A graduate of the University of Guanajuato travels the country in a “vocho”
Guanajuato, Gto., January 18, 2018.- M. Dirk Jan Hendrik Lotgerink, a Dutch who arrived at this university as an exchange student and worked for more than a year at the University of Guanajuato in the Program of Academic Mobility, today, he travels our country in a Volkswagen.
Already known in social media as the “el güero del vocho”, M. Lotgerink confesses that his love for Mexico began by falling in love with Guanajuato, when in 2012 he was shuffling the options to study Spanish American literature abroad.
The options were Chile and Mexico, and in this country, the University of Guanajuato (UG), who first knew by internet and immediately he made a decision: he would come to Mexico to take an exchange semester in the Master degree in Spanish Languages at the Division of Social Sciences and Humanities (DCSH) of UG’s Campus Guanajuato.
He didn’t know Guanajuato existed, he revealed, but seeing the internet images, he fell in love of this city’s beauty and decided it would be his new life adventure, so he came to study Spanish American poetry in the venue Valenciana of Campus Guanajuato.
At the end of his semester, he was charmed by the city, the culture, the people, the gastronomy, the nature, since then he decided to return, and, at the end of his master degree in Holland, he came back to Guanajuato where he worked as a host in the Festival Internacional Cervantino, teaching English and any other course offered.
By then, UG gave him the opportunity to work for a year as the overseer of the exchanges in the Program of Academic Mobility, so he was thrilled, because he tried to encourage students to have the experience to know other countries and have personal enrichment. As the Coordinator of Academic Cooperation, Dirk also welcomed foreign students.
He developed many cultural projects in Campus Guanajuato with the young exchange students, and as a proof, there are videos where the students tell their stories abroad to encourage their peers to travel.
He then went back to Holland, where he worked as a translator in international soccer and he even was a translator for the Mexican Selection when they played in Holland. Also, he worked as a professor for war refugees, especially in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, convinced that investing in social projects is the key for any country to succeed.
While he was there, he dreamt of touring Mexico, “from Tijuana to Cancun”, he says, in a “vocho”, because it is the “most Mexican” vehicle, everyone knows it. He couldn’t do so due to a lack of resources, nevertheless, he saved some money and left his Dutch life to, for six months now, travel in this country.
The idea is to write a book about the beauties that Mexico offers, he said, because the country is known but mostly for bad new, thing that cannot be denied nor be indifferent, he sustained, but in his opinion, if you want to progress, you must focus “in the good social projects, the good people, the Mexican hospitality and the people itself, of Europe focuses on that, it would be like returning some to the country I love and has given me everything.”
He revealed that he bought the “vocho” six months ago in Mexico City, and today, he has traveled 10,000km from Hidalgo, Guanajuato, Tamaulipas, Nuevo León, Coahuila, Durango, Michoacán, Nayarit, Sinaloa, and all the California Peninsula.
I haven’t had any bad experience, he assured, “because of the good Mexican vibe” and, even if we all know what is happening in the country, he is convinced that the good energy prevails and there are stories worth to be told.
Now his savings are depleted, but he will look for other sponsors changing the focus of his trip, which will be more social, reach marginal communities, offer some classes and conferences about his experiences in the world and open to any contribution that may come; there are still some states to the south of Mexico to tour.
