Before it's too late - last years' balance

It's already the forth of January, and I haven't gotten around to draw a line under 2008. Actually, I think I am mentally still in 2008. At least when it comes to writing the date. Not that I am required to do that a lot these days, without work, but from time to time I have to do it. For instance when I finally got my new ATM card on the 2nd of January. Guess, four times I had to put down date and signature in order to get this little piece of plastic handed out. Each time I wrote 2008, followed by a signature that could be from a three year old kid. God. My first resolution should be to get over both, the old date and scrawly signature. The second resolution should probably be to avoid any contact between the holy piece of plastic and the magnet strip in my bag.

Fortunately, 2008 was more than a date and a horrible signature (and two screwed ATM cards). I would say at least 50% of total hours of 2008 have been devoted to work. At least it seems so when looking back. Even after having laid down my role as coordinator in Afghanistan, my thoughts still circle in the lines of proposal writing, monitoring, reporting, capacity building of my national colleagues, strangely behaving donors, and most of all, problem solving. Seems that in Afghanistan, you solve one problem only by creating ten new ones. That's the deal I got used to over the last year. One step forward, two steps back. But once you get used to it, it's great, because at the end of the day there is always a step forward as well.

Despite the constant forward-backward, I really enjoyed my work in Afghanistan, and with it my life in Afghanistan. Isn't it funny? In a country as traditional and conservative as Afghanistan, a country that according to many hasn't changed it's social set up for centuries, I never had the feeling that time would stand still. Rather, I felt like a hamster in one of these wheels, that keep turning and turning and turning, that turn faster the faster the hamster attempts to run. Only mid August, time seemed to stand still, for few hours. Or rather, I tried to keep it firm, in order to gain time to memorize each second of the day, each sight, each word. Since I am not a genious, I didn't succeed to memorize the air, the smells, the light that filled that day. But I pretty much remember many of the words and pictures. In my collections of thoughts and images, they are in the top shelf, clearer than anything else I remember of 2008.

But 2008 wasn't just tragedy. More than anything else it was great people, whom I had a chance to meet. Some of them are still in Afghanistan, others have already moved on to new places, few have moved home. All I miss a lot, some terribly. But there is something inside me that tells me that I will meet those who matter the most again. I am already curious to find out who they will be. Don't know if you share this believe, but personally I think that it is often only much later in life that you realize who of the people whom you crossed ways with really mattered. Sometimes it's the ones that you hardly noticed, who only scratched your path for a second, that suddenly matter again. It's this special incertainty that makes life so interesting, isn't it?

And then there is bump. A friend of mine keeps on calling this little thing "bump", and so I got used to call it that way, too. It's five months old by now, tiny but active. Sometimes I wonder whether it is the kung fu genes or some external capoiera influence that makes it dance. It's a funny feeling, incredibly beautiful. The bump already has plenty of self declared aunties and uncles all over the world, so at least I don't have to worry about its cosmopolitan upbringing. It also has a great dad, even though I think that he's sometimes too adventerous. And it has gotten to know somebody else when it was still tiny. And it has travelled half way accross the globe and climbed many mountains. Really, if prenatal talent boosting works, than this kid will be be gifted with quite an interesting mix of talents and interests :)

To come to a conclusion, 2008 was a year of great intensity, some "belly landings" (literally, but also in a translated meaning) amazing people, hilarious moments, sadness, lots of love, and towards the end, incredible changes in my hormones :)