Liberia, one year later

Dear friends,

I waited a bit before writing on our blog (a bit forgotten) about my last trip to Liberia. Since we are out of our liberian time, we are also a bit out of that special spirit. But it came all back to me, the moment I landed in Monrovia. First impression: WOW!! the airport has been rehabilitated and I did not have to fight to get in, starting from the runaway until reaching (and passing) the custom! I don't think my collegues could really understand why I was repeating so much: it's so beautiful!...finally, it is still a small crowded airport...but for me it was a huge difference. The road has also been rehabilitated, generally everthing looks (and I say looks) a bit better and cleaner, even if going a bit deeper and knowing the place a lot of things are still the same.

To me the most impressive thing was just to acknowledge, once more, how much every place speaks about our time in Liberia: every corner and every place where I spent some moment during my 18 months in Liberia, was bringing me back to that period and strangely it was making me feel at home. I wish I could have seen Voinjama, but at the same time, I did not really want to see it changed. I am glad to leave it in my memories as the place where we shared such a special experience, stuck in the mud.

Motivator

I am starting to consider myself a good motivator... and the feelings are getting stronger after Chiara got married. Who could have thought that she might even go near marriage... Means hours of discussion and repeation does works :-)

I am so happy for her. Wish her best and hope they have best life.

Birthday

Hi mate. Happy Birthday and many returns of the day. Hope and pray that you have nice year.

Year 2008

Hey mates, wish you a very best 2008 and hope that you guys have ful of fun year.

autumn

The global warming is real. The leaves in Kyoto, which normaly change their colors in mid-November, are now turning their colors...but thery are anyway beautiful!
I spent a weekend there with my husband :)

Freedom

Are we free? The question is probing my mind from last few months. Freedom has a huge connotation for some who do not have it in absolute basic necessities. But the question comes, are we free in a real terms. Look at us, we think, we do, and we behave in certain way. We dislike so many things around us but we are not free to make choices, we are stuck in this vicious circle of dependency. In the morning we are dependant on Coffee, in office technology, in general electricity list goes on. Agree that these all are to ease and comfort our lives, but if the perspective takes the other side, we find ourselves heavily dependant on these things we almost are slaves.

Long and Short

Some days are long and some days are short.... It is quiet interesting, when you have plenty of work to do the day ends before you know it and some days are little on the lighter side and you keep on watching the watch to see when to wrap up a day.

The long and short of it, it is a mechanized life. Every thing is measures in numbers, how much you earn? How much leave you get? How much time remains on finish the job? How much time you have spent on the job? Every thing is measured in numbers and this has made us measure our life in numbers.

We usually get so tangled in it that we forget to give consideration those things which can not be numbered. Example would be satisfaction, positive impact of your contribution on people life, how many people think good about you when you greet them nicely… there are so many things… But here we are trying to link every thing with numbers… I shouldn’t be saying as I am the one work around figures :-)