Mixed feelings… I’ve heard that
sentence a lot of times the past weeks. I have avoid pronouncing it too much
myself as for me this new step, maybe the biggest I made and probably ever will
make is not assembled by mixed feelings but rather based on a deep conviction,
something I had to do, now while I still have the energy. It has not so much to
do with the past but more with the future, my own and also an outstretched hand
towards a country that I started to love some years ago and to which I would
like to make a small contribution in its development process.
Long months, even years, of
reflection preceded the decision to engage myself in a process whereof I cannot
predict the end result. The most important is to believe in it and at least
have the feeling that others are as convinced as yourself. Now I’m in a faze
where some are even more believing in it than myself but I guess that doubting is
normal while you are wiping out of your mind and your walls the remainings of
thirteen exciting years in an international environment surrounded by the most
fantastic friends who kept me young and active and with the unconditional support
of those who are still there since, what you can describe as, an eternity, at
least at my age.
I have seen hundreds of “close to
my hearts” leaving in all those years and now I’m going also… to a place that
became more and more a second home those last years and now will be upgraded to
the most important place of the world.
I have those mixed feelings (ha, I
have said it!) about the Netherlands, where I was living for the last twenty
years, mostly surrounded by non-Dutch; the count of my fingers is largely
enough to designate the number of Dutch friends I have, but the best is the attitude
of the Netherlands towards my new country, Rwanda. The recent statements by the
outgoing Dutch ambassador to Rwanda about the self determination of the Rwandan
people in the choice of their president, e.g. the third term of the actual
president, has reconciled me a bit with the Netherlands from which I alienated since
a certain number of years.
I suppose I will have to stand a
lot on the barricade the next couple of years to defend the right of Rwandans to
make their own choices; I will continue to do so with gusto as in the past, as
I believe this is the only right concept of autonomic democracy.
For those who want to know what I’m
going to do there in the smallest but incredibly vivid country in the heart of
Africa you can read the two documents under the heading THE MISSION – THE CHALLENGE.
For now I will continue packing
my goods but also wrapping my memories, carefully, as they are the most
valuable and at the same time the most fragile; those you can’t afford to
forget or to lose on a new journey.
The ‘final’ countdown? Not yet,
but countdown it is, with a bit of mixed feelings, I confess!
Yours,
Delft 23-08-2015.
