‘How can you do this? How can you live in this way?’ These were the two questions that my old friend P. asked me one evening of twelve years ago. They resonate in my memory. they have been with me all these years and have accompanied me in various countries and travels patiently waiting for a reply. Not sure I have one, though. There is a price to be paid in every choice. The famous […]
Ho provato un nuovo modo di correre alla sera. Scarpe da jogging, pantaloncini, maglietta, iPod e i podcast di Travaglio. Corro qui a Dumaguete su una pista attorno ad un campo di calcio e quindi dopo qualche giro mi perdo nelle parole che ascolto nelle cuffiette. Ieri ‘e stata la volta del podcast sulla protezione civile e gli interventi (o mancati interventi) in Abruzzo per il terremoto. La prefettura che si svuota alle 23:30 alla […]
The global financial crisis seem to have had a lower impact in South Asia or South East Asia where countries were growing. The Philippines have not been immune from the recession in two ways: reduced economic expansion and incomes for people at home and reduced remittances from overseas where the many Filipinos work and had their jobs threatened by the crisis. One example is of Filipinos who work in the Middle East employed as home […]
There was a man in his early forties who liked to run . Running was very important for him and he loved it. He often joked with his friends that if one day he would not be able to run anymore he would then probably die. He used to run alone. Partly because he travelled a lot of for work , partly because he had just relocated in a new country and did make the […]
‘I want my arrival to be a celebration of the past 25 years not, as someone asked recently, “will it give you closure”? What? Closure? That infers I somehow regret or lament the past 25 years. Absolutely not. Were it not for the accident, I would not have met Elaine, had Timothy or had such a wonderful life so, closure? No. Celebration? Yes. And any tears will be tears of joy not tears of regret or sadness. Life […]
My name is Abioseh. I was born in Gboko, Nigeria, in 2001. My father was a pastor in a local church. My mother was working in a laundry shop part time as she had also to take care of me and my four brothers and sisters. If I look back at my childhood I remember that we lived always in the same house next to the church where my father worked. My memories are mainly […]
It is dark outside the windows of the yellow cab from Ninoy Aquino airport to the Makati district in Manila. I usually have to stay one night here before catching the flight to Dumaguete early in the morning. This time I did not find a room in the hotel where I usually to stay. So I browsed the web to look for a different one and found this London Inn. The traffic is not too […]
Bip. Bip Bip. The automatic door of the train starts to close. In my mind still the last words I told her: ‘I am a crazy man’. She had looked at me and with a slight smile and had replied: ‘Could be worse’. Now the door is closed and whatever I want to reply will stay this side of the glass window. I look at her. Our daughter is holding her hand and looking at […]
‘We are both so old’, I think looking at our hands. The thin skin that wraps the bones as a glove. The wrinkles on our fingers. The blue veins. Yet the same feeling of holding her hands as long ago. We are sitting on this small beach made by millions of tiny corals pieces. Sitting at the edge of the water, sipping beer from two bottles. Soft waves reaching the shore in the quiet night. […]