Reminiscing The Green Dream

As a person, I tend to be forward-looking and recognise the importance of the present moment, rarely do I travel down memory lane. Three days ago, Facebook presented me with an “on this day” memory of a selfie taken in Bangkok five years ago. Here we were, my younger son and I, in an offbeat internet cafe on our way back from our year in Bali. Sending news to family and friends, without Chinese visas, and not knowing if we were going to be able to travel back home overland.

This brought back a lot of feelings! Instead of moving on, I decided to dive back into the mental archives of what may have been one of the happiest chapters of my life.

For those who may not already know, Yoel and I crowd-funded and realised a shared dream to go from Britain to Bali and back without flying, and spend a year at Green School. This ‘home-school’, or should I say ‘world-school ‘ project, we referred to as Weaving the Green Dream.

Since I am currently between two chapters, so to speak, I spent a few hours reminiscing the cherished memories of the trip and the special moments spent in that remarkable school in Bali. One thing led to another, and I remembered that a French film crew had interviewed us as part of a documentary they made on Green School. The makers had never sent us the footage as promised. Some of my french friends and family had mentioned that they had seen us on TV. Four years ago, while in Paris, I managed to watch a replay, but could not get hold of a copy. A friend even transferred the large file by email, but by the time I got round to downloading it, the link had expired. Well today, after five years I managed to get hold of it, and here it is, in full:

Note: The documentary is in French, and the link starts with our story 20-mins into the video. You are, of course, welcome to watch the whole programme, which is only 26-mins and gives a good impression of what Green School was like in 2015.

“Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.”

Dr. Seuss

To finish with, why not listen to Michael Franti’s “The Sound Of Sunshine”, (whom we had the pleasure to see live on Campus). The song is featured at the end of Yoel’s little film: 100 Day Journey

Once again thank you Yoel for being such an excellent travel companion, and a keen student of life – world school with you was quite a ride!