Quiting Your Job Gives You New Jobs

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A few weeks later.
A few nice weeks of hot showers, coffee in the morning and movies every night. Comfy bed to sleep in, supermarket next door, friends over for dinner every other night and actually, jobs rolling in like never before. It has been an amazing homecoming.

We still wake up every morning and go to sleep every night saying to each other “This is a damn good life!”

Quiting your job to do something different might be scary. What if you don’t find a new job when (if) that time comes? What if you will fall and not fly. We’ve heard all those things. That it would be more safe and secure for us to upgrade at work than to quit. What happens when we run out of money?

Well, here we are, and we’ve already been working for a while at our new jobs. And more offers keep rolling in.
Do you know what people say when they call us in for interviews? They don’t care much about our previous working experience. They don’t look too much at our references. But they DO care for that we’ve hitchhiked from Poland to Pakistan. That we’ve driven a website at our own initiative and with our own imagination. That stands out. That is something to talk about. That seems to qualify us for any job we like.

We are not exhausted after the week when we have breakfast Saturday morning. We’re boiling over with new ideas for new project, cause our minds are fresh, and we feel fresh.

Quiting our jobs was probably the best thing we’d ever put on our CV.

Credits

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Credits

Ideas, inspiration, brain-storms and support. Many of you have helped us complete this journey in different ways. Credit is where credit is due.

  • Hitchhiking concept: Jonas Georgsson & Jesper Lundberg for that night at Lännaplan, when we discussed the project.
  • Meet Our Drivers: Pia-Maria Guldström in the car home from Axelsro when she told us she would like to see ideas from different countries.
  • “What did you have for breakfast”: Margareta Garpe & Molly Harleb for that lunch-meeting where they asked us to make the ideas more hands-on.
  • Introduction movie: Kaspian Jakobsson when he said that it was unbearable.
  • 3D graphics: Kaspian Jakobsson
  • Post frequency: Lukas Jakobsson – “Post five times a day. Sleep, that’s something you can do in Sweden!”
  • Improved sound quality and endless support: Breno Cola sent us some money and told us to get a better dicta phone. Said and done!
  • P3 Planet: Christoffer Hagberg, Jesper Lundberg & Jonas Georgsson. Thanks for the idea!
  • Constant inspiration: Gary Vaynerchuck.
  • Blog traffic: As We Travel, Sofia and Nathan – Thanks a lot! Alastair Humphreys, Thanks! Bicycle Touring Pro, Connection Revolution, Orienteringstanten and of course – Phil In The Blank!
  • Financial support: Barbro & Claes Heijbel, Bodil Heijbel, Peter Jakobsson, Bo & Anita Jakobsson, Kim & Håkan Jakobsson, Breno Cola, Lisette Sandling, Lars Riber and Annie & Lennart Adolphsson.
  • Paid for our material: ABF, P3 & GT.
  • Podcast theme: MattyBlades.
  • Local radio: Jakob Larsson & Johannes Hallbom. Check out their new release with Tony Clifton!
  • Pins and book from Gotland: Julia Bendelin, Oss Reklambyrå.
  • Vaulable help on the road: The girls at the gas station in the Middle of Poland, Tomek & Mateusz in Krakow, The couple who bought us tickets to the ferry to Yalova, Engin in Yalova, Ali with family in Izmir, Makbule, Ömer & Doruk, Aynur in Cirali, Bahar family in Jordan, Muhammad with family in Damascus, The family in Mus, Joey in Arbil, The family in Suran, The family in Piranshar, Mohammad with family in Tabriz, Appas with family in Tabriz, The family in Zahedan.
  • Brave souls who believed in the Chicken dance and participated before we left Sweden, in Visby/Stockholm: Alice Heijbel, Andromeda Lundén, Kaspian Jakobsson, Malin Björkquist, Malin Karlsson, Razmus Nyström, Robert Söderström, Sara Eklund, Signe Ahlsten, Stina Nordberg, Torun Dahlström, Vilhelm Blomgren, Emil Jansson, Johanna Marteleur, Jonas Georgsson and Mindra Ericsson and Ulf Heijbel, for the part in the introduction movie.
  • Chicken Dance Japan: Pontus Jakobsson & Louise Billgren

Thanks again!

Ultima

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It was april 2010.
Spring had just come to France. And so had Robin. We spent a sunny Sunday in Céret, a small romantic town in the Pyrenees. We had not seen each other in many weeks. Way to many weeks. We had written more loveletters than it had been days since we were together. Everywhere we went, love went with us.

The sun was beautiful. The buildings were beautiful. The people were beautiful, like characters in a movie where we played the leads. Amanda with a flower in her hair, Robin with the smile of a happy child. The cars stopped for us. The people greeted us.
An old man walked up to us and offered some candy. A street choir walked the main street down and spread their tones.
Céret smelled of coffee, spring and love. When we smiled, the world smiled back at us, and we said to each other,
“We have to express this passion. We have to keep expressing it, and share it with the rest of the world”.
We will never forget Céret, or the people who live there. Maybe the people in Céret won’t forget us either, who knows.

We didn’t know it by then. But on that sunny Sunday in Céret, MangoManjaro was born.

###

July, 2010.

Map

India, we said. Let’s hitchhike to India. And we did. We hitchhiked – ONLY – until we reached Pakistan. As soon as we’d crossed the border from Iran, we had to get escorted by armed guards, half way through Pakistan. “For security reasons, you are not allowed to hitchhike, sorry.”

We made it to the Indian border, the very east of Pakistan. Because of some visa issues and poor planning from our side, we actually finished this journey in Pakistan. So we did travel all the way TO India, all we didn’t do was to enter it. It will be a future project, since we are quite certain India will still be there. So will we, and along with us comes a big portion of curiosity and passion.

###

We want to thank you all again.
All of our drivers, the people who have hosted us, all you Chicken Dancers, blog readers, donors, reporters and other Njaros out there.
Thank you for making our personal experience absolutely amazing.
Thank you for everything that you have shared with us, and for everything that you have taught us.
Thanks for all the chai and all the joy. Thanks for being brave and open minded, and for treating us so well.

Anton, one of our drivers in Bulgaria made a wise statement that we came to like so much that we copied it and printed it at some of our business cards.
“The world is a big village”. This line has really proved itself to be true during the last few months.

We started this trip with an empashis on challenging the fears that people in Sweden have. It turned out that most of the fears are shared amongst all people, across all of the countries that we’ve passed. This is our most important lesson, our most important discovery. It is not dangerous to hitchhike, talk to strangers, or stay in a strangers home. It’s rather the opposite! The most dangerous thing you can do is to isolate yourself and only trust situations where you’re paying someone to do something for you.

Fear in itself is what’s dangerous, because it hinders us from communicating with each other. And that makes us stupid.

###

MangoManjaro is now about 6 moths old, in other words it is still a baby who will grow and learn.
We hope to meet you all in our future projects!

Love, magical Mango energy and best wishes,

Amanda and Robin

Meet Our Driver – Faruk

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We’ve hitchhiked from from Poland to the Indian border. On our way we got to meet a lot of beautiful and positive drivers who shared a tiny part of their lives with us. In this video we meet Faruk who lives in Kurdistan, Iraq. He has spent seven years in UK. Thank you again, Faruk!