When I decided to stop my cinema studies in Belgium and leave the country, I didn’t have any money nor idea what to do. I just wanted to quit, so I went to Australia. I was willing to take on any job and I ended up working on a farm. I arrived in Cressy, Tasmania, a very tiny town in the north of the island. I slept with a friend in the same boot car for two months. We were planning to stay a maximum of two weeks on the berry farm that hired us. Yet in my great luck, I could access a harvest supervisor position, which meant better pay and an easier task. And this is when a beautiful life experience started, I discovered Tonga, Vanuatu, Nepal, Bhutan, China, South Korea, Japan without having been there before. The job wasn’t very fun, but the people were worth it.
Through all these interactions, I came to understand the extreme mistake of believing in stereotypes. I had plenty before leaving Belgium. I learned how deep human being can be, how different we all are and at the same time so similar. The richness of the individuals I met was far from my reality and I quickly transformed my two weeks in six months. I decided to abort my naïve and selfish need of “amazing adventures” to do what I’ve always wanted to do: telling the stories of others in images. With the money I earned, I bought a camera to shoot those crazy 120 Tongans I was working and living with. Here are some pictures about the life of their camp, some in the field, church, and during sports and moments of fun.
