remembering well

Do you know who this is? I'm afraid most of my audience will have no idea, although there are some hints in the photo, which I found on a website dedicated to remembering him. This is the man most of us recognize only in orange coveralls, kneeling next to his murderer. That is the image we have seen and still see every time the news covers the horrors of ISIL. I wish that would stop. I wish we'd remember photos of the real Jim.

James Foley was a remarkable journalist and brave human being. Most of his work was behind the camera, so he wasn't very much in the picture. He deserves better than for all of us to remember him only the way he looked in his final moments, after being broken and dehumanized. He was a man who cared about the stories he told and the people he met. People in war zones and terror-struck times of their lives. He died because he had the courage to go where most of us would rather watch from far off (at a distance of preferably about half a globe!).

Source: http://freejamesfoley.org/

Saving face

One morning many years ago I woke up with a rash across part of my face. Apparently some allergic reaction had caused my skin to break out in swollen, itchy, redness. I felt physically ill from itchiness, but also frightened to see my own face not looking as it was supposed to. Some antihistamines later I recovered and everything went back to normal.

I am among the fortunate on this earth, who suffer such trivial worries. Imagine waking up one morning to find your face…gone..?! Academy award winning documentary film ‘Saving face’ features women who have suffered the loss of their face, because some hateful person threw acid on them.

In Pakistan every year over a hundred women suffer acid violence. It may be done by a man who is angry because the woman of his choice refuses his marriage proposal, or a man who is angry with his own wife, or even by her mother-in-law. The reason for her punishment often comes down to the mistake she made when she wasn’t born as a boy (or maybe when she didn’t give birth to a boy).

Plastic surgeon Dr. Mohammad Jawad tries to give these women their smiles back. “In a way I’m saving my own face,” he says, “it’s a very shameful thing as a society to be living with acid attacks & not be doing anything about it.”

‘Saving face’ is a horrible film, but it is also a marvelous film with heroic stories. It shows women who are willing to face their fears and fight for justice. Women who have found a way to recover their beauty, despite having been robbed of their own face. It shows what deep hate can do, but it also features hope in a very big way.

I don’t know if I could smile if I were in Zakia’s shoes. Yet she smiles again and has hope for tomorrow. Her suffering is beyond anything I could imagine, and so is her courage.

what Alzheimer's teaches us

It has been said that Alzheimer's disease is an illness that makes people lose their dignity. The more I encounter people who suffer from different forms of dementia, the more I wonder... Can dementia make a man lose his dignity? Does aging affect human dignity? Or is it really up to us?

No matter what happens to you, there are always choices. Choices in the way we face difficulty and choices in the ways we help carry each other. Is it alright not to be strong? Is it alright not to know what tomorrow brings? Will we dare to be taken care of? Are we willing to stand with the ones we love, even when they need special attention?

If you're willing to see it, Alzheimer's can teach you the beauty of living in the moment. Creating the right, peaceful atmosphere between us and living for this moment's laughter or tear.
This is not popular in the culture I live in. This is different for us, even weird. To live in the moment, not speedy and busy, planning what's next. To let go, instead of independently standing strong, with everything under control at all times.

Without a doubt, Alzheimer's is a horrible disease and no one welcomes such a diagnosis. Health and illness are important factors in how we feel about ourselves. Still, I tend to think human dignity is not so much in ourselves. It is what we give to each other.

Rape - Weapon of War

Robin Hammond has done a lot of photographic work in the battle for human rights around the world. I found one of his photos in the photography magazine FOCUS. I just watched a discussion on euthanasia on Dutch television and then I opened FOCUS and stared in the face of a blind Congolese woman.
It made me think we don't have enough problems in the West that we have time to discuss whether and when human beings should have the right to end their lives in a "dignified" way. Of course euthanasia is a very complex topic and I have no idea of the suffering of some of the people who would consider it. But seeing that photo right after the discussion, confronted me with such a contrast in issues around the world. The 22-year-old Congolese girl called Basemae Maombi, wasn't born blind. She was robbed of her eyes because she recognised one of her rapists and called out his name to make him stop.
Here we are in Europe, discussing how to achieve a dignified death, when there is no chance Basemae Maombi will know dignity in life.

World Food Day

The 16th of October just ended for me, but I would like to make a note that this was World Food Day (WFD or klick here for the Dutch website). The new day, October 17th, is the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty (klick here for a Dutch link). At Taste the Waste you can see the trailer to the documentary on how much food is being wasted, while 1 billion people are still hungry. It is a sickening documentary that almost made me cry. More importantly, it makes me aware that I, you, all of us together, can make a difference and we can start today. If we throw less food away, if we are less picky, people in developing countries may be able to afford to buy food. Doesn't that sound worth looking into?

Herman

Herman died. I miss him. Hadn’t seen him for years and now it won’t happen anymore for the rest of my life. He’d been married nearly 60 years to the same wife. Quite a record in modern times. When I was a little girl he was already old in my eyes, but he was never about to die. I suppose I expected him to always stick around.

He was a man I enjoyed talking to when visiting the church of my childhood. He was a down-to-earth type from the province North-Holland. When he opened his mouth, the sound was in contrast to that of the man next to him. He had lived in the most southern province for many years, where the people are mildly shocked at his kind of no-nonsense attitude. To me it sounded like home, because my family comes from the same region.

I know we’ll meet again and until then he’s even better off than I am. There will always be a special place in my heart for him. His wife is still there and she’s a prayer-warrior. The type of warrior that is threatened to die out with her generation.

I wrote this to honour those who are too easily forgotten, because they’re ministry has been a quiet one for many years.

“Dag, Herman, ik zie uit naar ons weerzien...”

another chapter

The academic year started before I had a chance to return to Belgium. So I jumped back into that as soon as I could, which was three days late. Now I'm doing an internship in the delivery room of a hospital in Sint-Truiden. This is a town with no internet café. In fact, I asked some ladies in the street and they were very excited to hear of such a phenomenon!

It's fine though; I have enough fascilities at the hospital. I get to spend the night there and even my food is provided for. I've assisted three births during the week that I've been here. None of them were assisted solely in Dutch. The languages used were Russian, French, Arabic, English and Chinese. I try to speak a little of everything, which is impossible. Still, I like the variety.

I get to learn much from the midwifes and gynaecologists here. One day I hope to be in the teaching position. For now I'm happy with where I'm at.

To all the students: I wish you a great academic year!
To everybody: May you face every day with optimism, believing that you can achieve anything you truly wish for, as long as God wants it too.

soccer and soap

Sunday evening on my way home with a detour, I met some Brazilians who invited me to watch Brazil-Croatia in the World Cup, the match that was on last night. I ended up going there and taking GJ along and we had the time of our lives. Those Brazilians know how to celebrate soccer! They came with drums and dancing girls dressed in their flag. I’ll support them solely because their fans are that cool! So today we’re going to get ourselves some Brazilian shirts, so that next time we won’t feel like the odd ones out.

We went to my place afterwards and got into a slightly philosophic mood. My housemate had left her soap bubble gear in my room and so GJ was blowing through the plastic circle creating beautiful things and being captivated.

As we watched the soap bubbles he started pointing out how perfect they are: Perfectly round, because they take up the most convenient shape (ever seen a soap bubble turn out triangular or star-shaped?), thin and fragile, but floating, because they are that light.

We watched two of them interfere with each other and bounce off harmoniously, without breaking. “People should be like soap bubbles,” GJ concluded. “When they meet they don’t need to hurt each other.”

I reckon you could build sermons on this. Does anyone here want to have a go? I'm still thinking about the way they reflect the light that shines on them.

For further study on the phenomena of soap bubbles, I would direct you to the website “Floating Soap Bubbles”.

Moishe, Mouskovitz and heaven

Well, I wasn’t sure what to call him...I thought either one of those names would do. Turns out I can use both, since there’s been two of them instead of one. Perhaps this was an effort to “name my fear”. It’s bad. I think MK’s should be relatively fearless when it comes to little critters, but I am much afraid of mice. Quite terrified even.

I tell you this so that you take it seriously and don’t ever tease me about it, because if you do my faith in humanity will be severely damaged. Forgiveness yes, but my forgiveness as a person only reaches to a certain extend and I think putting a mouse near me is really crossing the boundary there.

Some guys have been very good to me by making it their expedition to catch Moishe and Mouskovitz. They’re gone now…heaven…I’m sure my friends are also grateful, because I haven’t talked about much else recently. (c;

Anyway, I’ve been making a fool of myself in a number of ways lately. Wolter mentioned the “hitchhike to heaven”. I went with a guy called Job to ask people at the train station whether they could show us the way. This led to some interesting conversations. One man even thought he didn’t need heaven because in his life-time scientists are bound to invent something to stop the ageing process and allow us to live forever!

It’s cool to go out and talk to people randomly about what they believe. It’s amazing how they take time to think about something that really isn’t very much on their minds (or maybe it is somehow, but it doesn’t show). Although I do find it frustrating that heaven isn’t real for them as it is for me. It helps to know where you’re going, if you want to get there.

Check out www.Breeze.be/hemel
(in Dutch)