Hello everyone!
My name is Alex and Im originally from Russia. I was born in a city in Ural, the one where meteorites like to fall :))) (If you still haven't got the name – it's Chelyabinsk https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=metheor+chelyabinsk)
I'm 26, and as it turned out, having gone to Indonesia for 2 months’ vacation I ended up staying here for 1,5 years. Before this life changing trip I used to work in Russian Federal Nuclear Center as a developer of optical fiber lasers. Physicist, programmer and engineer by profession and a free-flying citizen of the world by vocation! And the last but not the least I'm a fruitarian meaning that I eat only fresh fruit and only fresh fruit! Nothing else. At ALL.
I live with Mapala community in Indonesia. It's a big brotherhood of people who travel around the country for free. When I met them I was astonished by simplicity and efficiency of their great idea and now I want to present it to the steemit community. I hope you'll find it worthwhile!
A year ago when I arrived to Indonesia as a tourist I met members of Mapala and we took off together. Every day was THE adventure; we were conquering caves, sleeping on sand, paragliding, rafting, mountain biking, living in forests and on the sea shores. I even met the King and took part in a traditional ceremony! It's been a year since then but I'm still here among these people.
Video of my voyage with Mapala
What is Mapala?
Every applicant of every Indonesian University has to choose a complementary academic program besides their major. Among these programs there's one called Mapala (Indonesian: MAhasiswa Pecinta ALAm – students, who love nature) Every applicant makes a deliberate choice hence every his/her weekend from then on consists of travelling, surviving courses, extreme kinds of sport, etc. Indonesians love that! And so do I!
During 3 years minimum all the Mapala members get immersed in nature, study mountains and caves, design maps, create and follow pro-active outlook. Almost all of them are professional alpinists, rafters and divers. Some of them become professional surviving instructors and devote their life to tourism and adventures. In addition to this, Mapala is an unofficial rescue team, which tries to be the first to help travelers in trouble.
I love their life style :-)) They also call it a rock-n-roll life style. The call it this way due to simplicity and carelessness of their lives. They live by helping each other and sometimes even survive only with help of other members of the community. Just want to remind you guys, that there are 250 million people in Indonesia who are spread out on 11 thousand islands. It's a very poor country, but despite everything Mapala members smile and their poverty doesn't impede travelling. They, like every other student, like having parties but even more than that, they love nature. And Bob Marley :-))
Living simple means eating from a banana leaf :-))
Because of its wide spread organization, members of Mapala travel for free, hosting and giving each other a ride. If they come to visit another city they can come by any university and be sure that they are gonna have a place to crash and be fed even if they don't know anyone there. And if the university association of Mapala are taking off on a trip, newcomers can tag along for free!
This is BROTHERHOOD. Millions of participants. Can you imagine?
On this idea basis we are creating a new international community www.mapala.net, which will spread Mapala ideas all around the world. The idea is very simple but at the same time priceless. In order to travel for free, we need to become brotherhood! Imagine, what it's like to have friends all around the world, who are always willing to host, show you around and feed you. And they'll do it for free! Isn't it great?
These days I'm being invited as a foreign spokesman to Mapala conferences where I appeal to students for global united organization based on Mapala concept. Of course everybody approves of it but our voice is still far from being heard. That's why steemit gives us an opportunity to feature ourselves, present our ideas to the whole world and we hope to get enough support one day!
But let's make it clear. Does anybody know in detail how Steem works and how it pays for posts? I bet that only a few could really wrap their head around it. The others don't even care how it works. It pays and that's what important. Right now we are working on adopting Steemit mechanisms and making it work for tourism. We hope that everybody will be able to make money and help people travel at the same time.
For the past few years I've been immersed into studying social and economic problems and I think I can say that decentralized communities will lead us to a bright future! I'm writing a book about it which is called “New age is Now” I'll gladly share some chapters from it with you!
That's who we are!
Thank you for your attention!
Alex Ant