Dirk Vandersypen - a nomadic existence
Dirk Vandersypen was born in the Congolese capital Léopoldville (now Kinshasa) in 1952. He was the sixth of eight children. In 1960, after the Congo gained its independence, Dirk's family returned to Belgium. There, after completing secondary school, Dirk went on to study political and social sciences. He interrupted these studies to leave for Latin America, a region that would hold him in its grip forever. Initially Dirk lived in Venezuela. From there he moved to Nicaragua, where he saw the Sandinista revolution come and go. After this he lived in Mexico City for a time, before he and his partner Ann De Roo finally settled in Miami, USA. It was there that their son was born in February, 1999. A few months later doctors diagnosed Dirk as having a malignant brain tumour. He subsequently returned to Belgium, where he died in Antwerp on 12 January, 2000.
Dirk Vandersypen - a vision
Dirk's knowledge of Latin America, the region he so often criss-crossed, was unparalleled. Unfettered by any political preference, he exposed the injustice that confronted the ordinary Latin American. By telling the story of ‘the little man’, he managed to illuminate clearly and unequivocally, but not without humour, the political systems of Latin America.
"At present Latin America has hardly a promising beacon for the future. Movements that could actually be a positive example (such as the Movimento Dos Sem Terra) do not manage to cross the border. For the vast majority of tens of millions of people it's not possible anymore. They live more than ever in enormous misery, and the West is often the cause of it.
I saw Spaniards on sex tourist holidays in Havana, I mixed with the Mexican rebel farmers in Chiapas, lived with an inflation of 3000% in Nicaragua, mourned with the crazy mothers on the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires, got intoxicated from cocaine leaves in Bolivia and visited the guerrilla in El Salvador. Everywhere I went I tried to talk with people from all walks of life, from the president to Joe Bloggs.
Ultimately my concern has always been for the fate of the people themselves. It is not for me to embellish that or play the hero at their expense. I present the stories as they are: drawn from real life."
From: Mañana, 25 jaar omzwervingen door Latijns-Amerika (Tomorrow, 25 years’ wandering through Latin America), Uitgeverij Houtekiet, 1999, ISBN 90 5240 551 4
