After I had healed myself through the power of olive trees and decided to follow the path of the trees, I came across a small advertisement in Welt am Sonntag:
Olive grove for sale.
It was a coded ad.
That meant: no name, no phone number, no direct contact. You had to write to the newspaper, and the newspaper forwarded the letter to the unknown advertiser.
So I wrote.
Not an ordinary buyer’s letter.
I wrote a long letter and told my entire story. About my healing. About the olive trees. About my decision to leave my old life behind. And about my crazy dream of becoming an olive farmer as a German with no experience at all.
Joaquin and his then girlfriend Anna responded to that letter. They had placed the ad.
But we did not meet immediately.
Only two years later did Joaquin and I meet in person for the first time.
I drove to him in Cala, a small village about 80 kilometers from Seville. On the way, I asked him if he knew of any olive grove for sale.
Joaquin thought for a moment.
Maybe Santiago, he said.
Santiago was the bee whisperer.
A few months later, I became the proud owner of my first olive grove with about 120 olive trees.
The crazy dream suddenly had ground beneath its feet.
I was an olive farmer.
At least on paper.
Because I still had no idea how to turn an olive grove into a movement.
But I had an idea.
After getting to know Joaquin a little better, I asked him if he would come with me to Seville.
I had seen that thousands of tourists moved around the cathedral every day. People from all over the world.
It was immediately clear to me:
That was where I had to advertise my trees.
Not with an agency.
Not with a big campaign.
Not with glossy brochures.
I wanted to walk around the cathedral as a sandwich man.
So I strapped two huge posters to my body, one in front and one in the back. They read:

YOUR VERY OWN
100 YEAR OLD
OLIVE TREE

At first, Joaquin thought it was a joke.
But I was serious.
So I walked as a living billboard through Seville – right through the crowds around the cathedral.
Joaquin came with me.
But about a hundred meters behind me.
Out of embarrassment.
He clearly did not want anyone to think he was associated with this completely crazy German walking around as a sandwich man advertising hundred-year-old olive trees.
I can imagine what he thought back then:
What kind of madman is this?

Many years passed.

The first 120 trees became thousands of protected mountain olive trees. The crazy dream became Oliveda. And what had once been an idea I walked alone around the cathedral became a movement of pioneers.
Then we returned to Seville.
As every year, we walked together with our consultants – or rather our pioneers from the United States – once again in the footsteps of our story.
And again, we wore the sandwich man signs.
Again, we walked around the cathedral.
But this time something was different.
Joaquin was no longer a hundred meters behind me.
This time, he walked right beside me.
The shame was gone.
And in his eyes was something that had not been there many years before.
A little pride.
Maybe in that moment he remembered the long letter of an unknown German. Santiago, the bee whisperer. The first 120 olive trees. And the crazy sandwich man he once preferred not to be seen with.
Now everyone could see that we belonged together.
That is the Sandwich Man Story.
The story of a long letter.
Of a first olive grove.
Of a man walking a hundred meters behind me.
And of a friend who, many years later, walked proudly at my side.

Happy Birthday, OLIVEDA.