It's been a few weeks since my last post. I have been busy, indulging myself in cultural nights out, meeting friends and family all over the place. But I also have been quite tired. Although I like to pretend I can manage a few nights with less than 7 hours of sleep, if I do so, I feel too exhausted after work to do anything active in the evening. So it's a good thing I haven't been writing, because I did not have the energy to give you my thoughts. For me to feel well, I need sleep. Although I'm well aware that my mental well-being is beyond salvation, letting things rest, giving myself time to look around and soak up the colours of life does bring me a good deal along the road towards feeling more energetic.
It's a pretty basic principle of life, in fact: you cannot give, or treat other people well, for that matter, if you don't give yourself a moment off, or a treat you would usually forsake, when you could use a little dose of happy feelings. Of course I am not the first one to come up with this attitude, but it never hurts spreading the word.
Now then, two weeks ago, I was walking down the Antwerp Central train station, plenty of positive energy inside of me, to catch a train to the Netherlands for a job interview. As the escalator goes down, I get surpassed by someone who I think was in a rush to catch the train. Instead, he stops abruptly a few steps below me and starts talking to me in English. He had noticed that my coat had a label that said 'Quechua' - "that's a French brand, do you speak French?". He himself did, as he was from Burkina Faso. "No kidding, wait a sec, Ouagadougou is your capital, right?", I said, still convinced this was just a warm hearted fella sharing some positive energy in a morning chat with a random stranger. (happy face)
Not so. By the time we had reached the platform, it turned out he had missed his flight to Brussels ("look, the Schengen visa in my passport says I should have gotten here 10 days (!) ago") and so he had missed the people from Amsterdam who had invited him to come over in the first place and who were supposed to have picked him up at the airport. He had tried going to some immigration offices to seek help, but no one could offer him any, as he was here on a legitimate - albeit moneyless - basis. If I could spare him a ticket to Amsterdam, he asked. I kindly declined, pointing out I was unemployed. Instead, I gave him the address of the Amnesty International office, which wasn't too far off, as I honestly had no clue who could help him. "And a dime to eat? I haven't eaten since yesterday…" (sad face)
an angry Mongol warrior slitting my niece's throat for a nickel
I never really know well what to do in such situations. I want my job to be helping people by giving them a voice or the means to improve their lives. But does that mean I have to give something to everybody who comes asking for it in my face? For now, I ease my conscience with the fact that I don't earn any money, which makes it more difficult for me to give a financial contribution. Unfortunately people here don't have the creativity that I witnessed in Latin America and Asia to make money - be it selling biscuits or sweets on street corners or entertaining people waiting at a crossroad while dressed as Charlie Chaplin - there's a myriad of ways to have people give you money! As for when I eventually will make money, I still haven't figured out what I'll do, but I'll have to make a choice somehow. With hindsight, I guess I should have bought the guy his train ticket (although his was a murky story), if hadn't had to catch my train. Because, let's be honest - there is no inherent virtue in money. Its natural state is to flow, so let it flow to those in more need of it!
