Blog Posts

A dear friend

9/9/2014

I am scrolling through my Skype chats
and stumble upon the next conversation
of 10 months ago:

Me: How is life in Holland? I heard you had a storm last week! It is my first Christmas party of Couperus Circle in 9 years I cannot attend. Makes me feel sad ;(
My friend: Don’t be sad!! You are in the real Eden!!
I'm going to do my shopping for tomorrow
Me: A beautiful view or precious moment is not half the fun when you don't have a friend to share with
My friend: Now I try to call you
[11/12/2013 15:26:00] *** Call from C, duration 1:47:28. ***

In Holland it was 3 hours earlier, still lunch time. My friend needed to go shopping for the ingredients of her dish for the Christmas lunch at Couperus Circle, our POWERtallk club in The Hague. She also had to prepare dinner for her family, but postponed everything for a friendly chat of almost 2 hours.

I am grateful for the friends who sometimes literally, talked me through the difficult times this past year. Your calls, visits and generous welcome when coming home to Europe, feel like a warm blanket around me. You charged my batteries and helped me up when I was low.
I am blessed with friends for whom it is true that
“No distance of place or lapse of time can lessen the friendship
of those who are thoroughly persuaded of each other's worth”
(quote by Robert Southy)

0 Comments

L'enfer c'est les autres

9/5/2014

0 Comments

"Hell is other people"
An often miss-understood quote by Sartre.
It is our own approach towards the “other(s)” that is creating hell for us.
I have learned this past year that for me it is quite the opposite.

I am reading a book about happiness which contains the findings of a 100 professors all over the world who are studying happiness, its correlation and possible causation with wealth, health, biochemical processes, friendship, culture, education and so on.

My favourite chapter is written by Christopher Peterson, founder of the positive psychology, who only needs 2 words to describe what makes us happy: other people. We need others to share happiness and in sharing we find happiness. He believes that the love and care that parents, family, friends and teachers are giving you, are equally if not more important to the talents you were born with.
If you agree with this theory, then also be aware that you are an “other” to the others, let them be important in your life and give them the time and attention to count in yours.

I think that other people give me two things in life which I need to be the best person I can possibly be: passion and compassion. For me it is definitely true: Happiness is the others.

0 Comments

Silver sparkles

8/18/2014

0 Comments

It is with a big smile that I close the last empty suitcase. Not only because after a few hours home, everything is back in place and I even managed to get some order in my wardrobe. The happy feeling is caused by the silver sparkles in my suitcase, spread by the token of my friends’ 25th wedding anniversary.

Yesterday I arrived home after 6 weeks in Europe. My batteries are re-charged by the love and friendship of family and friends. They are the silver sparkles in my mind, which make me smile while doing my daily chores. I want to thank everyone for the marvelous holiday, the magnificent parties, the wonderful “sleep-over’s”, the superb meals (lunch, dinner and breakfast!), the beautiful heart-warming conversations. At the same time I apologize for the family and friends whom I couldn't see. Time passed by so quickly!

I have made many plans and am starting this second year on Reunion Island with a lot of energy and enthusiasm. Without my husband, I would never have gone out of my comfort zone, but I am grateful for the adventure and experience of our journey. I am confident that I can be happy ten thousand kilometers from home, with silver sparkles to lift my spirit!

0 Comments

Passion and compassion

7/6/2014

0 Comments

Today our national football team is going home, beaten by Argentina in the quarter finals. Proud but also disappointed, they had come so far… Most important they made the Belgians proud.

On an ordinary day the country is divided by politics, religion, ethnics, culture and language, but in sports we are united and the players of our national football team reflect very well the diversity of the citizens.

Music, art, (international) education also unify. They create an opportunity to share a common goal.

The past, our history brought us where we are in time and space, but more important is what we can share in the present as well as which dreams and goals we have for the future.

We can only achieve great things in life with passion and compassion.

So I am grateful for this overseas experience. In many ways the people of Reunion Island are an example of living together in peace and harmony, accepting, appreciating and celebrating the diversity of its people.

I am not sure what their recipe is, maybe their bond with nature? Maybe because a few generations back they all stranded here, starting a new life far from home?

0 Comments

Making mosaic

6/28/2014

1 Comment

A year ago I landed for the first time on Reunion Island. A three days scouting visit. I can still feel the mixture of excitement and disbelieve. Two out of the four nights I slept on a plane and all the new impressions passed my mind in a distance, a movie in which I was not yet playing a role.

Today I sit on the terrace of our house in the mountains and am looking back at an eventful year.
Happy that gratitude took the overtone. Last summer the song “Wake me up when this is all over”, was in the hit parade for months and that sentence kept wandering through my mind.

I strongly believe that things happen for a reason, even if at the time we don’t see or understand, later on we can make sense out of it. But falling into pieces is frightening, what do you want to do if you can start new? Your first reflex is to fix the old image, it takes time and courage to look at all the pieces and find a new purpose for them. When everything falls into place, we find the energy for a new beginning, we are in peace with ourselves and our new life.

It is a bit like breaking tiles to make a mosaic. It takes imagination, creativity, craftsmanship and lots of patience to get all the different colours and shapes into your design.
After twelve months of puzzling my mosaic is ready!

1 Comment

State of Mind

6/22/2014

0 Comments

I admire the expatriates who seem to be able to live out of their suitcase. They arrive in their new home, unpack the tennis racket or the golf sticks and are off to the nearest club. They become a member of the international community and network in the circle of their fellow countrymen. Piece of cake!

In reality I am sure it takes more than that. Every (international) move requires preparation, flexibility and creativity. And if all of this fails to solve the problem, a good portion of humour!

I remember when we moved to Bucharest, we were living in an area where a lot of construction was going on. This resulted in frequent power-cuts. No electricity meant no light, no water which came from a well, no heating, no internet,….
We got used to it and had always a couple of buckets of water ready, the laundry was done in the evening after working hours, and in winter we had a gas stove in case of low gas pressure.

A lot of our electrical supplies had a build-in clock. These were not connected to a central clock and were starting at 00:00 after each power-cut. It still makes me smile when thinking of my eldest son who answered my question “what time is it?” with “one hour and forty seven minutes since the last power-cut”. It is this state of mind which prevents you from getting mad or crazy.

0 Comments

In control

6/6/2014

1 Comment

My family and friends know that I am a bit of a control freak. I am most happy when I have the structure and routine of my days in my head. Once having the feeling that I have control over my life, I would even call myself a flexible person.
The last couple of weeks I've reached that level of feeling good in my new home. When driving around it is as if I see my environment for the first time. Beautiful landscapes, the lagoon, the green mountains with the whimsical shapes. In the beginning I was so concentrated on the road, trying to find my way without guiding system ( it doesn't exist in the cars on Reunion Island), driving uphill praying that the engine would not stop, to notice any of the tropical scenery.

Yesterday I overcame the last obstacle on my way to feel independent and drove to the mountain village nearby via the steep road. By coincidence, I was driving behind a car of a driving school and thought “if a student has to drive here, I can do it too”.

I must admit that I wasn't expecting to go through the same roller-coaster as 13 years ago when moving abroad for the first time. I thought it would be easier if I approached it as a well deserved sabbatical, but I guess you can never reach a level of an accomplished expatriate. There is always a transition time, and you are entitled to all the ups and downs it takes to make it your home.

1 Comment

Blend in

5/28/2014

0 Comments

This little fellow knows how to do it: blend in.

People always try to find a balance between blending in and standing out in the community. As an expatriate it is a given that you will be different to the people in your new home. To build a network you are going to look for relationships with people with whom you have “things” in common. This can be an interest, a hobby, culture or religion.

Two hundred and fifty years ago Reunion Island was inhabited. Since then people from all corners of the world have stranded here and started a new life. The community is a melting pot of east and west, Africa, Asia and Europe, Catholic, Muslim and Hindu. Today more than eight hundred thousand Réunionese people are living peacefully together. You would almost say that because of the diversity, nobody stands out.

Before I moved to Reunion Island, I followed a summer course French at the Centre for Modern Languages in Louvain. As an introductory game, we all had to decide on one word which would enable our fellow classmates to remember our name and background. I drew a Chameleon.

All I wanted was to blend in and build a network. My major roadblock was the French language and it happens to me regularly that people ask where I come from. Luckily it is based on honest curiosity, and Réunionese’s are in general interested in meeting new people. They all have a different background and family history. They know that what is important is that you share the present and build the future together…

0 Comments

Sunset on La Montagne

5/21/2014

2 Comments

When I arrived on Reunion Island end of August last year, it was not the climate, not the heat, not the vegetation nor the infrastructure that gave me a hard time. It was the sunset.

This picture was taken yesterday at a quarter to six, when I came out of the supermarket. It is a spectacular view from La Montagne, only a 10 minutes’ drive away from my house. By the time I got home, the sunset was over and in the few minutes it took me to put the groceries in the kitchen, it was pitch dark. It is as if they switch of the light. No light pollution in this part of the Indian Ocean.

When I was a child, my mother used to take me on her lap to watch the sunset together. These were precious moments sitting in the dusk, watching the light disappear out of the day. I felt secure in my mother’s arms, and the shadows of the trees, houses and cars in the neighbourhood were less frightening.

The short days on La Montagne feel even shorter compared to the long summer days we are used to in Belgium. And the super short sunsets don’t make it any easier. I have shifted my days to an early start, enabling me to make the most out of the sun hours. But I only feel at ease and peace with my environment since I watched the sunset from our terrace, waited till it was pitch dark. I felt the trees, bushes and our garden furniture more than I could see them, I shared this moment with the birds, frogs and lizards who found a shelter for the night.

Dusk is short here, but very intimate.

2 Comments

Overcome a fear every day...

5/16/2014

0 Comments

I am not very fond of spiders, mice and all kind of creepy creatures such as lizards and frogs. Inevitable animals when living on a tropical island.
Until today I mainly treated my fear with "forget everything and run".

A friend of mine once told me that smaller animals usually don't attack the big ones (=humans). Since then I try not to jump anymore on the nearest chair and call for help or wait till the creature disappears.

Today however, I tried the second option "face everything and rise".
I was in the swimming pole with my nine year old neighbor boy, when I saw a frog frantically trying to get out of the swimming pole. We were practicing breast stroke and I managed to take a deep breath and say to D: "Look at the frog, how perfect are his legs moving". I am not sure if he was at ease with the frog at arm length, but neither did he volunteer to help the little one out of the pool.
There was no other option for me than to help "Kermit". I put my hand gently under his tiny body and lifted him out of the water. His light weight and the fact that he absolutely didn't move gave me a thrill. I never thought I could be touched by a frog. After a few moments of immobility I have put him down in the grass besides the pool. Grateful for the experience and proud of myself. Today I overcame a fear!

0 Comments

<<Previous

Forward>>

A dear friend

L'enfer c'est les autres

Silver sparkles

Passion and compassion

Making mosaic

State of Mind

In control

Blend in

Sunset on La Montagne

Overcome a fear every day...

Author

Categories