they estipulate for their own financial gain. I have decided to realize what I want, my dreams and how to achieve them. I feel in constant cultural struggle with what is established and what my personal and spirituals needs are. I believe that in this life we are plunged in this great cloud believing what we see on T.V: buy a house, money, better T.V and other material goods and other “needs”. My favorite word: possibility.
We forget many essential questions: What are my dreams? What do I want to do with my life?
The idea to do this documentary on socially disadvantaged children in Mongolia is not a surprise but a need. It is the idea that has chosen us. This documentary is a social statement from people that do not have a voice.Luis Cintora
I never liked talking about myself. I will therefore comment on what my life has been like in the course of the last few years, which I suppose, summarizes to a large extent who I am today. For long years I worked at a lawyers’ office in Marbella, plunged in a frantic pace of work until becoming a part in a money production line. In the eyes of many people I had succeeded in life. However, as days went by I felt the on-growing conviction that life was eluding me behind the walls of that office, that the world in which I worked was nothing but a surface completely alien to the depth of reality.
In what many perceived as a fit of madness, I decided to quit everything and embarked on a long trip along Eastern Europe which, coincidences of life, led me back to Edinburgh, where I had studied my degree years before. There I started working with people with learning disabilities and with multiple sclerosis. It was no doubt one of the hardest experiences in my life so far, but that would open my eyes to a social and human reality that has led me in the course of the last few years to get to know the vast geography and reality of South America, to work in the heart of the Peruvian Andes with children with different syndromes and traumas inherited from the years of Shining Path’s violence (www.voluntarioenayacucho.blogspot.com), with schizophrenic residents in a psychiatric hospital, to cross the immensity of the Sahara to Mauritania in order to deliver clothing and medicines and to work as a social educator with Moroccan kids in a children’s center.
I do not Intend to sound moralist but life is far too short and far too precious to waste it anesthetized in front of the TV or to sacrifice our present in favor of an uncertain future. That values such as solidarity and empathy are more than degraded in our current society is nothing new under the sun. But the easy thing is to accept that, to stay at home and not lift a finger. It’s been a long time since I decided not to watch the world go by as an spectator and to face a different side of the planet, a side that many times does not precisely smile at its inhabitants. It is time to act.
The seed of this project grew two years ago, while pedaling together along the chilly Patagonian and Tierra del Fuego pampas. After having followed and especially shared similar values and vital
concepts during the last few years we have met again at an existential crossroads in which our paths point at the same direction: Mongolia.
