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Who are we?
Natalie Churnin: 29 years old. Born in Sydney, Australia. My whole life I have always wanted to find a way to help people, bring joy and attempt to stop unecessary suffering. I found a way to express those beliefs as a Social Worker in Children's Mental Health and recently left my beloved job at NRI Community Services. I believe that everyone has infinite possibilities to create joy for another and that change in the world comes from random acts of kindness and tolerance and understanding of our differences.
John Paul Posada: 33 years old. Born and raised in New York, USA. Long Beach NY to be exact. Jack of all trades...I have been in Tech Support for the past 7 years at Ovid Technologies. Basically I think we can all accomplish many things if we just apply ourselves. As my old wrestling coach Paul Gillespie always said.. "If you fail to prepare, prepare to fail" I try and live by that.
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What are we doing?
We are attempting to drive through most of Latin America in a 1984 Toyota Landcruiser FJ60 that we won in an auction on Ebay in December 2004.
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Why are we doing it?
There are lots of reasons...Natalie wants to learn Spanish, we both want to travel in a way that will allow us to see and experience different cultures and different worlds. We both agreed that we needed a change from our daily Western routines of working, coming home, eating, watching TV, reading, going to bed and waiting for the weekend, and then doing it all over again. We figured that driving would allow us the flexibility to create our own paths. And hey, we're both a little crazy like that. With John Paul's problem solving skills and Natalie's shining light of optimism (and perseverence, perhaps patience), we began creating this dream 3 years ago. We bought stuff we thought we needed, we saved money, we researched and planned. And so, here we are, on the road...doing it. We had also hoped to spread some joy and possibility to those who couldn't do it themselves and to grow as people and as a couple. We hope to release some of our ingrained social attachments and live spontaneously and blissfully. After this trip is over, we plan to move to Australia.
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