Doing without - young Brazilians counter money focus

While FIFA and World Cup sponsors are raking it in, two young Brazilians are showing the other side of the coin. They’ve been living, travelling and working their way across Australia and New Zealand for the last 13 months without forking out a cent (or a plastic card). Natale and Marielli shared their story and their vision last night at the Lower Hutt Transition Town Sustainability Centre, where I met them.

‘Money is not a really good story for the last few years,’ says Natale. ‘It’s time to do something different.’ He grew up in one of the major World Cup cities, Sao Paolo. Twenty million people, lots of traffic and huge inequality – as evidenced by the picture here.

Natale is the only child of a middle-class family. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to do with his life, so followed his father into law – studying environmental law at University. Mahatma Gandhi became an inspiration to him – ‘Be the change you wish to see in the world’, and he became a vegetarian. He ended up advising theme parks on sustainable and healthy food sources, and while doing so, read three books: The Man who Quit Money by Mark Sundeen, Sacred Economics by Charles Eisenstein and The Moneyless Man by Mark Boyle.

They changed his life. He wanted to try this ‘living without money’.

It set him on a course to travel to Australia, for two reasons. One was that it was far away - his parents weren’t likely to come and drag him back. The second was that it was the home of permaculture – an approach to living on earth in a sustainable way – covering food, energy and how we organise ourselves among other things.

Meanwhile, Mariella had been enjoying lots of new, exciting experiences, culture and people in Europe. ‘Money was important to me,’ she says. But when she came back to Brazil, it seemed everything her family and friends were doing involved money. On her third day back in Brazil, she met Natale, who shared his dream of traveling to Australia and ‘living without money’. They spent about 10 days together in Brazil before Natale left to pursue his dream, and she followed him.

Natale spent the last of his money on a directory for Willing Workers on Organic Farms – one of many schemes whereby travelers can exchange their labour for accommodation and food. It has been the mainstay of their mission to do without money. They’ve hitched there way around, and offered their labour in exchange for goods, services and favours; or relied on the generosity of strangers-cum-friends. They’ll also go ‘dumpster diving’, rescuing perfectly edible food from waste thrown out by supermarkets and other shops.

They were wanting to get passage to New Zealand crewing on a yacht or boat, but when nothing turned up before Natale’s visa was due to expire,  a friend they’d made in Australia insisted on paying a low-cost airfare to New Zealand, where they have been the last few weeks.

The day after I met them, they were planning to hitch a ride on a yacht or boat to get to the South Island and continue their journey of love and goodwill. 

Why spend your money on what cannot fill the emptiness deep in your heart?

Marielli and Natale in Lower Hutt - Te Awa Kairangi.