I haven’t even thought of Tvind since my experiences in 1995. I was travelling anyway when I bumped literally into a poster, I thought this was it a ticket to my dreams which the school did eventually fill. There were various things on offer and I booked a flight straight away to Denmark…Things went down hill from there but my rosy view on life and with my disregard for my own safety I went blundering in without a thought. As I had no money my first task was to get to Berlin, it was subjected that I hitch hike and as I didn’t have a penny and had only a ONE WAY ticket I didn’t have much choose. When I got to Berlin I had to go to a certain underground train station to get picked up….It was 2am and I nearly got taken for a prostitute, whilst I was waiting! ….I was trained to talk crap and get money selling postcards. After I had raised £2000 three months later I had the luxury of getting a train back to Denmark.
The whole situation didn’t suit and I felt intimidated and was aware that the funds were gained illegitimately one way or the other. One day my group went to another school and I learned of the Teacher training college, there was a group going to India overland (my dream) although I was sad not to do the Africa trip I opted to change which was agreed and I joined a new group. Fortunately for me they were well into there fundraising and many people that had fundraised already had left with nothing. There wasn’t much time and I wasn’t a favourite person having joined at the last minuet. There were 20 people in this team and they had done allot of work before me.
It was obvious everyone was ripping off money, but I wanted this trip so much. We had to pray on the public, buying roses off the market to sell in blocks of flats, sell postcards on the streets, anything to get cash. We were sent in groups of 5 to different countries, Sweden, Norway, Germany, then some of us had to ‘Clunce’ a term we used to get free accommodation (small schools, churches, even peoples houses……then there was food, free breakfast, lunch and dinner from hotels, burger bars etc.) when I look back it was horrendous.
In the school itself the ‘students’ were expected to do all the maintenance work, cook, clean and teach by putting any old shit on the college internet..nothing was corrected, marked, there definitely wasn’t any teacher training.
When we finally left for India we lost two more people in Germany, they had had enough! I only stayed to for my dreams. The trip itself didn’t go without problems, there were allot of messy people and being the last person to join the team I ended up on the notoriously BAD bus. The vehicle itself was older than me and It was a total bodge job where we had gutted its insides to make beds etc. I had to close myself off from everyone on that bus, there were two manic depressives, a violent guy, two brainwashed teachers and jimmy who was lovely but timid. Periodically we all had to get off the bus to experience the countries, cultures etc however we had limited funds and were expected to ‘Clunce’ our way, praying on the most generous and poor people in the world. We were welcomed every time but had nothing to give. By this time we were all living in forth hand clothes from the Tvind empire, and everything we owned had been adopted for the purpose of Tvind.
There is so much to tell, I’m only skirting the edges of what I can remember, so whilst we were on/off this bus we had no contact, no mobile or anyone to save us If anything went wrong..We were lost to everyone and everything and we were travelling on the seat of our pants. Myself and two other girls ended up in a remote village near Karachi in Pakistan where no one there had seen a white person in there lives, we got taken in by a lovely family but there was all sorts of riots in the village before we were finally rescued. I am very grateful to that family because no one new what to do with us…woman didn’t even go into the town, a very frightening situation!
Once in India I did the four weeks we had looking around the country (Id already been to India and had a trip of old haunts planned) when I met back up with the Bus in Deli I told them I was not travelling with them again so they left me there and that was the last I heard from them, my mum put £300 pounds in the bank so I could stay for a bit then I got a flight back home.
If anything had happened to me I don’t think for one minuet they would have done anything to find me or my body, how could they? they had absolutely no idea where the ‘students’ were or what was happening to them.
I’m glad I did it but not with Tvind, the whole experience bar the overland trip was horrid, I have never contacted anyone since and I’m glad to have had the presence of mind to do the trip and not get suckered in to the ‘cult’. That is exactly what it is, there was obviously nothing more than a massive ploy to make a limited few very rich, all these rumours were flying around then and I put up with it for my own gain, im sorry to say. My intentions were good and I wanted to help people in the poor countries and give aid. After reading some of the Mozambique experiences I’m glad I changed courses.
My advice is not to do it even for a dream, find something else, I had a very lonely experience which took the best part of a year. You have to be strong and pig headed and be prepared to leave at all costs if you really still want to go through with it.
