Reflections: one year on the road. Part 1

As we have reached one year on the road on our Bike4WesternSahara tour we are taking the time to reflect on what we’ve experienced and learnt so far. Since it’s so much to cover we will share our insights in two separate posts.

This is part one about our time in Denmark and Germany.

Denmark

When we reached Copenhagen, little did we know that we would encounter an extraordinary couple whose adventurous spirit matched ours. These experienced bike tourers, called Kenneth and Marie, had traversed the globe, and their next destination was Ladakh, India, home to some of the highest roads in the world, reaching several thousand meters above sea level. They had already biked the Americas in its entirety and felt the post-traveling depression we are sure to experience as well. Meeting them made us realize that our journey wasn’t as long as we had initially thought.

Denmark offered us more than just nice and flat bike routes (which still causes us so many flat tires). We discovered that the former force commander of the UN mission for Western Sahara (MINURSO), Kurt Mossgaard, was living not far from our route. We had the opportunity to meet and interview him about his time in Western Sahara. He told us how we saw the Moroccan flag hanging over the UN headquarters when he first arrived and was so angered that he took it down since the UN is supposed to be neutral. The Moroccan king called the UN office in New York to try to fire him but failed to do so.

During our time in Aarhus, we had the privilege of meeting Mahmoud, a board member of Solidarity Rising. Mahmoud, who had recently become a father, was working on a remarkable project: creating the world’s longest rap song for Palestine. Eager to contribute, we reached out to our network in an attempt to find talented rappers who could lend their voice to fight the occupation.

Continuing our journey from Aarhus to Germany, we stopped at various Folkhøgskoles, where we conducted three lectures about Western Sahara. These gatherings gave us the opportunity to engage with Danish students who, until then, were unaware of the occupation. We shared stories and hope that it left a mark to inspire them into doing their own solidarity projects.

Germany

As we cycled through the streets of Berlin, we couldn’t help but reflect upon the enduring echoes of history. Passing the remnants of the Berlin Wall, a symbol of division and oppression, we were reminded of the walls that still stand today in places like Palestine and Western Sahara. In fact, Western Sahara boasts the second-longest wall in the world, stretching over an astonishing 2,700 kilometers. This realization intensified our determination to advocate for the rights and liberation of those affected by occupation.

We found a newly started support group for Western Sahara in Berlin called La Jaima de Tiris. Together, we organized a powerful biking demonstration, an event that captured the attention of both the Moroccan ambassador (who chased us away) and intrigued onlookers. As usual we always get so many questions by people passing by when we are in bigger cities, which is our goal. We think we’ve talked to hundreds of people already who never heard about Western Sahara, said they were ashamed about it, and now know much more.

We had the pleasure of meeting Almir, a Bosnian living in Germany. He first learned about Western Sahara through the music of Aziza Brahim, a talented Saharawi singer. Deeply moved by her songs Almir started researching about her and heard about Western Sahara for the first time. As an avid marathon runner he heard about the Sahara Marathon, which takes place every year in the refugee camps, and participated several times. It was actually through a marathon that he learned about Palestine too.

Our main take away from these meetings is that culture, music and sports, really has the power to get people interested about a place and even engage in a struggle against occupation. As we left Germany we felt very tired of the extreme ups and downs of living on the road but curious about what more we could learn from others.