Kamiel, Griet, Remi and Niko in 2007

What kept us busy in 2007?

-After living for nearly three years next to a tennis court, I finally wrung myself into one of these little skirts, borrowed a racket and started hitting, or at least, trying to. I think it’s a very deceiving sport – it looks so easy but is so damn hard, and the court would be better if they cut it in half. I keep begging my coach to have mercy with a sixty year old mother of twelve kids – for that is how I feel after ten minutes on the field. Of course, no mercy has ever come my way. He then just laughs and orders me to run another three times around the court, just like that.

- I consider the above as a good character training for me – even though one could wonder if there is still any point to that at my advanced age. It reminds me of when I was a kid learning to play the violin (during some ten of the longest years of my life). It is a lot of suffering with little result, only that somehow it feels good to have done it.

- Especially because afterwards I feel like I deserve a huuuge treat, like a few bars of chocolate to get back some strength, a bag of nuts for the good oils, and of course, for good measure some cakes here and there. Result is a seriously expanded waistline and numerous questions asking if i am expecting triplets...

-Another thing that kept us busy was our new flat in Belgium - after fourteen years of living out of a suitcase, we now have all our things together in one place. (Question: if one could live happily without all ones things, is there really a need to get them back? Well, let's say it is a nice luxury.)

-As for the kids : Niko, five, turned out to be the best student of her class whereas Remi, three, has apparently won the prize for being the laziest one around. But with a sharp little tongue - only yesterday she greeted me with ‘hello, you big-nosed lady!’ Such observation powers - what could i do but congratulate the little pumpkin?!

-As for work, Kamiel is still doing logistics for the blue helmets, visiting their camps to have a look at their tents, toilets, air conditioners, while being offered lunch and diners with their Bangladeshi or Pakistani camp officials.

Meanwhile I am still in charge of programs at the radio, a job that I like a lot even though I got a complaint from a local staff for being 'rude' - this certainly must be the fact that I dare tell him to come to work and not to disappear at any moment, as some of them like to do.

-As for the future, we might be here for a while still, it all depends on what else comes up, I would not say no to a peacekeeping mission in, let's say Sri Lanka or Myanmar... But in the meantime life's OK here.

-At least, for us. But not for everyone else. All around you can see how poverty creates situations of too much unnecessary suffering. Take the case of the girl named Panda, whom I told about a while ago. In brief, it’s my nanny Marie’s daughter, Naomi, who at 14 got a baby daughter (‘panda’) while staying at her great-auntie (some three hours away). The baby is seven months old and now the evil auntie who keeps her as a slave in her attieke-factory, wants her to leave her baby behind and go to the market all day to sell the attieke because that brings in more money. Naomi refuses to leave her baby crawling around without anybody looking after it – the least the evil aunt could do was get another young girl (often barely seven years old) to look after the baby, as you’ll often see. But no. So Naomi refuses. The aunt takes this disobedience very badly and the beatings have intensified. The problem is that even though Kamiel passes there on his way from Bouake to Abidjan and could just stop and pick Naomi and the baby up and drive them home to Abidjan, well, somehow it is impossible. Because according to Marie’s customs, Naomi is now in the hands of the aunt, who’s the oldest person in the family and has therefore absolute right over her. Marie herself has no say over it and cannot herself (or via us) get her daughter back. The only answer is for Naomi to run away by herself. But how, without money and without a passport, will she be able to get through all the roadblocks and its greedy uniformed police? She’d have to pay them, one way or another. You don’t want to know how. Luckily we have found a way to get money to a friendly neighbor who lives in the family court and has seen what’s happening. The plan is that she’ll try to get her hands on Naomi’s passport and help her escape with her baby. Insyallah.

-So while I hope that 2008 will be a good year for Naomi, I also hope it will be good for my eldest sister who just ran off with an austrian after nearly two dozen unhappy years with her belgian 'fiancé' who never felt ready to marry her... Of course now that she's fallen head over heals for this other man, and gave up her job and house to move to Austria, the 'fiancé' desperately wants to marry her... Too late! I hope it works out in Austria, not at least because it will make for some good skiing holidays!!