Skip to main content

T-1

It's T-1. Tomorrow at this time I am on a plane to Maputo. I have been away for 2 years, it is too long. Mozambique will always break my heart apart. It breaks my heart to see what's there despite the joy of all we accomplish. It breaks my life to leave C behind but I can't wait to go back. It breaks my heart to leave without seeing every single child but time is too short there. It breaks my heart to spend so much time solving grown up problems when really I wanted to be hearing about children problems instead. It has always been such mixed feeling and such an attempt not to want more than I can get. 
When going the important is to focus on the achievements and not the ones we failed, the ones that are in school and not the ones that pregnant, the ones rebuilding their homes rather than the ones who just lost it, the ones getting treatment for AIDS rather than the ones dying of it. It is hard, as the numbers usually are against you. 
It's a long and hard ultra marathon on our side some times and it is only seeing the outcomes that sometimes you get enough strenght. In fact it is also by being there and seeing it that you ensure the spark in your eyes is stronger than any argument when talking to a donour or a crowd. It makes you stronger to won the funds you need to turn the numbers in your favour. Because sitting in London, it's a numbers game.
It is when you go there that every number has a face, and then it all makes sense. A

Comments

Anonymous said…
So how was it and are you back??
Your bald friend.

Popular posts from this blog

Time is what makes us different

I heard what is likely to become one of my top 3 favourite quotes on a podcast on Friday. "Time is the only real democratic asset. We are all awarded the same time, it is what we do with it that distinguishes us".  Now, I recognise that most of us need to work with survive and that is not democratic throughout. But on an equal opportunity basis, this is an interesting way of putting it. For many years I did not understand why MS thought my resume was so interesting. In fact, they chased me during the entire recruitment process, even though I had no idea of moving to London or Finance. I wanted to be a consultant and stay in Lisbon forever. But traditional consultants in Portugal saw nothing in me, and MS did not let me go. When I started screening resumes and hiring people a couple of years later is when I understood why I was different. TIME.  I was truly different about what I did with my time. Not necessarily the basics - choice of degree or anything. But really ...

Haunted by journaling

Journaling is haunting me. In different places, posts, blogs, podcasts, workshops or books, I get brainwashed by the wonders of journaling, what it can do for my morning as part of a morning ritual of meditation. For many years, I thought if only I would journal, I would have a blog full of life, ideas that never end and a calm relaxed life, with my thoughts off my head every day, not haunting me for fear of being forgotten. I love a good empty page, be it on a book or a screen. To be fair, I even do better on a screen shining back with words filling faster than my hands think they can type and my eyes semi-shut to the wonders that can come by. I don't know what the end game is, I like it to go free. But I don't journal. I can't make up my mind if I want to give it a proper go or not, I don't like the feeling at "failing" some of these initiatives, I don't have much to say every day though I have random thoughts during the day that I which could be reco...

HBS Reunion (a year ahead of time). A world of opportunity

I sit in a Spangler couch. ‘It looks like an  expensive countryside hotel lounge’ my sister said when she first came to visit. It is all that except for the hotel part. Unbelievably comfortable for a solitude moment or a chat around a coffee table. Designed for both.  I sit inside as Boston weather sticks to its reputation. 26 degrees for the 3rd day but rain has hit amidst the sun. Everyone is quick to reallocate. It is na odd environment, one where I am an outsider. It is not my reunion after all. And amongst all my strong interpersonal skills, I am still an introvert, which most people don’t recognise as truth (incl B really). Large social gatherings with people I don’t know get me exhausted. When I started going out with B, he was already out of the section ‘cult’ and I was full on my own cult. Our friends intersected in the international crowd and that was sufficient. And barely noticeable. But as I am here, with no offence, I belong nowhere. I am not in reunion but I ...