Stuck In Mexico Help My Friend To Fix His Van

Hello my ride or die’s it is your girl Susi the CEO of moodswings and the mother of all van queens. I am on a big mission and I am out here to ask you for your help.
Generally speaking I always have and always will struggle to reach out for help, because I like to be that independent woman who  stems everything herself. But this time it isn’t about me. It is about my dear friend Tobi and the Mexican family who took care of us when we were having the most difficult time yet. And quite frankly our „van“ journey in America“ didn’t even start. 

But the more I think about it, the more I believe that our journey HAD TO start EXACTLY like it did. It was full of struggles and emotional up and downs. And even though I call myself the CEO of moodswings, the past weeks have pushed me to my edges. I am a believer of faith, good energy and love. I believe that everything is suppose to happen the way it should be. And that is why I also know that my only purpose right now is to help them.
So I am using my platform for this cause because I believe that is what I need to do and hope you will support me on this.

But let me start from the beginning and tell you about a friendship that is so true and genuine your heart would skip a beat. Tobi and I met three years ago. Our path crossed in Spain as he was having a one week vacation sleeping in his rental car. He knew me from my Social Media as I was touring around for a little bit already. We started to talk and had a great time spending 3 days together. I know it is easy to say and only people who meet me in real life will ever know, that I will always take my time to push everyone I meet. I motivate them, I show them their power  and give them an extra amount of Susi energy, because I want everyone to chase their dreams. I think that’s the only trace I can leave behind to each single one. But finally it is up to everyone else to accomplish them. 

(3 years ago)



His dream at that time was to travel and live in a van just like I did. And since I was the first van lifer he met he was super inspired by me and my van. And as you see today, his van looks pretty much like mine. From that day on he worked hard and accomplished his goals.
2-3 years passed and we didn’t have much contact but somehow our path’s were meant to cross again in Portugal. And when we finally met again our relationship had developed into a real, loyal friendship. We went through the bad and the good together but non of us would ever let each other hanging. For some weird reason we became so clingy that being separated for some days was awkward. He never had a friendship like this before as he is a very introverted person and need a lot of Me time. But we balance each other out and my weaknesses are his strengths.
He is good at planning and keeps me ground whenever I come up with even crazier ideas. I help him to socialize and meet people he normally wouldn’t meet. And despite of all that we can do the funniest and craziest things together.
As our friendship grew, both of us were ready to leave Europe and ship our vans to America. Starting with Mexico. It was hard work for Tobi to get here as he is still working a normal custom support online job. It took him several months to save up the money for the shipping. But he worked hard and 5 months later he saved enough to ship the van. 



We are in Mexico for past two weeks now and those two weeks have been very very tough. We had to face many unexpected struggles. Paying extra fee’s, staying longer in Air Bnb’s as planned, having to take the dogs everywhere, not being able to get into our flights with the dogs, changing our European vans to American standards and the list continues.
I have been spending a lot money on both us as I had some back up savings to survive for a bit. But being so occupied to fix all the problems, we didn’t had much time to work.



Unfortunately the biggest disaster was yet to come. Three days after ours vans arrived, Tobi went to a gas station to fuel. The gas stations here in Mexico don’t allow self service and an employee had to fill his van up. Tobi said several time „ DIESEL, DIESEL“ and even though the man replied „ DIESEL“ he fuel the van with gasoline. It didn’t take the van long for its first break down, as you know the outcome when you put wrong fuel inside of a car. Tobi didn’t connect the dots right away as he still thought the man filled the van with DIESEL. So he tried to fix the van up and thought it was just a problem with the electric. Non of his tries helped as we finally came to the conclusion that the problem was the fuel.


So here we are stranded in Veracruz in Mexico not being able to move his van. I will not leave him here. I will not continue to travel without him because that is what real friends do.

As we were sitting helplessly in front of Volkswagen to figure a plan out  a guy stopped by. He was our age and his girlfriend sat on the passenger seat. They drove up with their old baby blue Volkswagen Beetle ( an old-timer car aswell). His name is Miguel and he is passionate about Volkswagen cars.

He saw our vans from the other side of streets drove back just to take a look. He told us that he HAD to drive back because the models of our van’s are very rare in Mexico. As he saw us stuggeling  there he didn’t hesitate to take his tool box out to help as much as he could. He didn’t speak English but we could explain him what has happened. After all he and his girlfriend stayed 6 more hours and they even called a mechanic friend ( on a Sunday ) because they really wanted to get the van back running. After many tries nothing worked. In the end of the day we were all tired, full of sweat and mentally exhausted. They left and we stayed that night in front of Volkswagen. 



After a hot and stormy night we decided we WON’T give up. So we tried to change the DIESEL filter the next day. Miguel our friend also came back again. He had to work but instead of using his lunch break to eat, he drove to us. He was worried and wanted to check on us and tried to continue helping. After we tried all day again and nothing worked I told Tobi that we need to sleep somewhere else instead of the vans. It was hot, we were dirty and sleeping in a city in this heat wasn’t bearable. Miguel then introduced us to his parents, who lived 2 minutes away from where the breakdown had happened. The parents ran a little Motel but both of them are Pastors. Marcela and her husband welcomed us in such a warm and hearty way I never experienced before. My heart was melting already and surprisingly they even spoke English. They told us many things about Mexico and served us so much food and kept buying all the food and didn’t want to take a dime. although we offered to take over. They still refused.
After spending 3 days here now they told us many many things about their past, about their life and about Mexico. I traveled a lot but I have never meet people who were so kind and selfless.



So this is my turn to help all of them out. We have called a mechanic who will fix up Tobi’s van so we can finally start our journey. Tobi who is already struggling a lot will go into dept with his bank if I don’t help him now. To cover all the lost money and the repair I would like to raise 1300 Euro for Tobi so he can pay the mechanic and pay for his food and fuel just for first month. Then he can start to get back into his routine of working and saving up money again. On top of that I want to raise 2000 Euro for the family. As they are pastors they give church service every Sunday in their kitchen/ living room.

They don’t have a church but they have helped many people in this area and they also helped us-
Marcelas father started to build a little „ Terrace“ in the garden for it to become a church. But he passed away some years ago and the family doesn’t have enough money to continue the build.
I know I will not be able to give them a full church but at least I want them to build a roof for that terrace because their dream is to give church service there.


And even though I am not really religious, I feel that this is one of the reasons why we met and why we are stuck here.  I can not explain why but I know that is it the realest thing I ever felt.
And I hope you will help me to raise 3400 Euro for Tobi and this lovely family who gave us everything they had, while they have absolutely nothing but their kindness and humbleness to help everyone else.

By the way this family has absolutely no idea about my plan of raising money for them and I want to be a  surprise. No matter whatever the outcome is and how we raise, I know we have made friends here in Mexico already and this is more valuable than anything else. If you don't have a credit card to donate here we also set up a PayPal but for that you have to go to my Instagram BIO. ❤️ The Link will be there!!!